Tag: capital beltway

Several Fairfax County Supervisors on Tuesday indicated support for a proposal to extend toll lanes through an 11-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway, despite concerns about neighborhood impacts and bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

During a Board of Supervisors Transportation Committee meeting Tuesday, Michelle Shropshire, the Northern Virginia megaprojects director for the Virginia Department of Transportation, provided an update and overview of the project.

The plan would offer two express lanes in each direction, starting on the western end near the Springfield interchange. The express lanes would continue eastward across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to the 295 interchange, and then there would be one express lane in each direction for the remaining section of the project to the Maryland Route 210 interchange, Shropshire said.

The proposal includes more than 7 miles of bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and would include a new bus route connecting part of Prince George’s County and Tysons.

The project, which is in its early stages and is subject to change, would relieve congestion, improve safety and create additional travel choices, Shropshire said. An initial traffic analysis found 2,400 more people would be moved during peak hours.

It also would still allow for the possible expansion of Metro across the Wilson Bridge, Shropshire said.

A ‘political problem’

However, the project’s fate is unclear, particularly because Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said it has a “pretty significant political problem.”

“The linchpin problem here is that Virginia has lost its capacity on this project to reasonably communicate with Maryland, and that’s unfortunate,” McKay said Tuesday.

WTOP has contacted Gov. Wes Moore’s office for comment on his position on the proposal.

In October, the D.C. area’s Transportation Planning Board will vote on whether to include the Virginia Beltway project in its regional Visualize 2050 transportation plan. The final plan is scheduled to be approved in December. The Virginia project wouldn’t be able to get funding from the federal government if it’s not included in the plan.

If the board doesn’t approve the plan, McKay said it may be four years before the project can be considered again.

“All the data and work that’s been done here is garbage because four years from now, we’ll be talking about how much worse delays, how much worse traffic is in this area, all new conditions that have to be reevaluated,” McKay said.

Support for the project at the TPB, Shropshire said, “does not mean that it is a vote for us to build the project right away and start moving dirt, but it’s about continuing with our process. It is continuing to refine the scope.”

Possibility for faster travel times

VDOT has been studying the corridor for years, starting with an environmental assessment initiated in 2022. The transit agency said the project would increase average speeds in the general purpose lanes, and result in faster travel times.

Shropshire said if the process continues, the next step would be a detailed traffic analysis that includes the impact on local roads, to “ensure that these adjacent roadways or parallel facilities would operate in an acceptable manner.”

Mt. Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck said the main issue he’s hearing from residents is “making sure that it truly has a net benefit to the communities that it’s, if you will, bisecting.”

As for the proposed more than 7 miles of bike and pedestrian infrastructure, Supervisor Rodney Lusk said the plans “are not as expansive as they could be.”

Still, local lawmakers signaled support to continue exploring the possibility of extending the toll lanes.

“As someone who uses this almost every day, it’s approaching gridlock, American Legion Bridge-style gridlock, in the PM heading toward Maryland and in the AM heading into Virginia,” McKay said.

Supervisor Dalia Palchik said the connectivity should be helpful to the economy because “we need housing. We need transportation. We need jobs, and we need them to be connected, right? And that’s what we hear from our community.”

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