The Arlington County Board on Wednesday [above] filed suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) over the High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes project proposed for Interstates 95 and 395. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has been determined to sell the existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) ride-sharing lanes to an Australian company in return for an up-front payment. Arlington officials claimed that in the rush to ram the project through the system, state and federal officials bypassed environmental laws. “I wish it did not have to come to this, but the County was left with no alternative,” Board Chairman Barbara A. Favola said in a statement. “We are encouraged that VDOT has elected to delay the project.”
The primary objection of officials in the liberal stronghold of Arlington is that this deal appears to favor automobiles over mass transit and could create additional noise that would bother residents living near the highway. Arlington has also been raising questions since 2005 about the potentially high cost of tolls, bottlenecks where the toll lanes end at the border with the District of Columbia, the safety impact of narrowing lanes and the impact on side street traffic patterns.
“While affluent commuters who drive alone will get improved access to existing, highly efficient transit and the HOV corridor, those who cannot afford the tolls will experience longer commutes,” the county board said in its statement. “The project will also worsen air quality in the region, particularly along the project corridor, disparately impacting low income and minority communities.”
The I-395 HOT Lane project, however, does not involve any new construction. An Australian tolling company, Transurban, will restripe and narrow the existing HOV lanes to include three lanes within the current space built with federal and state taxpayer dollars for two lanes. These lanes reverse depending on the time of day. Arlington’s suit claims that turning the eight-lane freeway into a nine-lane highway will make a significant difference in “harmful air emissions.”
FHWA granted VDOT a “categorical exclusion” to environmental requirements for the project, allowing the project to proceed more quickly. This allowed VDOT to skip nearly all of the mandatory public comment periods and minimize public input on the project. Arlington’s lawsuit claims that this analysis done to support the exclusion was insufficient and must be redone.
“The county cannot support the project unless the commonwealth agrees to postpone the agreement with Fluor-Transurban and properly and adequately models and evaluates the project in accordance with all applicable standards and guidelines in order to determine the project’s impacts on transit and HOV, traffic in the non-restricted lanes, and local streets,” Arlington County Attorney Stephen MacIsaac said. “We urge the state to ensure that the project is redesigned to reflect the new analysis and full range of impacts; and fund the mitigation of those impacts by incorporating the mitigation measures in the agreement with Fluor-Transurban.”
“We are encouraged that VDOT has elected to delay the project.”
um, but there’s already a huge amount of construction for it already underway.
Arlington’s suit claims that turning the eight-lane freeway into a nine-lane highway will make a significant difference in “harmful air emissions.”
oh bullshit!
The I-66 project HOT-lane project has not been started yet; it’s the beltway (I-495) that is well under way.
The residents of Arlington have a long history of resisting freeways, so this is not new. But the important point is that the rush to hand over toll roads to (foreign?) commercial entities is being streamlined by diminishing due process. From that perspective, I see this particular issue as part of a much larger, and thus much more disturbing, removal of due process in transportation issues.
This mania for privatization of our public roads is a massive leap backwards, and not a good one at all.
Why is it that seemingly every single plan to gang rape the average taxpaying motorist (speed cameras, red light cameras on 2 second yellows, and now this) is run by some Australian company?
“While affluent commuters who drive alone will get improved access to existing, highly efficient transit and the HOV corridor, those who cannot afford the tolls will experience longer commutes,”
How exactly will adding lanes lengthen anyone’s commute? The “affluent commuters” (talk about racial code words) won’t be using the lanes that “those who cannot afford the tolls” will be using.
This mania for privatization of our public roads is a massive leap backwards, and not a good one at all.
Can someone please go into this further? It seems as if certain groups are hellbent on privatizing everything, and not just roads.
The I-66 project HOT-lane project has not been started yet; it’s the beltway (I-495) that is well under way.
There isn’t an I-66 HOT-lane project. This is the I-95 and I-395 expansion and also HOT-lane project.
There are some proposals for minor spot improvements to I-66 inside the Beltway, and also a proposal for expanding I-66 outside near Gainesville. There were proposals for widening I-66 inside the Beltway in Arlington, but the environmental planning process allowed Arlington to kill that.
Summary of major VA projects here.
From that perspective, I see this particular issue as part of a much larger, and thus much more disturbing, removal of due process in transportation issues.
Really? Because I see transportation issues as having a continuing process of expanding “due process,” allowing an ever-increasing number of different elected boards, appointed boards, QUANGOs, community organizations, and every other stakeholder to weight in and slow a project through the planning and environmental process. (Besides Arlington and VDOT, there’s the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the Fredericksburg Metropolitan Planning Organization, among others.)
