I think somebody has you covered on that one . . .
Posted on 03/16/2017 11:07:31 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Every once in a while — and perhaps especially now, if we’re really going to talk about a trillion-dollar infrastructure program — we need to revisit the basics: “This is probably a column-length question, but what are the solutions to traffic congestion in the D.C. region?”
That reasonable question came in during the midst of last Monday’s online discussion about whether traffic conditions would be improved if everyone just went faster. (In fact, we would not all be better off if you’d just go as fast as the driver behind you wants.)
What are we really hoping to achieve when we talk about congestion relief? Based on what travelers have told me over the past decade via letters, emails, blog comments, chat questions and face time, many people define congestion relief as a return to a previous state when their travel times were lower than they are now.
To achieve that, you’re most likely going to have to move or change jobs, so there’s less space between home and work. There’s very little in today’s transportation planning — real or imaginary — suggesting that a decade or two from now the current commute that most people endure will take less time than it does now.
Virginia has the D.C. region’s most aggressive program for infrastructure development. That’s both roads and transit. Yet people working on Virginia projects generally don’t speak about making your commute shorter. They talk about making it less worse than it would have been if their project didn’t get built. They compare their plans with a “no build” scenario, and by comparison, their plans look good because they have smaller areas of red and orange — indicating congestion — than the do-nothing version. But of course, that doesn’t mean the project has solved the congestion problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Face it, we’re screwed.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
If Trump fires all the parasites infesting DC maybe that will help.
Trump is already putting forth one solution, smaller government.
Ah...who cares?
Trump’s budget is going to solve the problem of DC traffic congestion.
Move entire federali departments from DC to other parts of the country
Simple: Restore Constitutional government. Reduce the size, scope, power and cost of government to that which is actually authorized by the Constitution. Most of the bureaucrats, contractors, lobbyists, and other malefactors who infest the Washington DC area will then have to find honest jobs, probably somewhere else.
Perhaps if we didnt let millions of people violate our borders, there would be a few million fewer cars on the road
The Trump budget has a solution-— eliminate entire agencies... hence, no need for the people to LIVE there. Oh, the horror— a realistic real world real estate marketplace, of empty ghettoes just like Detroit. Let the DC bangers take over the burbs...
The solution is easy enough.
First, put more money into roads, which people use, rather than a faulty public transportation system that people don’t use..
Second, actually make a public transportation system that works and takes people where they want to go.
Third, move a third of the federal government out of DC. In the modern internet age, proximity is meaningless. Put the agriculture department in the center of the country where agriculture is. Move organizations to Virginia and Maryland, rather than trying to move their workers into DC and back every day.
Fourth, reduce the number of federal workers. There about the only people commuting into DC every day, normal businesses are smarter than to put their workers in the middle of a city with bad traffic, when they can build facilities outside the beltway.
I think somebody has you covered on that one . . .
Slash the federal bureaucracies and maybe a lot of them will move away!
Yeah, the same way they "save money" or "cut government."
Move the IRS and EPA to Barrow, Alaska.
DC area highways are built as if money is no object, for example the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
I said when Reagan was elected that if he truly cut the size of the federal bureaucracy, housing prices in the DC area would collapse. For all the good Reagan did, that simply didn’t happen.
I’m now hopeful again that DC housing prices will collapse.
People in the DC area do use public transit, to the point that Metro is one of two systems that covers more than 50% of costs through fares (NYC is the other). Unfortunately there are no quick cheap solutions. Just getting Metro on top of it’s maintenance problems is taking over a year and a lot of money, and will not be more than a bandaid unless the management reforms that are being attempted actually work.
To truly reduce congestion in and around DC could only be accomplished by significantly reducing the number of Government workers, both federal and contractor.
Without that the only option is to use the public transportation system more efficiently, which will only nibble around the edges. Building more surface streets runs into two problems, where will the additional street go, and where are the cars going to park once they get downtown. My suggestion for using the public transit system more efficiently includes adding or adjusting bus routes to feed MARC and VRE, along with more of those trains to better serve the outlying communities.
I would also like to see VA 28 punched across the Potomac and linked to the Sam Eig/I-370 as an Interstate highway standard road (three or four lanes in each direction).
Yes there is. Eliminate enough bureaucrats.
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