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VDOT Looks at Traffic Improvements on I-66
posted 09/14/09
11:45 pm
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) actually began this study in 2003 but shelved it. Now, the state's secretary of transportation wants it finished. State law requires VDOT to look at hot lanes as they try to figure out how to ready I-66 for the future.
Anyone who's driven on I-66 already knows that with eight hours of congestion daily in both directions slowing down the 200,000 cars a day, traffic can be a nightmare.
And over the next 20 years, VDOT expects a 50-percent increase in people and jobs along I-66 between the Beltway and Haymarket. That's not good news for Christina Lopez's commute from Centreville.
"So that'd be more traffic? Yeah, that won't work," she said.
VDOT will now begin looking at improvements to I-66 as they prepare for the coming increase in traffic -- including mass transit options like buses and especially Metrorail expansion past Vienna. Traffic management and better use of carpool lanes will be looked at it, as will possible construction of hot lanes.
"We're building them on the Beltway," said VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris. "We are seriously looking at them on 95 and 395; we need to look at 66 as part of that seamless transportation system."
Hot lanes may be attractive because the work would likely be funded by private companies -- but sources say it comes with a toll for drivers to use them which may not be popular in tough economic times.
"I disagree that we should have to pay for anything else," said Debra Brewer, a Prince William County (web | news) resident. "We are paying for our roads already."
"I'm not really a fan of having to pay period," added Chika Okwesa, a motorist.
"What they need to do is bring the Metro around here. All these hot lanes with the HOV -- you can only use certain lanes at certain times -- that's not solving anything," said Daniel Haynes, a Centreville resident.
The series of preliminary reports should be done by next summer with a final draft environmental report expected in 2011.
» Va. Secretary of Transportation - I-66, Transportation Funding
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