This proposal has already been in planning for 5 and a half years (since March 2004) before any ground has been broken, and that’s with it being, yes, streamlined because they’re not having to pave a bunch to get extra lanes, only restriping.
The “Categorical Exclusion” is a standard result under the National Environmental Policy Act process. It indicates that very little new construction expected to impact the environment is expected, so a Environmental Assessment or a more in-depth two-tier Environmental Impact Statement is not need. In this case, it was awarded because they’re only restriping to add a lane.
If it did involve new construction, then they’d have to do a two tier EIS, and it would take another 2 or 3 years, minimum, probably more like 4, until they could break ground. Arlington is upset that the state found a way to avoid new construction in an attempt to prevent Arlington from using its normal “don’t build anything anywhere” tactics of using the environmental process.
The same process massively slows down rail construction, too. You can’t do anything involving new rail or new major construction of highways without 8 to 10 years from planning start to end of the environmental process before you break ground.
This article misleadingly implies that a Categorical Exclusion is something special outside the normal process.
Here’s the FHWA introductory page on Categorical Exclusions. Here’s the EPA page on NEPA. It’s a fairly typical category of NEPA documentation, less stringent than the Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement.
VDOT and the NVTA and such are claiming that since there isn’t new construction, only re-striping the lanes to put three where there was two, there is not a significant environmental impact.
Arlington is countering by arguing that the project will not just make existing traffic move faster, but will add additional traffic, thus significantly affecting emissions and possibly air quality. Thus, they argue that at least an EA is required.
Per johnthacker “This proposal has already been in planning for 5 and a half years …[for].. only restriping.”
Long term, this approach ain’t going to work out well for the United States.
This mania for privatization of our public roads is a massive leap backwards, and not a good one at all.
My sentiments exactly–roads are basically a public utility–but I wish someone who knows more about it would do an editorial.
One resource to start with would be:
Private Toll Roads: Learning from the 19th Century
http://lsb.scu.edu/~dklein/papers/privateTollRds.html
Somebody just toss a few billion into Arlington so we can get on with whatever we need to do. It all comes down to money in the end. Salaries in the DC area already reflect the huge take so this should be no different.
Eventually GPS and RFID technology will enable pricing on the fly for all roads and cars nationwide. We’ll look back longingly at the days when all we needed was gas money and make the payments. Insurance will be adjusted upwards the more we drive and faster we get there.
At least with satellite TV we have 1000 channels to watch so we don’t need to go anywhere. Maybe we can have a channel that shows roads being driven 24 hours a day and we can pretend we are cruising the PCH one day and the Blue Ridge parkway another.
I’m not putting any of this trackingtonit on my bicycle, you can count on that.
“Why is it that seemingly every single plan to gang rape the average taxpaying motorist (speed cameras, red light cameras on 2 second yellows, and now this) is run by some Australian company?”
Cos our capitalists are more aggressive than yours. And haven’t gone quite as bust lately. Must admit it isn’t a trend I’m especially proud of, and this scheme in particular seems even more absurd than the others – we paint some white lines on a publically funded road and then charge tolls!
Ah well, the ticker code is TCL.AX if you want to buy into them.
Australians love of driving is similar to Americans and their government is a bit more aggressive in enforcing rules and regulations. There is obviously a financial incentive to the enforcement but there exists a strong desire for orderly conformity. This breeds industry where intrusion into the lives and activities of the average Joe is tolerated and encouraged. Same thing with the UK.
Where Redflex and the rest of them run into problems is the US system of 50 state governments and a federal constitution. You don’t get sign-off from one department or overseer. And local representatives are very sensitive to the reaction of the public. Unlike the UK or Oz these types of things are not a done deal for the masses.
So far there is a high degree of resistance to the electronic traffic cops because Americans feel they deserve to be challenged by an officer on the side of the road and more than a few see minor infractions as no big deal. If you’re late for work a little extra speed may be necessary. If the light turns yellow and you can make it, you do. Let’s not even go into roadside emissions scans that CA is proposing at stop lights.
It’s the revenue arrangements that get people rankled because it is viewed as a private company profiting from the ticket and raising the fine accordingly. If 95% of the fine went to the local gub’mint I submit there would be less outrage. But huge amounts of revenue flow to the company with the contract.
Can’t a local police force buy this system and run it themselves? The huge amount of revenue generated shows it would make money. As long as the populace didn’t demand it be withdrawn.