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Five-Year Forecast: Get Ready, Set . . . Sit
The recently-completed Springfield interchange cost $676 million and took eight years. Virginia has 548 road projects slated for the next six years.
(By Richard A. Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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In Maryland, then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) revived the $2.4 billion intercounty connector linking interstates 270 and 95, a project that had been debated on and off for 50 years and looked to be dead several years ago.
In the District, a strong economy and a string of budget surpluses have allowed the city to invest in its long-neglected infrastructure. The result are fixes to ailing bridges, such as the Douglass and 11th Street spans, as well as the revitalization of such key commuter routes as Georgia Avenue and Benning Road.
The plan to extend the Orange Line to Dulles International Airport had been discussed for years but was given a final push by a coalition of businesses and local and state leaders concerned that increasing highway congestion was choking off Tysons Corner and making it too difficult to get from the District to the airport.
This year, Virginia lawmakers approved the first major increase in transportation funding since the 1980s. The increase means that the state's transportation department is projected to break ground on 548 projects in the next six years, compared with last year's six-year plan, which projected only 54.
The plan also allowed an authority, composed of top elected officials in Northern Virginia to raise taxes and fees to generate an additional $300 million a year for transportation projects across the region. A referendum on a similar plan to raise local taxes to pay for road and transit projects failed in 2002.
The money is funding a new Fairfax County Parkway interchange, the widening of the Prince William Parkway and a rapid bus line through Arlington County and Alexandria, among other projects. Many have been designed but lacked the money to proceed. Groundbreaking could happen in a matter of months, officials said.
Nicholson, whose previous job was overseeing Virginia's portion of the Wilson Bridge project, said his main priority will be to coordinate the timing of the work to minimize disruptions. That means scheduling a lot of night work and making sure two parallel routes are not closed simultaneously. He will have the power to veto proposed lane closures if the timing is not right or if they will compound delays caused by closures from another project.
Another goal will be to respond to accidents or breakdowns that can quickly turn a delay into a disaster.
"We need to be ready to pounce down and clear the roadway ASAP," Nicholson said. "The system is so sensitive that it just takes a fender bender to disrupt everything."
Nicholson acknowledged that the projects, no matter how well coordinated, are going to be tough to deal with -- for him and for commuters.
"But we can't put them off," he said. "We're already in a gridlock situation."
