Route 123 Widening Is A Mistake/Petition For FCBS (Tysons Corner, Vienna: neighborhoods, live)

[saganista]

It seems to me that 267 and 495 are already bypasses for Tysons, and that 66 deliberately departs from the W&OD right-of-way for the sole purpose of avoiding downtown Falls Church.

It seems to me also that people forget that Church Street used to be the main drag in Vienna. The Town Council voted to relocate the downtown center to Maple Avenue which was then widened from an under-used two lanes to a partially divided four lanes, necessitating the removal of ALL of the majestic trees that had given the road its name, along with a couple of dozen 19th century Victorian homes. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It also seems that I can easily drive anywhere I want within the region except when it's rush hour. This indicates to me that the problem is not that we have too few or poorly designed roads, but that too many cars are trying to use those roads all at the same time.

[tysonsengineer]

I am not an obstructionist. I am all for the public good, this is not a not in my backyard kind of thing. When I worked domestically on transportation projects I hated when people didnt see that the public good needed addressing.

My point here is that when you go from a 6 lane road to an 8 lane road there is a big issue that happens. For whatever reason, over the past 70 years of roads empirical evidence shows that 6 to 8 is the point in which pedestrians now find it impossible or unwise sociologically to cross the road. The road becomes a barrier. 6 lanes to 8 lanes also is the point of diminished returns for a road, especially if the road is not a free flow freeway (ie if it has lights adding another lane does even less).

My point here isnt to say lets provide more transportation projects, my point here is lets not just throw a blanket solution to every spot in our state. What works in Richmond or for I-95 doesnt necessarily work for the heart of a future urban tysons.

When you also look at previous projects (i have pictures and examples on the website) you see that provision of these forms of roads cuts the urban centers in 2, makes developers look elsewhere to invest money in new developments, and overall begins the process of slumming. Currently there are 15 projects around the country (Milwaukee, Syracuse, DC is considering the SESW freeway, etc) that are considering removing these types of roads because instead of relieving traffic in their cities they ran away all the money and jobs.

At the end of the day no one wants to have their corporate headquarters next to an 8 lane wide road , and no one will want to shop on one either, unless you like the eminent risk of being killed by a wayward cell phone talking driver.

At the end of the day, if 6 lanes didnt do it, then there needs to be a better solution (I thought that was the entire point of the silver line metro).

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

At the end of the day no one wants to have their corporate headquarters next to an 8 lane wide road

This will come as a surprise to all those corporate headquarters in the Dulles Tech Corridor that deliberately chose to construct large buildings along 267.

I'm a big fan of pedestrian bridges, and in fact would love to see a really grand one built for Tysons. And I mean grand--something wide and architecturally interesting, with benches, and maybe even little kiosks or coffee carts. Something that would draw tourists in addition to allowing people to cross Rt. 7. Maybe it's time to bump that old thread we had about building a grand pedestrian bridge for Tysons--I'd love to see your ideas for a project like that.

Regarding buses and trains, I'm all for encouraging people to use mass transportation and increasing the services we have available. But I also see the reality that no matter how good our public transit becomes, there will continue to be many, many people who need to drive (or will choose to drive) for one reason or another. Like it or not, drivers make up the largest percentage of our population, and will continue to. So IMO it's smart to service their needs.

[tysonsengineer]

Caladium

Those corporate headquarters are visible from 267 but if you think they have frontage and directly abut your are incorrect. They all attain their access and 90% of their area is off of roads like Sunrise Valley and Sunset Hills, Coppermine, etc. These are all 4 lane and 6 lane roads with nice pedestrian access.

My entire point isnt to stop vehicle traffic. My point is, they would be better served instead of using the VDOT method of wider is better always, to consider that their efforts would be better served on a network that is better connected.

If they connect west park to 123 via scotts run, 50% of the traffic coming through from Booz Allen, Freddie Mac, Hilton Corp, Mitre 2nd offices would also use this if they are going to 267 as it would cut 2 lights out for them. This could still be provided in a 4 lane road so it wont gut the entire area in half and addresses an actual reduction of the overall traffic on 123 in a more efficient way than adding 2 lanes.

Also the reason 123 backs up has very little to do with the amount of pavement and much more to do with traffic pattern. 60% of the jams are caused when 495 is backed up and the onramp backs up in both directs 2 lights. When this happens a-holes come around and try to cut in the line and thereby hold up 2 or even 3 lanes somedays trying to cut over at the last moment.

