Solutions to NoVA's Transportation Crisis? (Reston, Herndon: quality of life, tax, where to live)

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by car54

Then you are part of the problem. A bus will never be convenient enough for you...just for other people.

I rode a MetroBus from Annandale to the Pentagon for over 20 years, so I walked the walk...literally!

You never regretted all of the hours of life you lost standing around staring at parking lots and then sitting in traffic?

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by dlumpen

Somewhere there's built in that ScranBarre is supposed to sacrifice, even while they build more and more (when it's economically feasible).

Huh? Can we please all get off the snarky "If ScranBarre spent an extra 40 minutes per day to take the bus then all of our congestion issues would be solved" slant? Yes, I know I'm the one who brought this up, but I HAVE taken the bus and rode the rails here in NoVA, and I LOVE mass transit. However, I don't see the incentive to waste 40 extra minutes of my life each workday just to be "part of the solution."

Dedicated bus lanes are nice, but they won't work on Route 7, which is bottlenecked with only two lanes in each direction between Reston and Tyson's Corner. If you had one bus lane in each direction and just ONE TRAVEL LANE in each direction, then it would have taken me nearly two hours to get to work yesterday instead of just under an hour. Traffic is expected to get MUCH worse soon on Route 7 as well since I've already heard people say that they plan to "boycott" the toll road when the tolls increase. Thousands of more cars on Route 7 isn't a good thing. I wonder how the opponents of the Silver Line actually expect ANYONE to get east/west from Ashburn/Sterling/Herndon/Reston to Tyson's/Vienna/Oakton/Arlington in the coming years?

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

You never regretted all of the hours of life you lost standing around staring at parking lots and then sitting in traffic?

Trust me, if you live in a place that you really don't care for you dont really mind spending a few extra minutes in the car. I live in the Landmark area and can't really find any reason that my neighborhood would give me to get home quicker.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Caladium

I go for a walk every single day, and do not find it dangerous at all. I live in Herndon, which is considered a high immigration area.

I run through Herndon normally a few times a week and have never felt unsafe either (except, of course, for the super speed-cyclists whizzing by me without warning, but I digress).

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by anonymous703

ScranBarre, can't you adjust your work schedule to coincide with the bus schedule?

I wish I could. The buses seem to orient themselves around an 8-hour workday schedule. I don't get paid half-hour lunches, hence why I actually work 8.5 hours per day and end up midway "between" the two buses.

If I were to take the first 574 bus between Reston Town Center and Tyson's Corner at 5:10 AM (walking out my front door at 5 AM, which means waking up at the insane hour of 4:20 AM), I'd get to Tyson's Corner at 5:42 AM and then have a 15-minute walk to my office building to start work at 6 AM. When I get out at 2:30 PM I'd have to wait until 3:24 PM (as I'd just miss the 2:20 PM bus) to take a bus back to Reston Town Center for 4 PM, walking back to my door for 4:10 PM. Currently when I drive I can leave at 5:35 AM to get into work by 6 AM and then leave work at 2:30 PM and be home by around 2:55 PM.

Let's do some analysis then, shall we?

WORKDAY LENGTH WITH MASS TRANSIT OPTION: 11 hours, 10 minutes
WORKDAY LENGTH WITH DRIVING OPTION: 9 hours, 20 minutes.

In order to take mass transit I'd be spending an extra 1 hr., 50 minutes each DAY. Perhaps some of you don't have lives and would gladly forfeit two hours of your lives per day just to brag about how "progressive" and "part of the solution" you all are while telling me I'm just another hypocrite for saying "buses are for other people," but as for me this is why I'm suffering without the Silver Line that the Loudoun County people keep fighting. Do you all honestly expect me to forfeit nearly 10 hours of my life per week just to prove the point that our elected officials have NO CLUE about urban planning?

I can't believe they only have ONE BUS that runs between Reston (pop. 65,000 with many Tyson's commuters) and Tyson's Corner (area's largest employment center).

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by claremarie

Here's an idea for the OP.
Go survey all of the residents of your apartment complex. (You also get the bonus of getting to meet your new neighbors.) Find out where they work, and plot all of their destinations on a giant map. (Also the bonus of new decor for your apartment). Then design a mass transit system that gets all of those people where they need to go, when they need to get there. Factor in those who need to drop off children at school or daycare during their commute, and those who have second jobs or evening classes to attend.
You can worry about how to pay for it later. My guess is that you will find that people are heading in all different directions (sometimes different directions on different days) at different hours, and no public transportation system will meet all of their needs.

Since I'm the only one in my immediate cluster that leaves for work before 7 AM every day, let alone before 6 AM on most days I'd have to say you're correct. However, what is a solution then? I was just visiting a friend who lives near the Fairfax/Oakton border, and Hunter's Mill Road, Chain Bridge Road, Jermantown Road, Fairfax Boulevard, and MANY other roads were choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic. I don't dare drive down to Fair Oaks from Reston at 5:30 PM on any weekday, as the last time I did that it took me 45 minutes.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Yankeesfan

And maybe he'll find a neighbor who also works in Tyson's, and they can carpool, thus taking a car off the road. Or even two neighbors, taking two cars off the road. Then he won't be driving solo, and will be part of the solution.

Better idea. I'm going to look into posting this on our Archstone online bulletin board. Thank you. The problem will still lie though with how will everyone get home? I generally don't mind driving other people around if we're on the same schedule, but if I'm working 6-2:30 and one of the people's bosses wants them to work late until 4:30, then I'm NOT sitting around for 2 hours at the end of my workday staring at the gorgeous beauty that is Tyson's Corner. Also, what if I fall ill at work and need to go home early? Also, there are some times coming up that I'll be working out of Herndon, and there will also be some times I'll need to be giving visitors to our agency a ride back-and-forth between locations. That would strand the others. I suppose you could always say to me that they can always take the bus themselves to get back home, but methinks they'd end up frustrated and not want to carpool anymore.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by dlumpen

The Silver Line Metro will also help, but again, you'll have to live close enough to the line and still be willing to take a long commute.

I'll be living and working within walking distance of new Metrorail stations, hence why I'm so eager for the naysayers to stop holding up progress and let it come. Tax me! I don't care! Whatever it takes to get the darn thing done!

[dlumpen]

Originally Posted by anonymous703

Yeah... I had to go somewhere in Rockville last Saturday. Took about 20-25 minutes from my place. If we were to have taken metro (could have walked to our destination from White Flint station) from Vienna, it would have take over an hour -- metro lists it as a 70 minute trip.

I wonder if they'd ever consider having more express trains. That is, Metros that run from a certain station to another without stopping in between. Going down to Metro Center and transferring is a killer. Yes, from VA to MD is just a slow commute that is never worth it unless you have no choice.

[SteelCityRising]

Ideally they should also consider linking the Inter-County Connector that is currently under construction in Maryland over the Potomac into Virginia, perhaps in the Ashburn area (I'm sure the people in Great Falls would freak out if it were to go there).