The Washington Post 097 20100926

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The highlights from N.Va. Transportation Alliance projects

day about 5:30 p.m. at Metro Center, I waited for the Red Line train to Glenmont for about 10 minutes. During that time an eight-car

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empty train went toward Glen- montwhile the platform gotmore and more crowded. Meanwhile several trains proceeded toward the other end of the line. IsMetro simply moving the empty train to the yard and then sending it back toward Shady Grove? Whilesomeof us were trying to

get on a train, finally, the driver angrily told us to let passengers get off first. Oncewewere aboard, he angrily told us to stand clear of the doors, etc. He should have been yelling at his bosses. —John Fay, Wheaton

From the timing, that empty ROBERT THOMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Some of the clearing and construction in what is still a preliminary stage ofHOTlane work on both sides of the Beltway in Tysons Corner. 2012.

BY ROBERT THOMSON Each year, the Northern Vir-

ginia Transportation Alliance in- vites leaders in regional trans- portation to report on important developments in their area of expertise. They get five minutes each, so they distill their com- ments down to the most impor- tant changes and challenges. Here’s what they highlighted at last week’s session.

I-66 corridor The Virginia Department of

Transportation has been target- ing problem areas inside and outside the Capital Beltway. l In June, VDOT began the

first of several planned spot im- provements to add capacity on I-66 west inside the Beltway. The first is between George Mason Drive/Fairfax Drive and Syca- more Street. It is scheduled to be done in December 2011. lThis summer,VDOT finished

widening I-66 in both directions out to Route 29 in Gainesville. l Construction will begin ear-

ly in 2011 on an interchange at Route 29 and LintonHallRoad in Gainesville. The project, sched- uled for completion in summer 2014,will remove a long-standing bottleneck. l VDOT plans to repave 6.5

miles of I-66 from the Beltway west to Route 50, with scheduled completion by fall 2012. l VDOT is launching a study

of topics that include greater transit service along the corridor, tolling, traffic management op- tions including high-occupancy vehicle and high-occupancy toll lanes and localized improve- ments on I-66 from the Beltway west to Route 15. A draft environ- mental impact statement on op- tions should be ready by June

Base realignment Tom Fahrney, VDOT’s coordi-

nator for problems stemming from the huge personnel shifts required by the federal Base Realignment and Closure pro- gram, focused on attempts to ease congestion likely to occur around Fort Belvoir and the Mark Center. l Two highway projects near

Fort Belvoir are well along. VDOT this month opened a two- mile extension of the Fairfax County Parkway. I-95 is being widened for six miles between Route 123 and the Fairfax County Parkway. A fourth northbound lane opened inDecember 2009.A fourth southbound lane is sched- uled to open this fall. lWork continues on ramps

and interchanges that will open up access between the parkway, I-95, and the federal bases as thousands of additional employ- ees arrive. l That effort around Newing-

ton “really pales in comparison to the issues we will have at the Mark Center,” Fahrney said. l Several proposed ways of

easing traffic at theMark Center, including an HOV flyover ramp connecting to I-395, have been rejected for lack of community support or engineering issues.

Road work A total of 78 projects will be

underway next year in Northern Virginia. Intersection improve- ments are planned at Route 29/ Gallows Road, Route 50/Court- house Road, the Fairfax County Parkway’s Fair Lakes Boulevard interchange and Route 28’s Wel- lington Road interchange. l Construction at Wellington

Road began this summer and is scheduled for completion in fall

2012. l Construction at Fair Lakes

Boulevard begins this fall and is scheduled to take three years. l Construction at Gallows

Road is scheduled to begin in early 2011 and be done by mid- 2013. l Construction of the Court-

house Road interchange is just being advertised to contractors and is scheduled to be done in summer 2013.

