Should Funds from Dulles Toll Road be Used to Widen a Road in Loudoun? (Reston: apartment, insurance)

[novajs]

Tolls should only be used to maintain and operate the toll road. Any surplus should be used to reduce the tolls.

I am all for Silver Line and widening roads. But that should come from taxes allocated to transportation. Maybe a transportation bond is needed to pay for the silver line.

[stax]

I'm thinking that the road would need to be widened to expand that road to handle the anticipated traffic coming to that road. Remember, that is the major road that (for now, until they ever build out Loudoun Co. Pkwy) carries traffic from US50/ South Riding to the Dulles Corridor, and serves as a semi-parallel road to 28. When the metro stop goes there, it will encourage those from the aforementioned area who would normally just drive to hit the metro instead. The repair shop where I get one of my cars serviced is off of that road, and it is a freaking nightmare already since they now have an entire neighborhood on that road, with plans to build more. While I'm usually not a fan of how VA plans their roads, this one seems to be a bright idea: do it now while the land is still relatively cheap, and before they have a REAL traffic problem on their hands down the line.

[Denton56]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

I personally think Fairfax County and Loudoun County have to stop acting like monolithic morons and need to start planning regionally. What happens in Ashburn often affects people in Great Falls or Reston. What happens in Centreville can affect people in South Riding. As a Fairfax County taxpayer I have no qualms with some of our revenues going to help widen a road in Loudoun County if it is anticipated to experience greater congestion as commuters try to access Reston for the Metrorail.

I agree with jbird though. The anti-Silver Line whiners either have to give me just ONE good reason as to why they oppose mass transit coming to the area, or they can just shut up in my eyes as typical NIMBYs. The area is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the coming years, and that was before several major white-collar job announcements (not even including the exciting Science City proposal just across the Potomac in Montgomery County). If we're going to be opposing the Silver Line, then what, pray tell, is supposed to take its place so we don't officially become the next L.A. in terms of congestion?

Raise my taxes to pay for the new rail line. I don't care. I'd rather eat the burden NOW to make life easier LATER.

Please, feel free to submit more taxes to Fairfax County. Oh, wait, you don't own property so you aren't paying county taxes! Easy for you to advocate raising taxes. Typical liberal, you want everyone else to pay for whatever YOUR pet project is.

When do you think that the subway will change things? We heard that when the orange line went to Falls Church, it would make a HUGE difference. Then we heard once it got to Vienna, it would make a HUGE difference. Traffic would be SO much better. Do you think the subway has helped to reduce traffic? Heck no. If you build it, they will come. Everyone thinks that the subway will get all those OTHER people off of THEIR roads. LOL The reality is that subways encourage MORE building, MORE growth, MORE people, and that means MORE traffic. Yet people like you continue to say that the subway will somehow make things better. Other than increasing the tax base, just how does this make things "better"? Would you care to define what that ''better" may be and when it will happen?

Thanks!

[Denton56]

Originally Posted by novajs

Tolls should only be used to maintain and operate the toll road. Any surplus should be used to reduce the tolls.

I am all for Silver Line and widening roads. But that should come from taxes allocated to transportation. Maybe a transportation bond is needed to pay for the silver line.

Good idea. Let someone else pay for it. I'll never ride it and I couldn't care less, so why should I have to pay for it?

[Margery]

Our taxes are for the common good, not necessarily for something you specifically use and personally benefit from. The controversy arises when the public disagrees on the benefit. My youngest child graduated high school in 1988, yet I am still paying real estate taxes to support public schools because it is in everyone's interest to have an educated population.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by Denton56

Please, feel free to submit more taxes to Fairfax County. Oh, wait, you don't own property so you aren't paying county taxes! Easy for you to advocate raising taxes.

Not to mention the numerous announcements that he's decided to move to Pittsburgh. Who cares if you're willing to raising taxes when you will not be here to pay for them?

I agree with Margery about taxes being for the common good. However, IMO the common good is to spend the Toll Road money to maintain and operate the toll road. I would also support a bond to increase bus service. I agree that buses should run throughout the day, not just at rush hour. And there should be more bus lines, enough routes so that all the subdivisions are serviced. People should be able to walk to mass transit, not have to drive to it.

In my honest opinion, I don't think that many people will end up using the Silver Line. It will be handy for residents of Reston and Herndon, but that's about it. I don't believe many people will drive from areas like Great Falls or Leesburg to use it, even though the line is supposed to service them.

