Category: transit

pln_logo_sharp_smallPurple Line Now is hosting a forum at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Services center September 29th to explore Denver’s experience with a light-rail line delivered through a public-private partnership, as is also the case with Maryland’s Purple Line.

Guests are invited to sign up in advance to attend. Click this link to RSVP.

The Purple Line is one of SMTA’s top-priority projects and would help connect the region and more effectively utilize our current Metro system, enabling tens of thousands more residents to enjoy faster, more efficient east-west trips from Bethesda to College Park and other destinations and spark greater economic investment in key inside-the-Beltway communities.

Construction was expected to begin by the end of 2016, however, legal challenges have once again delayed this priority project. More information is available at the Purple Line Now website, including updates on the project’s status and this latest court challenge.

 

A recent poll released today at a briefing of area leaders shows transportation is by far the top long-term concern for residents of the Greater Washington Region. Overwhelming majorities also favor significant new investments in both the area’s highway and mass transit networks. Large majorities in this regional poll of 800 residents in Maryland, DC and Virginia support:

  • Investing in the core capacity of the existing Metro system (though not necessarily its further expansion);
  • plus major new multi-modal investments to widen and redesign several highway corridors, including I-270, the Capital Beltway,  portions of I-66, and the American Legion Bridge, adding new express-toll lanes and regional bus-rapid-transit service on each;
  • as well as Virginia’s Bi-County Parkway, a new Potomac River bridge crossing north of the American Legion Bridge, and two new transit lines in Maryland, the Purple Line and Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT).

Public support for all of these projects was exceptionally strong, ranging from 4-to-1 to 12-to-1 margins, in all cases. The survey was conducted by OpinionWorks and commissioned by the Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance (SMTA) and the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance (NVTA).  A summary of findings is provided in our April 18th press release.

“Washington-area residents are clearly fed up with traffic and want to see more investment in both transit and roads,” said SMTA Chair Jennifer Russel. “We need to stop looking at this as a ‘roads vs. transit’ issue; people want to see a lot more investment in both.”

In addition to the findings on several major transit and road projects that have been recommended by area experts, the poll also found:

  • Area residents see transportation as the greatest long-term issue or challenge facing the region, by a 3-to-1 margin over the next highest answer (jobs/economy) to an open-ended question
  • Residents give the region’s transportation an average grade of “C”, but by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 feel it is getting worse instead of better
  • Residents identify “reducing traffic congestion and delays” as the most important transportation priority for the region by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 over the next highest answer (maintenance)
  • 84% of area residents favor investing in both roads and transit, rather than one or the other
  • 80% of commuters drive or carpool to work; 18% use transit; 4% walk or bike (NOTE: commuting accounts for 20% of all daily trips)
  • 86% of non-commuting trips are by car; 5% use transit; 8% walk or bike (NOTE: non-commuting trips account for 80% of all daily trips)

Among the major projects tested:

  • 67% favor the Purple Line in Maryland (44% strongly support), only 10% are opposed (5% strongly)
  • 59% favor the CCT in Maryland (34% strongly), only 9% are opposed (7% strongly)
  • 70% favor widening I-66 outside the Beltway in Virginia (34% strongly), 12% are opposed (6% strongly)
  • 70% favor widening/redesigning I-270 as a multi-modal corridor in Maryland (47% strongly), only 10% are opposed (5% strongly)
  • 54% favor the Bi-County Parkway in Virginia (25% strongly); 13% are opposed (6% strongly)
  • 71% favor widening/redesigning the Maryland Beltway to add express-toll lanes and regional express-bus service (47% strongly), 11% are opposed (7% strongly)
  • 59% favor adding new express-toll lanes and regional express-bus service to the American Legion Bridge (36% strongly), 13% are opposed (7% strongly)
  • 59% favor building a new bridge crossing north of the American Legion Bridge (39% strongly), 11% are opposed (7% strongly)
  • 75% favor investing in new Metro cars to provide 8-car trains (51% strongly), only 6% are opposed (3% strongly)

Other key findings:

  • By a large majority (67% to 27%), area residents feel Metro should focus more on maintenance and system reliability, as opposed to further expansion of the system.
  • 60% of residents say they would be willing to pay a little more to fund projects that reduce congestion, with 36% opposed; although there is no consensus on a specific funding proposal (none of those tested reached majority support)

The results were unveiled at a briefing today at Marriott International, Inc., before an audience of business and community leaders, including U.S. Congressman John Delaney, Montgomery County Council President Nancy Floreen, Maryland Deputy Secretary of Transportation James Ports, and many others.  Here is the slideshow by OpinionWorks that was presented at the event.

