Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus
Except that there's already VRE operating in that exact corridor. It would be much less expensive to improve that VRE line to something approaching Metro level of service than to build a whole new facility.
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I'm speaking in relatives. To lump these extensions together as if they are all vital parts of the regional transportation plan, as Connolly and Moran seem to be doing, is a bad idea. Obviously some have better merits than others. In order to properly evaluate priorities, the benefit of all possible projects must be considered.
This notion of "bridges to nowhere" is stupid, because once the bridge is built, the private sector comes in, builds stuff on the other side, and then the bridge does not go to nowhere anymore. If sufficient demand is present in the market, then development will come to fill the constraints of infrastructure, as society dictates its terms through land use policies.
Anyway, in the list of priorities for the DC area, these projects do indeed seem quite low. But to dismiss them entirely seems short-sighted and does not allow for the phenomenon of induced growth, which powered the growth of inner cities and, later, suburbia. Only now are American governments in a "catch-up" mode where investments address existing congestion without providing for future growth. The rise of town centers along DC's Metro lines is an amazing latter-day example of induced growth caused by transit rather than highway. I see no reason why this trend should not continue in a city that has come to regard major TOD as the normal state of affairs.