How About Them Priorities
- Posted by ryan on June 16th, 2008 filed in Transit
BeyondDC breaks down some key figures on transportation planning in the area for the next six years–essentially, what are we spending our dough on through 2014. As you look through these, muse on where gasoline prices might be in 2014:
District of Columbia:
* $718 million to reconfigure South Capitol Street and replace the Frederick Douglas Bridge
* $136 million for “Great Streets” programs around the city, including $52 million to reconfigure and install streetcar tracks on H Street
* $91 million for the Union Station Intermodal Transporation Center
* $59 million for “Anacostia Riverwalk” trails
* $55 million for streetcars, including extensions across the Anacostia River
* $51 million for the K Street Transitway
* $6.5 million to finish the Metropolitan Branch trail
* $6 million for water taxis on the Potomac and Anacostia RiversMaryland:
* $2.17 billion for the Intercounty Connector
* $74 million for the Purple Line
* $57 million for the Silver Spring Transit Center
* $55 million to build the Montrose Parkway
* $50 million for the Corridor Cities Transitway
* $18 million to improve MARC tracks
* $2 million to study extending the Green Line north to BWI AirportVirginia:
* $4.5 billion for the Silver Line (both phases)
* $690 million to widen the Beltway and install HOT lanes
* $372 million to convert I-395 HOV lanes to HOT lanes, and to improve bus service in the corridor
* $130 million to widen Routes 1, 29 and 50
* $61 million to widen I-66 in Arlington
* $40 million to build/widen Prince William Parkway
* $17 million for the Columbia Pike streetcar
* $1.5 million for the Potomac Yard busway
That’s an awful lot of pavement, no? That investment in the ICC especially is looking really unwise right now.
June 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Those are only the particularly interesting line items. Don’t let my post fool you into thinking transit and roads get about the same amount of money. I didn’t bother reporting the vast majority of projects, which are $20 million for a widening here and $15 million for a new collector road there.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I wouldn’t mind them spending those hundreds of millions to widen Routes 1, 29, and 50 if they were putting light rail down the middle of those useless concrete medians. What is the point of having hundreds of yards of grassy median whose sole purpose is to be mowed every week? I mean, how difficult can it be to single-track a line down Route 1 with double-track pulloffs around major stops every half mile?
It used to be major commuter transit corridors existed to serve the streetcars. Cars pushed the streetcars off the road. It’s about time they pushed back.