HOT Lanes Will Devour Acres of Beltway's Trees

Motorists along the western flank of the Capital Beltway in Virginia this month have enjoyed one of the more spectacular fall foliage seasons in recent memory. It is likely to be their last.

Construction has begun in earnest on four high-occupancy toll lanes from the Springfield interchange to just north of the Dulles Toll Road. And residents and drivers alike, local officials say, should prepare for a stark transformation of the Beltway from leafy thoroughfare to concrete canyon.

"The Beltway is going to be a far different facility than what it is now, both in appearance and in operation," said Fairfax County Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock). Her district includes such on-the-Beltway communities as Ravensworth, North Springfield and Annandale Terrace.

State officials agreed years ago to minimize the taking of private property by confining construction of HOT lanes to the state highway department's existing property along each side of Interstate 495. The downside of that decision, critics said, is that there will no longer be a buffer of trees between residential neighborhoods and the lanes of a highway expected to accommodate 320,000 vehicles each day by 2020.

In recent weeks, the plentiful rainfall of early 2008 yielded a particularly brilliant display of yellow, orange and red so close to the Beltway that the corridor's hardwood canopy of oak, hickory and maple dumped piles of leaves into traffic.

"We've had leaves, we've had a buffer," said Norma Heck of the North Springfield neighborhood, which borders the southwestern corner of the inner loop between the Springfield Mixing Bowl and Braddock Road. Heck has lived in her home since 1956, before the Beltway was built. "We've had our compromises. When they put eight lanes in, we got our sound wall and a buffer. But this is crossing a line. It's going to look terrible, and for what? So people driving in from Woodbridge and Fredericksburg can get to Tysons Corner 20 minutes faster?"

Commuters, neighbors and conservationists have reacted with shock and dismay since the summer, when the partnership between Virginia, Fluor Corp. of Texas and the Australian company Transurban broke ground on the $2 billion, 14-mile widening project. Residents' pique focused on staging areas being cleared to accommodate construction equipment near interchanges at Braddock Road, Interstate 66 and Georgetown Pike, among other spots.

But that's just the beginning. State highway officials estimate that by 2012, the project's scheduled completion date, 158 acres of trees will be cleared along each side of the highway. By next fall, much of that acreage will be treeless. Most of the clearing will occur along the southernmost portion of the project, in Bulova's district, where the greatest concentration of residential neighborhoods lies, and along the northernmost part, in McLean. In between, through Tysons Corner and Merrifield, past major interchanges at routes 7 and 50, there is already plenty of concrete and less tree buffer to lose.

The result, overall, will be a Beltway that looks more like the Mixing Bowl -- a panorama of concrete, asphalt and steel -- than the leafy corridor now in place.

State officials have acknowledged that they could have done a better job early on getting the word out about just how far the clearing of trees would go and when it would start. Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer has pledged to replant the staging areas that have been cleared and to install sound walls beyond minimum federal standards along certain parts of the corridor. There is little to be done, however, about the buffers to be lost. That decision dates to 2002, when public outcry was fierce over the proposed taking of hundreds of homes and businesses. The state agreed to spare private land and confine the project to state right-of-way but as a result could no longer accommodate a new buffer zone beyond the travel lanes.

"It's a trade-off, and I don't think anyone would want to revisit the decision to protect private property," said Supervisor John W. Foust (D-Dranesville), who represents McLean. "But the state's outreach initially was very deficient. We've got to deal with the consequences of the plan we have."

The solution is grating for Foust and other county leaders who have embraced an environmental policy that includes tree preservation. The county's tree canopy is estimated to cover 104,000 acres, about 41 percent of the county's 400 square miles. Last year, the Board of Supervisors adopted a 30-year tree-planting campaign to increase the canopy to encompass 45 percent of the county by 2037.

The county will need to plant, or encourage private landowners to plant, an additional 2.6 million trees, or 20,400 acres of new canopy, to reach its goal. Losing 158 acres to the Beltway doesn't help.

Bulova -- who is campaigning to replace Gerald E. Connolly as board chairman once he assumes his new seat in Congress in January -- said she hopes to augment the goal to offset that additional loss. She has asked the Virginia Department of Transportation for an estimate of trees to be lost, which could reach into the tens of thousands, but she is still waiting for that number, she said.

"In order to widen the Beltway, we're going to have to lose some trees," Foust said. "And I think we have to widen the Beltway. That is the consequence. We'll make every effort to preserve whatever trees we can."