[dkf747]

Originally Posted by anonymous703

I'd like to know more about how that number was generated. More people might be in close proximity to "a bus stop" but that's no guarantee that that bus is going to go anywhere people want to go at a time they want to do it. And if that's the case, it's a hardly a metric to strive for or brag about. And if this bus is going to be placed on a heavily populated trunk line, how many buses do you really need to meet demand?

My beef with bus service is that the schedules and frequencies are quite limited in comparison to the rail service that would replace it. For instance, let's take Reston. The Fairfax Connector 505 runs from the RTC to WFC metro. During rush hour, it runs mostly every half hour. Rush hour metrorail service? Every six minutes. At least the bus hours coincide with metro hours during the week. But let's look at Friday night, when metro rail is open until 3am. Last bus from WFC to RTC? 11:50. At least on Saturdays it stays open an extra hour.

Let's look at Metrobus 5A... L'Enfant Plaza - Dulles Airport. The thing only runs every 40 minutes. Ugh.

Many suburban bus routes don't even run mid-day or even weekends. They're commuter specials. Rail service is consistent across the network -- you don't have to consult a time table for each separate line you want to take... and if you go places every now and then, you don't have to worry about your line being discontinued.

All of those issues are easily addressed, IF you get rid of the idea that only poor, lower class, people ride the bus. Riding the bus is beneath all these high and mighty suburbanites. Schedules can be changed, dedicated bus lanes can be built, Express buses can be run, etc..., but none of it will happen because riding the bus is only for "those" people. That's too bad because it's a lot cheaper and more flexible than rail. I love Metro, don't get me wrong, but I like buses too.

[anonymous703]

Originally Posted by dkf747

All of those issues are easily addressed, IF you get rid of the idea that only poor, lower class, people ride the bus. Riding the bus is beneath all these high and mighty suburbanites. Schedules can be changed, dedicated bus lanes can be built, Express buses can be run, etc..., but none of it will happen because riding the bus is only for "those" people. That's too bad because it's a lot cheaper and more flexible than rail. I love Metro, don't get me wrong, but I like buses too.

See now, we have a chicken-and-the-egg thing going on. Certain bus lines have crappy schedules, so people don't want to ride them. It's my understanding that certain lines in the city are jam packed. Even the Metrobus 5A (L'Enfant - Rosslyn - Dulles Airport) and 505 (WFC-Reston Town Center) are pretty full with commuters.

Beyond that, if a bus line services a metro station, and does it only once or twice an hour, one would think that it would be timed/synched with rail schedules. At night, the 505 likes to leave a minute before westbound Orange train pulls into WFC. That always irritates me to no end.

Besides, if you build it they will come, right? Build *good* bus service, and people will use it. But along the major trunk lines, like where the silver line is going, I wonder how much bus service one needs to keep up with rail. And that bus line already has a partial dedicated right-of-way, in the form of the Dulles Toll Road! So what do we get for service on that? The 505, the 5A, and the 950. All with rather infrequent schedules.

As was said earlier in this thread, for transit to be a preferred option, it has to be cheaper or faster than a car. Generally, limited bus schedules do neither, and therefore rich suburban people avoid it.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by anonymous703

As was said earlier in this thread, for transit to be a preferred option, it has to be cheaper or faster than a car.

The same can be said for the Silver Line, though.

Let's take a person who lives in Great Falls who has a job in Tysons Corner. Taking the Silver Line will be more expensive and more time consuming for him than driving. So he's not going to use it. Think about it, he'll have to drive to the station in Reston. That'll take about 20-25 minutes. Then he'll have to wait for the train. After the train arrives in Tysons he'll have to walk to work, probably a few blocks if not more. He'll have to pay for parking and for the ticket (both of which are not cheap).

As you point out, for transit to be a preferred option, it has to be cheaper or faster than a car. This is why I don't think most people in Loudoun will be using the train. A train is really only handy if it's within walking distance of both your home and your job.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by dkf747

All of those issues are easily addressed, IF you get rid of the idea that only poor, lower class, people ride the bus. Riding the bus is beneath all these high and mighty suburbanites.

I suspect you're right (although it's also true that people might ride buses if more of them were running every half hour, instead of every hour).

We need to overcome the snob factor and make buses cool again. I remember back in the 60s the Reston buses were very hip to ride. They served donuts & coffee in the morning and cocktails on the 6 p.m. route. I wish they'd do something like that again.