NVTA President David Birtwistle noted the importance of these new findings: “There’s a real consensus among experts that these are the kinds of investments we need to make to significantly reduce congestion; and now we know the public is on the same page.”  “It’s time to get moving,” he concluded.

A similar list of projects has been tested using the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s (COG) regional traffic model, and significant improvements in congestion relief, travel time savings, economic growth and transit ridership were found. With a new willingness in Maryland and Virginia to consider toll-financing and public-private-partnerships, several viable options now exist to fund major new transportation projects of this magnitude without relying on more limited traditional sources.

Richard Parsons, SMTA Vice Chair, pointed out ongoing effort at COG’s Transportation Planning Board to study other unfunded projects not in the region’s Constrained Long-Range Plan: “Regional leaders are now in the process of looking at our current long-range plans, which everyone knows are not sustainable, and it would be a good idea to include these game-changing projects in that study.” “There are solutions to our traffic problems, and the public clearly and overwhelmingly supports them,” he concluded.

A total of 800 randomly-selected adult residents of the greater Washington region were interviewed by telephone December 1-5, 2015 by OpinionWorks LLC, a highly-respected independent research organization based in Annapolis that has done significant public opinion work in the DC region on environmental, transportation and other issues. The results of this survey have a potential sampling error of no greater than +/-3.5% at the 95% confidence level.

Maryland’s Board of Public Works, which include Governor Larry Hogan, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, and Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, approved a $5.6 billion contract for the Purple Line this week.  The contract includes both construction and operating costs, and make the Purple Line one of the largest transportation projects in recent Maryland history, significantly more expensive than the InterCounty Connector, another SMTA priority project, that has been operating for several years now in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.

The Purple Line links key activity centers from Bethesda, to Silver Spring, Greenbelt and eventually New Carrollton, and is expected to yield billions in related economic development and job creation benefits, as well as providing significantly improved suburb-to-suburb transit service throughout this corridor.  The latest approval by the Board of Public Works marks one of the final steps in this long-anticipated project, which is expected to start construction as early as the end of this year.

For more, here is the Baltimore Sun’s coverage of this latest step forward in the Purple Line’s long-overdue march to completion.  The Baltimore Red Line, also noted in the article, was not approved by Governor Hogan due to its comparatively poor performance in attracting new transit riders and low cost-effectiveness ratings, which may have doomed its chances of ever winning federal funding anyway.  The Purple Line has long been among SMTA’s top transportation priorities for the Greater Washington region.

On Wednesday this week, Metro experienced a rare system-wide shut-down, as WMATA’s General Manager Paul Wiedefeld addressed urgent electrical issues that posed an urgent safety hazard according to Metro officials.  So what was the impact on area traffic?

The Washington Post ran a very interesting article in the Sunday edition analyzing the impacts.  It is worth a read.  Here is the link, if you missed it.

Metro clearly plays a key role in meeting the diverse travel needs of an even more diverse region, but the fact that people found ways to adjust significantly reduced the level of economic impact many would have expected from such a drastic move on such short notice.  It truly could have been much worse.

SMTA has long advocated for increased in Metro’s capital program, to improve reliability, safety and to keep the system in good repair by working through years of deferred maintenance.  This week’s closure is a sign that Metro’s poor state of repair is a real issue that regional leaders need to address far more effectively than they have to date — and that means coming up with a long-term solution to Metro’s chronic funding shortages through creation of a dedicated regional revenue source like every other major urban transit system in the United States (except Metro) already has.

 

 

As Dr. Gridlock wrote in the Post recently, Congress is weighing possible cuts to Metro funding that would be both severe and unwise.  Here is a link to the Washington Post article.

Members of Congress from the DC region should unite to oppose this short-sighted proposal.  Experts across the region, as well as the public, recognize the key role Metro plays in keeping Greater Washington moving, and the federal government in particular has every reason to support Metro, given it’s critical role in supporting the transportation needs of the large federal workforce here.

Metro has significant capital investment needs — for safety, reliability, performance and user-experience improvements that are sorely needed — and Congress needs to be a constructive part of the solution.  It is one thing to criticize WMATA’s leadership or its well-known governance issues, but cutting the funding the agency needs to make progress and improve its performance is both unwise and irresponsible.