Dulles
- Posted by ryan on August 25th, 2008 filed in In the News, Transit
Construction is about to ramp up, thanks to a new, sort-of approval by the FTA. The Overhead Wire says this is Ma Pete sticking it to the Tysons Tunnel crowd. I’m not sure I agree. I think the only way that underground proposal gets another look is if FTA kills the project outright, forcing Virginia to start all over. And that would be way worse than going ahead and building it above ground now.
Ideally, the FTA would be an organization interested in maximizing the social return of its investments, rather than an ideological sledgehammer used to crush transit whenever possible. In that case, it would be easy to get the tunnel issue solved quickly (and because quickly, cheaply). Unfortunately, the Bush FTA is horrible, and it forces local groups to make bad decisions, lest critical projects get scrapped for no good reason. It makes no sense. The Bushies think transit is wasteful, so they…have a ridiculous and wanton approval process that encourages construction of sub-optimal systems? Because then people won’t like transit, or something?
It’s like the worst combination of evil and incompetent you’ll ever see.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
The mistake that The Overhead Wire makes is assuming that an elevated structure is worse for TOD than a subway. This may be true in an urban setting, but Tysons is not that. The places where the train will go (the rights of way for routes 123 and 7) will not be urban settings for the foreseeable future - they are too wide, too busy, too highway-like in their design.
The benefits will come with the redevelopment of the parcels alongside those highways. That’s where the walkability will have to happen, and the exact routing of the train (above or below grade) won’t matter at all there.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
The redevelopment will be similar to downtown Rockville… Metro adjacent rather than above/below the Metro. Over time, the roads will be adjusted to reflect the urbanism of the area.
After the roads get readjusted, it will be possible for the walkable urbanism to surround the metro stops. It will (hopefully) eventually be like in Silver Spring where elevated rail works just fine in the middle of a walkable urban environment.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
One good thing about above ground Metro in Tysons Corner might be its added visibility. I know when I’m on Rockville Pike sitting in traffic and I see the Red Line fly by, I feel like an idiot for not taking the Metro. I’m sure it would be even worse on Rt 7
August 26th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Good comments above. I’m inclined to agree. I’ve read that Tyson’s redevelopment is intended to be nodal - there will be specific nodes that should be relatively self-contained, and that will acknowledge the difficulty of connecting the entire area. Basically they admit that the roads and metro tracks will form barriers, but as long as those barriers distinguish different ‘neighborhoods’ (I use the term loosely here) from each other rather than cutting a neighborhood in half, the area will be ok (at least a huge improvement from the present).
At the density to which that area will be built, smaller geographic areas can be made walkable. Hopefully these various walkable nodes can be connected by pedestrian bridges over the roads and rails.