Sunday, July 30, 2006; B08
We face challenges with traffic, housing costs, loss of farms and forests, and the decline of streams and the Chesapeake Bay. Add to this the most costly land-use decision in our region's history: the shift of thousands of Defense Department jobs away from transit-dependent to auto-dependent locations. But $4 for a gallon of gasoline could change everything, requiring us to plan more effectively for how we grow.
More of our population consists of retirees, empty nesters, young, creative singles and families. These groups increasingly seek to live near transit and where it is possible to walk, bicycle and take shorter car trips to schools, stores and work. Demand has pushed up prices in close-in suburbs and mixed-use centers such as Reston and Rockville. People have stood in line overnight to buy townhouses in the recovering downtown of Hyattsville.
Pedestrian-friendly towns and neighborhoods, development near transit stations, investments in public transportation-- all while protecting the environment: These are widely supported solutions to traffic congestion, the loss of green space and other challenges.
Citizens participating in the design process have created mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly plans for Columbia Pike in Arlington, the West Hyattsville Metro station area in Prince George's County and the Shady Grove Metro station area in Montgomery. Groups are fighting for affordable housing near jobs and transit for lower- and middle-income workers. Fairfax leaders are supporting an inclusive effort to redesign Tysons Corner. Residents of the eastern and western sections of Loudoun County are fighting to protect their rural landscape and economy, while pacing housing growth to remedy transportation and other service problems in the overwhelmed east.
Public support has made the "smart growth" strategy a priority for many politicians in Virginia, the District and Maryland. Higher energy and infrastructure costs will make it essential.
-- Stewart Schwartz
Washington
The writer is executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
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Intelligent land use makes transportation investments more effective, but it is no substitute for such investments. Overlooked in the sprawl debate is transportation's fundamental role in empowering more compact land use.
The Washington region's 1966 planning guide, which was developed to ensure better land use and mobility and to avoid today's gridlock, stated, "The urban region can be looked at as a group of land use cells defined by the transportation network." To better focus housing and jobs and preserve open space, planners proposed a regional radial highway and rail network connected by a suburb-to-suburb system of circumferential parkways and Potomac River bridges.
The radial roads and rail portion is largely complete. Planned circumferential parkways and river crossings are not, and with the exception of the Capital Beltway, they have been largely deleted from plans. Absent such suburb-to-suburb connections, population and jobs have accelerated outward along radial routes, from Fairfax to Loudoun, Prince William and points south and west, and Montgomery to Frederick and points north and west.
In the next 25 years, our region is projected to add nearly 2 million people and 1.3 million jobs. Daily trips will increase by 5 million to nearly 20 million. Daily miles of travel on our roads are predicted to increase by 40 million per day to 155 million.
New homes, schools, offices, stores and public safety facilities are being planned and will be constructed to accommodate this growth. So too must new roads, bridges and transit. Mixed-use development and focus around transit stations and major transportation facilities are important. But if the region is serious about managing growth, particularly in the outer suburbs, it needs to get serious about providing a network of regional bypasses, circumferential parkways and Potomac River bridges, including the Techway, around which to focus and connect it.
-- Robert O. Chase
McLean
The writer is president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.
As residents of the Washington region, we know we're lucky to live among the national monuments, the free world-class museums, and all the sights and history that tourists from around the country flock to. But ask locals what they'd easily trade, and two things top the list: weather and traffic. We may not be able to do much about the heat and humidity, but the good news is that the latter is within our control -- if we move in the right direction.
Experts predict an influx of new neighbors and jobs to the region, and we need to get smarter about where we put both. Recent Post stories report the continued spread of jobs and homes to the fringes of our region. Of course, along the way, farms and forests have been paved over, streams and rivers have been damaged, and the results have flowed downstream to make the Chesapeake Bay sick.
We can thank this style of badly planned development for our overburdened highways. When many residents can only live far from their jobs, we suffer increased commuting times and longer driving distances. All this traffic congestion fuels our air pollution -- the American Lung Association gives Washington an F for smog and soot -- and produces much of our global warming emissions.
We can find better solutions than building bloated new highways out in the suburbs. By now, it's conventional wisdom that the intercounty connector in Maryland won't relieve traffic but will shift plenty of development north away from our urban core. Adding the ICC and new bypass highways in Northern Virginia would perpetuate the 1950s planning model that elongates commutes and eats up our open space.
We should reinvest in existing neighborhoods while protecting the natural treasures we care about and restoring health to the Chesapeake Bay. We should stop wasting tax dollars on multibillion-dollar boondoggles such as the ICC. Fixing Metro and building new transit options -- such as streetcars in the District and the Purple Line -- would give residents convenient transportation choices and a green alternative to sitting in traffic.
-- Chris Carney
Washington
The writer is conservation organizer for the Metro D.C. office of the Sierra Club.