Virginia Railway Express Dale Zehner, chief executive of

the Virginia Railway Express, listedmajor changes in 2010, and additional plans for the rail ser- vice. l Despite several fare increas-

es, ridership grew in the past year. l For the first time since ser-

vice began in 1992, VRE changed operators, replacingAmtrakwith Keolis Rail Services America, the U.S. subsidiary of a company based in France. l VRE has 71 newrail cars and

one new locomotive in service, with 18 other locomotives sched- uled for delivery by June 2011, Zehner said. l VRE still must replace 30

aging rail cars, findmore storage space for rail cars, add more parking, provide platforms for longer trains, upgrade track — and find themoney to do all that.

HOT lanes Steve Titunik, communica-

tions director for VDOT’s Mega- projects office, updated the rapid changes in the region’s biggest highway project, the high-occu- pancy toll lanes construction along 14 miles on the western side of the Beltway. l The project, adding four

lanes and rebuilding 12 inter- changes, is scheduled for comple- tion in late 2012 or early 2013. l Construction of newbridges

has been completed at west- bound Braddock Road, east- bound Little River Turnpike, southbound Gallows Road, the Route 50 ramps, eastbound Lee Highway, Oak Street, westbound Route 7, the Beltway outer loop at Route 123 and eastbound I-66. l Scheduled for completion

this year are the westbound I-66 bridge, the Route 50 bridges and the inner loop bridge at Route 123.

thomsonr@washpost.com

train could have been the one Metro had to take out of service at Woodley Park because of a brake problem. All the passengers had to get off before the train was sent through to the repair yard. Losing one train at rush hour

isn’t just a discouraging sight to the people lining the platforms at rush hour. But it also means that all the passengers who had to get off the brokentrain will be crowd- ing onto the next fewtrains head- ing into downtown Washington, where the doors also will open onto jammed platforms. Door and brake problems are

leading causes of train failures. Passengers stress the doors by leaning against them or trying to hold them open. The brakes are under more stress because the operators are driving trains that were designed to be slowed auto- matically. I’ve been on crowded trains

where the operators yelled at us over the loudspeakers because a few passengers were misbehav- ing. So I can state that as a behavior-modification tactic, this is completely ineffective. Seems like everyone is in a bad mood at rush hour. Speaking of crowding on the

Red Line, have you noticed that there are fewer trains at rush hour? At the end of June, the transit

authority did what it has been discussing, although I wishMetro had pointed out the change to its customers at the time: The num- ber of trains in service was cut backandcarswereaddedto other trains on the line. In the new service schedule,

rush hour trains are 30 seconds farther apart between Grosvenor and Silver Spring — the busiest part of the line — than they were before June 27. There are 41 trains on the line,

JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST

On the Dulles Connector Road, an 80-foot aerial guideway will take Metrorail over theHOTlanes and the Beltway.

rather than 44. But there are a total of 284 cars, rather than 278. This is supposed to make the schedule more reliable while eas- ing the crowding. I’m not asking whether you’ve

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

hy doesMetro send emp- ty trains through during rush hour? On Wednes-

DR. GRIDLOCK Robert Thomson

breathing room on trains?

looked up at the arrival time boards on your platform and seen “3, 6, 9” under the column indi- cating how many minutes away the next three trains are. That would be asking a lot, given how easy it is to throw off the rush hour schedule with loadings and unloadings on crowded plat- forms. But do you feel that you have

more breathing room aboard the trains?

Combating distractions

Dear Dr. Gridlock: Here’s another twist on dis-

tracted driving: A man driving a luxury car through a crosswalk full of pedestrians while reading his Kindle. (Spotted onWashing- ton Boulevard in Clarendon.) —Kathy Seddon, Arlington Just this past week, transporta-

tion safety experts met in the District for a conference on dis- tracted driving convened by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray La- Hood.

Earlier this month, at an event Is there more, or less,

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

BUSINESS WIRE

Amazon’s Kindle, apparently a factor in driver’s distraction.

highlighting the continuing crackdown on aggressive driving known as the Smooth Operator program, I noted that police are linking aggressive driving and distracted driving. The consequences for the vic-

tims are the same, they said. “We have to stigmatize this

typeofbehavior,” said Capt.Susan Culin of theFairfaxCounty police. Education certainly helps, but enforcement—and awareness of enforcement — through such ef- forts as Smooth Operator are es- sential components of a safety program.

