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shape the Washington metro area
Around the Washington metropolitan area, transportation is everyone's topic du jour. In the suburban counties surrounding Washington, and within the District of Columbia itself, the signs of growth are everywhere. Fueled by strong government-related business and high technology sectors, the region enjoys a vibrant economy that has led to steady growth in commercial and retail space, and residential development. With it has come steadily worsening transportation problems. As someone points out almost every day, the Washington area now experiences traffic congestion that is second in the U.S. only to Los Angeles.
In Northern Virginia, where transportation needs have been estimated at $11.7 billion over the next 20 years, the issue has become a major concern of voters for elections this month and next year. The transportation problems faced by the region have been driven by a period of long-term growth. A population increase of some 46% over the last 30 years will drive the region's population to more than 4.4 million by 2000. Employment has been growing even more rapidly during the same period, with an anticipated 30-year increase of more than 80% to a 2000 total of almost 2.8 million jobs.
The legacy of an extraordinary growth rate that has outstripped transportation investment and public policies that all too often have failed to control or direct growth can be found everywhere. Residential growth has spilled far out into rural counties in Maryland and Virginia, overwhelming road systems. Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Va., has become one of the region's largest office/commercial concentrations, while the adjacent corridor leading to Dulles International Airport developed into a massive concentration of commercial and residential development. Neither has any form of high capacity mass transit.
A few years ago the Washington Redskins abandoned Robert F. Kennedy Stadium for a new suburban stadium with only a bus connection to rail transit. The first game of the season this year produced a traffic jam of legendary proportions, with many furious fans unable to reach their seats until halftime, and some who gave up and went home without seeing the game at all. A popular feature in The Washington Post is the daily column on the region's transportation woes by "Dr. Gridlock."
With problems like these,...