This past week Congressmen Gerry Connolly and Jim Moran, long time representatives of Northern Virginia, proposed a plan to extend the Orange Line to Centreville and the Blue Line (or possibly the Yellow Line) to Woodbridge. The study that they have requested $20 million for would look at the feasibility of the plan.
Well Virginia, let’s save $20 million, an amount which could otherwise go towards increasing bus transit in Northern Virginia by 15%. I’m going to cut to the chase, this is probably the worst concept for limited transit funding I have ever heard. It is completely devoid of any logic or studied thought, and instead is a pure political play for Connolly who knows he can use traffic as a tool to extend his hold on Prince William constituents.
Traffic from Prince William county and for residents along the I-66 corridor is terrible, as can be seen by the census traffic map released this week, but this plan throws money inefficiently at the problem. First this project would be a non-starter. To extend any rail line would first require an upgrade at the Potomac to create a new tunnel crossing, a project which would likely garner only partial funding assistance from any other jurisdiction considering this is a Virginia proposed extension. The cost of a tunnel would range between $2 and 3 billion depending on where it is located.
By comparison, the cost of this tunnel would be about the same cost as the entire Silver Line Phase 1.
Then you can start talking about extending the Orange and Blue Line. Based on the most recent cost models for per mile cost, something that would not be substantially different given the alignment of I-66 or I-95, we are looking at approximately $150 million per mile and $400 million per station. In fact the cost will like be more per station because unlike the Silver Line these new stations will need to find public funding for the expensive parking garages necessary, without which the ridership in these low density routes would be zero.
Let’s assume that the parking garages find some magic funding source from non-public funds. For the Blue Line to be extended to Woodbridge would cost $1.5 billion for the 10 mile distance, and $1.2 billion for the likely 3 stations; Fort Belvoir, Lorton, and Woodbridge. While inclusion of Fort Belvoir could garner some federal funds, without meeting the ridership standards for Federal funds, this plan could at best hope for a TIFIA Loan.
Why won’t ridership standards be likely? Terrible land use practices. There is no way to put these stations in a location where people can access them with their car along this corridor. Therefore the majority of users will be driving and parking, and therefore the number of riders will be limited by the number of parking spaces provided.
What about commutes to Fort Belvoir? There are about 10,000 civilian and DoD employees at Fort Belvoir. If you are an employee at Fort Belvoir there is no time incentive for you to take rail from, for instance, Springfield proper to the base. You have a reverse commute on I-95 which provides you a shorter door to door time. Therefore, the only time savings to Fort Belvoir would be those coming from, Woodbridge and Lorton. See the problem? Those two stations will have at approximately 10,000 parking spaces only, and even if they have more spaces (at a great cost) there wouldn’t be the large demand on usership to Fort Belvoir which would justify Federal funds.
Ultimately, this plan, for the blue line alone would cost about $4.2 billion (assuming half of the cost of the tunnel split with the orange line concept) and would serve at best 15,000 residents… likely far less.
There is a huge amount of investment already going into I-95 HOT Lanes in order to address needs along this corridor. Here is the problem with the Connolly-Moran proposal, it isn’t using all of the assets at hand. The new HOT lanes will create the opportunity for transit separated lanes for buses, just as is being done on I-495. If only $200 million dollars, 4.8% of the congressmen’s rail cost, went towards creating the final miles of BRT lanes ($20 million per mile of new BRT lanes) on the Fairfax County Parkway and Franconia-Springfield Highway, users would provided with the exact same time saving and transit access.
Beyond the investment in BRT, one (if they had any genuinely smart ideas) could instead invest money in the rail system that already exists between Woodbridge and Springfield. VRE already runs this path, and the only negative people seem to have with the system is that they wish it ran a more robust schedule. An annual investment of $5 million into this VRE corridor would provide an additional 4 hours of consistent workday routing. Oh and by the way, this new rail line will also have operational cost which would likely exceed by far the subsidy noted above for VRE.
The same conditions apply to the Orange Line. While Centreville and Fair Oaks don’t have VRE access, they share in the poor land use conditions which would limit ridership to the number of parking spaces provided. This corridor would also be far more costly to build upon given the lack of right of way in Centreville and Fair Oaks, but let’s assume the same conditions will apply. 10 miles would cost $1.5 billion, two stations would cost $800 million, and the tunnel split would be $1.5 billion for a total cost of $3.8 billion to serve approximately 10,000 riders.
I-66 could create a separated HOV-3 lane (out of the space currently provided for HOV 2 vehicles) that could provide access for BRT. In order for BRT to work the HOV-3 lanes will need flyover ramps, in order to avoid mixing into standard lanes on exits. The cost of these flyovers would be approximately $100 million per ramp. There are 6 ramp locations, that don’t already have this separated HOV ramp, between Centreville and I-495. To provide this extremely ambitious BRT system, which would be one of the largest in the US, would cost $600 million. That is 16% of the cost of the rail expansion. Even if two new BRT hub park and rides were added (in Centreville and Fair Oaks) at $25,000 per parking space and 10,000 total spaces the cost would only increase to $850 million, 22% of the Orange Line rail extension.
That cost savings will allow for more spending on the bus systems, to create more robust hours of operation. The same time savings could be achieved, and the flexibility to expand the system would remain in Northern Virginia’s hands, instead of WMATA.
The problem, with the entire concept is that there are limited funds for transit. Expansion systems, while beloved by constituents who want rail to their backyards, are terribly underused due to the limitations on land use. If the station is not within a quarter mile of the riders house, they will most likely drive and park. Bus access to these stations is limited to between two or three miles of the station before it contradicts the time savings of driving into work. In other words if it takes more than 15 minutes to take the bus to the station, then the commuter might as well drive.
The reason why the Silver Line was a better system is because it has very little to do with neighborhood access. Yes this connects Herndon and South Reston to metro, but more importantly it ties together Dulles, Reston, and Tysons (where 200,000 jobs and growing reside) to the overall transit network. That is why the Silver Line will not be limited to the number of spaces at the parking garages, because there will be just as many reverse direction employees (as can be seen by the congestion East Bound on I-66 in the afternoons). These reverse commuters will see a time savings with rail, and more importantly, most have direct access to rail via bike and pedestrians paths in DC and Arlington.
This isn’t about taking away rail from other parts of Northern Virginia, it is about using our limited funds to properly address the problems. We can solve congestion far greater by using all tools available including BRT and VRE. The truth is, removing vehicles between Vienna and I-495; and Springfield to Alexandria, has the exact same impact to congestion for outer suburb commuters. Cars off the road means the ample highway right of ways become more useable. Improving core connectivity is more effective because the number of parking spaces are not a limitation on total usage in proper land use environments.
The only question that remains, Congressman Connolly and Moran, is where can I pick up this check for 20 million dollars for the above analysis? There are a lot of crosswalks, sidewalks, bike lanes, and signage needed in Fairfax. $20 million would go a long way to address these needs.