If they really wanted to stop the jams they would understand that the ramp should likely be expanded instead to provide twice the stack capability and better inforcement of merger laws should be provided.

Im not an anti-road guy, I swear. Roads are part of the solution, but widening roads is not always.

[Alicia Bradley]

Originally Posted by saganista

It also seems that I can easily drive anywhere I want within the region except when it's rush hour. This indicates to me that the problem is not that we have too few or poorly designed roads, but that too many cars are trying to use those roads all at the same time.

Too many cars trying to use our roads at the same time = too little capacity for all the cars. I (like Caladium) would absolutely love to see more people use public transit, and enhancing/expanding our public transit infrastructure will indeed help - a little. But unless you legislate against them, the cars won't be going away anytime soon.

[saganista]

No one expects or wants cars to go away. But you end up like the power companies -- building to meet peak demand when the peak is short-lived and demand could be shifted. Run the dishwasher at night. Drive to work at 7:00 or 10:30. Most jobs are not as time-sensitive as they are made out to be. The way I see it, we either have to change what we do, or be willing to pay a lot more to continue doing what we are doing at the moment. Doesn't seem like that tough a choice.

[Alicia Bradley]

Originally Posted by saganista

No one expects or wants cars to go away. But you end up like the power companies -- building to meet peak demand when the peak is short-lived and demand could be shifted. Run the dishwasher at night. Drive to work at 7:00 or 10:30. Most jobs are not as time-sensitive as they are made out to be. The way I see it, we either have to change what we do, or be willing to pay a lot more to continue doing what we are doing at the moment. Doesn't seem like that tough a choice.

As someone who would like to be able to bike on-street less stressfully, I want cars to go away, but I don't expect it. I think the whole social engineering approach (keeping excess cars off the roads by simply providing less road capacity) has failed. It certainly would be possible to legislate reduced automobile usage (not suggesting I necessarily favor such an approach, but it's there), but 'reduced road capacity + PSAs + (e.g.) HOV lanes' (+ plugging our ears and humming) hasn't, unfortunately, been enough to enough to counteract the glaring insufficiency of road capacity in the region.

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

As someone who would like to be able to bike on-street less stressfully, I want cars to go away, but I don't expect it. I think the whole social engineering approach (keeping excess cars off the roads by simply providing less road capacity) has failed. It certainly would be possible to legislate reduced automobile usage (not suggesting I necessarily favor such an approach, but it's there), but 'reduced road capacity + PSAs + (e.g.) HOV lanes' (+ plugging our ears and humming) hasn't, unfortunately, been enough to enough to counteract the glaring insufficiency of road capacity in the region.

Cars have a finite capability.

"Cars cross into manhattan 1.2 drivers every 6 seconds, the subway crosses 1050 into manhattan every 6 seconds. It would take 167 inbound lanes, 84 copies of the midtown tunnel to carry what the NYC subway carriers over 22 inbound tracks. And 3.8 square miles of additional parking, three times the size of central park." - Richard Florida, The Great Reset

Cars are one of the least efficient space people movers in the history of the world. They have very high independence variables, ie you can go wherever you want, they have very high speed capacities (though most people in cities rarely go faster than a bicyclist), but they have the worst area to #transported ratio of all forms of transportation.

I am all for cars being part of the solution, but VDOT is actually the agency in charge of ALL forms of transportation. In the vacuum of their design of all non-paved systems we have had to rely on inferior private companies to run our VRE, Metro, and buses. All I ask is that VDOT do its share and spend some money on anything other than pavement (I mean seriously 0 dollars on anything mass transit is pretty bad)

*** Final note, a lot of people say, yea well thats new york though! 340,000 commuters come into NYC, 180,000 commuters come into Tysons Corner... these numbers are not far enough apart to say that similar models should not be considered if not designed.

[Alicia Bradley]

tysonsengineer, you're preaching to the choir - I don't drive (at all). That's right - no license, no car.. I don't know how clear I can make it. If you and I were to talk all day about the superiority of public transit (or bicycles or whatever) to gas-guzzling automobiles, it would have absolutely no effect on the volume of traffic traversing NoVA.

[Caladium]

I hear your arguments, and they're well written. I understand why you dislike the widening, and in many ways I agree--but in the end I think the pros outweigh the cons. As for the opinion that corporate headquarters don't want to be next to an 8 lane wide road, again, well written. However, I don't happen to share your opinion. I think many of them do want to be on a major road like that. They love being seen. Most corporate headquarters that I've been to in that part of Nova already have entrances from side roads or back roads, and they can also add them if needed.