Transportation Vision for Alexandria

The following paper was drafted by Poul Hertel.  Poul serves on Alexandria's transportation task force.

Goal  1

Ensure that people can travel within the City of Alexandria by providing a mass transit system that combines different modes of travel into a seamless, comprehensive and coordinated effort.      

Objective

As congestion increases mass transit will become more desirable if it provides a time saving. In order to ensure such possibilities, the City needs to take steps to make sure the mass transit system is quicker than the alternative modes that will be available.  

§         Relative fastest

§         Most reliable

§         Most encompassing (coverage)

Policy

The City will:

§         Pursue the use of dedicated transit lanes.

§         Identify the routes for dedicated lanes and ensure that any approved zoning plans and approvals do not preclude their implementation.

§         Will maintain HOV-lanes and convert them to bus only lanes or dedicated transit ways.

§         Work with neighboring Jurisdictions to ensure that systems they are contemplating are able to integrate with the dedicated transit lanes system.  

§         Create TMP zones to coordinate efforts to support the system.

§         Integrate existing buses with new transit system.

§         Build smart stations that will serve the new system.

§         Use technology and newest techniques to enhance the transportation system.

Rationale

A significant increase in personal income through out the fifties and sixties resulted in a major change in the understanding of how urban development takes place. The rising income had provided more people with alternative transportation modes and as a result, transportation facilities and services were no longer the dominant explanation for where people and businesses choose to locate. The Automobile had “freed the family so that it can afford to weigh other factors in the selection of a home”[1]. The time constraint was of no consequence. Since, “most areas in metropolitan areas are serviced by highways. The difference in accessibility as between on place and another may only be a few minutes.”[2]

However, as growth rates started to exceed the roadway capacity, the time factor again became important in determining where people choose to live as congestion and time delays grew. Studies now suggest that the medium distance commuters (i.e. Alexandrians) value their time most highly because long distance commuters have made residential location decision that attach less importance to longer travel times than many who prefer to live closer to work. Alexandria is at the crossroads of considerable through traffic from the surrounding jurisdictions, and as they grow so will the congestion on Alexandria streets. This suggests that Alexandria residents will be the ones most frustrated by regional growth.

The 1992 transportation plan tried to solve the problem by enhancing the throughput capacity of thoroughfares in the City of Alexandria. However, providing more capacity for through traffic does not seem a viable option to ensuring internal mobility within the City of Alexandria in the long-run.

Furthermore, recent experience elsewhere, raises questions about the viability of such an approach. According to the Brookings report, “A region cannot build its way out congestion once peak-hour congestion has appeared there”[3]. In theory, increased capacity should speed up traffic. “Unfortunately, once peak-hour congestion has appeared, building new roads or expanding existing ones there does not reduce the intensity of such congestion much in the long run”[4]. For many people that had previously avoided the area will now use it, and developers would take advantage of the short run perceived increase in mobility. “These forms of induced demand would reduce much of the hoped for gain in capacity from building more roads”. Finally, “The reality is that there are too many people seeking to use the roads at the same time each day for this approach to work without enormous financial and environmental costs”[5].

Creating More Transit Capacity

“Public transit has certain fundamental characteristics that directly affect its ability to cope with peak hour traffic congestion”[6]. Whatever the form, it does require a relatively high level of density at either its points of origin, destination, or both. Unfortunately, the residential patterns dominant in the suburbs involve relatively low densities especially in the areas where a significant amount of the through traffic originates. Furthermore, buses   comprise a significant percentage of the transit, use the same roads as the cars and have frequent stops, which add to the congestion.

Commuting on transit is usually more time consuming than a trip in a car and therefore less appealing. This is because transit has certain inherent characteristics. These include having to get to the stop, waiting at the stop, stopping several times, sometimes transferring, and getting from the final stop to the final destination. “Consequently, in 2000, the average commuting trip in the United States required 47.7 minutes versus only 24.1 minutes for such trips by private vehicles driven by single occupants and 28.6 minutes for trips in carpools”[7].

 “Expanding transit capacity rarely reduces existing roadway traffic congestion that has reached high levels of intensity”[8]. Because the initial increase in speed on the road caused by the diversion to the transit will not last. In the short run, drivers who had formerly been traveling on other routes or other times or on other modes will replace drivers who initially switched to the mass transit. In the long run, more firms and people are encouraged to move to the region by the increased building activity and transportation network. Consequently, the induced demand soaks up the excess transportation capacity and as a result, the traffic is again congested.

So why transit and dedicated transit lanes?

The expansion of transit and dedicated transit ways, gives the residents of Alexandria alternative modes of travel. This is significant, since a reduction in the intensity of the peak hour traffic congestion is not a realistic long-term aspiration according to the Brookings Institution. Therefore, Alexandria needs to insure the long-term mobility of its residents while maintaining the quality of life. By emphasizing long-term investments in a system based on dedicated transit ways goes along way towards ensuring that.  

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