Dr. Gridlock also appears Thursday in Local Living. Comments and questions are welcome and may be used in a column, along with the writer’s name and home community. Personal responses are not always possible.

To contact Dr. Gridlock: By mail:Write to Dr. Gridlock at The

Washington Post, 1150 15th St.NW, Washington, D.C. 20071. By e-mail:

drgridlock@washpost.com. On the Dr. Gridlock blog:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/ dr-gridlock.

On Twitter: drgridlock. DRG’S TIPS

NEWYORKAVENUE The new bridge at 9th Street

NE, whose construction has been causing delays on New York Ave- nue, is scheduled to open in late January. In February, the District Department of Transportation will start demolishing the old bridge. The entire project at the bridge site is scheduledto bedone inMay. One lane of New York Avenue

NEwestboundfromFairviewAve- nuetothe9thStreetBridgewillbe closed this weekend and next as part of the roadway widening work along the avenue. This weekend’s lane closing is

scheduled to end by 6 a.m. Mon- day. Next weekend’s closing will

start at 9 p.m. Friday and end by 6 a.m. Monday, Oct. 4, when west-

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bound trafficwillmove into three newly built right lanes.

CONNECTICUTAVENUE Watch for nighttime utility

work that will temporarily close lanes on Connecticut Avenue be- tween Calvert Street andWoodley Road. The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority says itwill be installing a two-foot storm drain pipe on Connecticut Avenue over the next month, between7p.m. and1 a.m. During the construction, traffic

on Connecticut Avenuewill be re- ducedtoonelaneineachdirection betweenCalvert Street andWood- ley Road. There will be no street parking from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. in those blocks.

BELTWAY/TELEGRAPHROAD The Woodrow Wilson Bridge

project is opening several new ramps thisweekend as part of the reconstruction at theCapitalBelt- way’s Telegraph Road inter- change. The new ramps take traffic

from the Beltway’s outer loop to Telegraph Road North and the Eisenhower Valley and from the inner loop to Telegraph Road North.

DELAYS INLEESBURG Dominion Virginia Power

crews are once again scheduled to pull wires across roadways in the Leesburg area. Trafficwill be stopped for up to

20 minutes at a time from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday just west of Battlefield Parkway and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday at the intersection of Battlefield Park-

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way and Market Street (Route 7 Business).

SECURITYAROUNDPENTAGON Because the Pentagon Force

Protection Agency is extending employee checkpoints farther from the building Mondays through Fridays, people who use the Pentagon Metrorail station and the Pentagon Transit Center will encounter a new pedestrian pattern near the main visitor en- trance startingMonday. The security zone expansion

will restrict public access to two center walkways leading to the Pentagon’s visitor entrance. These new restrictions are

scheduled to remain in place till new screening facilities are fin- ishedin2012. Watch for new signs that guide

people between the train station andthe bus center. Next month, the Pentagon is

scheduled to install a temporary canopy over the walkway that leads to the Metrorail station’s south escalators.Until the canopy is installed, a temporary sign in- side the station will direct people to the north escalators during bad weather.

REVERSIBLE LANE SCHEDULE The southbound reversible

lanes on I-95/395 will remain open to all southbound traffic un- til midnight Mondays through Thursdays through Oct. 31, the VirginiaDepartment of Transpor- tationannounced. VDOT likes the way this sum-

mer schedule has worked out since itwas startedinJuly.

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Thedepartment says the sched-

ulegives southboundmotoristsan additional three hours to use the lanes and helps ease delays while crews repave I-95 between the Fairfax County Parkway and Route 123 inWoodbridge. Thereversiblelaneswill reopen

northbound at 2 a.m. The north- boundschedule isnot affected. Thereversiblelaneswillcontin-

ue toclose at 10a.m. sothey canbe reopened to southbound traffic at noon. These lanes are reserved for

high-occupancy vehicles during rushhours, andthere isnochange intheHOVschedule. HOV-3 (three ormorepeople in

a vehicle) remains in effect from6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., Mondays through Fri- days.

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