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Community leaders look at gridlock solutions
Community leaders look at gridlock solutionsBy Tara Slate Donaldson
tdonaldson@timespapers.com
Google Maps indicates that a trip from the Maryland side of D.C. to Manassas should take either 46 minutes or an hour and 26 minutes, depending on traffic.
As everyone in the region knows, a driver can either plan on 46 minutes and hope not to arrive a half-hour late, or plan on an hour-and-a-half, then sit around killing time if traffic is less awful than expected.
It's just the cost of living here, said Robert Thompson, the Washington Post's “Dr. Gridlock,” who spoke Tuesday night with members of the Prince William Committee of 100.
“That's, as you know, a very common experience,” he said. “We build in buffer time.”
But does it have to be that way?
Thompson moderated a panel made up of representatives from various alternative transportation groups. The purpose was to get community leaders to start talking about innovative ways to solve gridlock.
High-speed ferry
Alan Gray is the president of MetroMarine Holdings, an Alexandria-based company that runs ferry services throughout the mid-Atlantic.
He told the committee that in the spring, his group will take ferries on planned runs along the Potomac River so they can give the Virginia Department of Transportation hard data, rather than estimates, on commute times.
A high-speed ferry would be a public-private partnership that would have to be partly subsidized by government funding, he said.
The plan is to run a ferry service between Northern Virginia harbors and Washington, D.C.
A ferry could carry as many as 149 people from Potomac Harbor in Dumfries to southeast Washington in about an hour, he said.
But how many people would use it?
“We'll see, we'll see,” he said. “I think, though, that we're all going to be pleasantly surprised, largely because the environment on board the ferry is going to be a very nice one for commuting.”
The ferry will be equipped with televisions, high-speed Internet and computer hookups so commuters can work while they ride, he said.
MetroMarine is planning an 18- to 24-month pilot program during which time the ferries will transport only Navy and Department of Defense employees.
Once the company has received feedback and worked out the bugs, the program will be open to everyone.
If all goes as planned, the pilot project could begin in 2011 with three ferries, a number that could be expanded by 2013.
Slugging
Maybe your mother told you never to get into the car with a stranger, but thousands of people in the metro area do just that every day, said Robert Lang, a representative of the region's unofficial “slug” system.
Slugging is one of the more innovative forms of commuting because it was developed not by a government or focus group but by renegade carpoolers.
Under the slug system, drivers pull into commuter lots and call out their destination to the waiting crowd. Those seeking a ride to that destination hop in the car for a free ride and the driver gets the benefit of using the HOV lanes for a faster commute.
But while the concept of slugging just sprang up without government help, it will take government money to keep the system working, Lang said.
For one thing, slugging requires commuter parking lots. For another, it requires efficient HOV lanes. When sluggers can't find a place to park or when the HOV lanes are as clogged as the regular highway, the whole system breaks down.
The answer, he said, is first to build more parking lots, then improve HOV. Improving HOV means first banning hybrid vehicles from the lanes, then instituting a “draconian dragnet” to catch HOV cheaters.
The best way to deter HOV cheaters, he said, is to “put a slug through their engine block so they don't ever get back on” but he acknowledged that more police and hefty fines would work, as well.
While VDOT's Web site offers some information about slugging, the Web site www.slug-lines.com is a better source for commuters who want to participate, he said.
Bus rapid transit
“People don't think of rubber tire vehicles as having the ability to carry lots of people,” said Bill Vincent. But they're wrong.
Bus rapid transit is a cross between a bus and a subway system. Vincent, the deputy director of Breakthrough Technologies Institute, maintains that a BRT system could move 15,000 people an hour at peak times, compared to the 9,000 people an hour that a Dulles rail system could carry.
The vehicles operate on roads, not rails, but they more closely resemble Metro cars than standard buses. They feature multiple doors along the sides for easy boarding and fares are paid at the station rather than on the bus.
Depending on how much we're willing to spend and how fast we want to move, BRT can cut huge amounts of time off commutes.
At the high-end of the price range, buses operate on dedicated highway lanes open only to BRT and emergency vehicles. Enough buses are provided that at peak hours, the wait for a bus is fewer than five minutes, which alleviates the need for passengers to check and remember schedules.
But since BRT is a modular bus system, it can be scaled back for cost. Localities can save money by running fewer routes or fewer buses or by not using dedicated lanes.
HOT lanes
High occupancy toll lanes are a controversial topic in Northern Virginia, acknowledged Tim Young of Transurban Development, which is developing HOT lanes for the region.
Nevertheless, he maintained, HOT lanes are the most feasible way to solve gridlock.
The plan is to convert HOV lanes to toll lanes on the interstate; the system would eventually run for 56 miles from the Pentagon to Spotsylvania.
Buses, emergency vehicles, motorcycles and vehicles with three or more people could use HOT lanes for free, while other vehicles could pay a toll to use them.
The tolls would be paid electronically, so there is no need for toll booths. And the price would fluctuate based on congestion.
“When the traffic is heavy and congested, the price goes up and people get off the road,” Young said.
The intent is to keep HOT lane traffic moving quickly by raising the price as congestion increases. During off hours, the toll will be cheap and more people will get on. When traffic gets heavier, the price will go up, which will encourage many drivers to switch back to the regular lanes. That will keep the HOT lanes flowing smoothly for people who are willing to pay a premium for a fast commute.
“The reality is, people use that road a couple of times a week; they don't use it every day,” Young said, adding that when you're late for an important meeting or a special family event, you're willing to shell out some extra cash to avoid gridlock.
Money
While all of the solutions are workable and all have been used successfully in other cities and countries, there's a serious problem: money.
None of the projects is feasible without some government assistance. And the state's limited supply of transportation funding is dedicated primarily to road construction so supporters of the alternative plans are competing with each other for slices of a very small pie.
But for the time being, they're all banding together, trying to get the word out that “transportation solution” doesn't just mean “more roads.”
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