Free Republic

As contractors widen Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia, they produce tons of excess dirt. So do excavators digging basements for homes or leveling land for commercial projects or schools. Some of that dirt – no one knows how much – ends up on Fauquier County properties. Some county officials think it is way too much. “Fauquier County is becoming, if not has already become, the dumping ground for Northern Virginia's fill dirt. And it's obviously a huge problem. And it's affecting people's lives,” county supervisor Rick Gerhardt (Cedar Run District) said at April’s Board of Supervisors meeting, as residents complained...

Maryland transportation officials announced Thursday that they have selected Australian toll road operator Transurban to develop high-occupancy toll lanes for the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, potentially cementing the company’s dominance in the Washington region. If Transurban and its partner, Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital, ultimately reach a 50-year deal with the state to build and operate the lanes, Transurban eventually would control 102 miles of express toll lanes around the nation’s capital — 37 in Maryland and 65 in Northern Virginia. Connecting high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in the two states would mark the beginnings of a regional network of...

Gridlock on America’s roadways is increasing, according to the 2019 Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute – in part due to job growth that is “exacerbating” the nation’s traffic woes. As a result, over that 26-year period from 1982 to 2018: The number of hours per commuter lost to traffic delay has nearly tripled, climbing to 54 hours a year. The annual cost of that delay per commuter has nearly doubled to $1,010. The nationwide cost of gridlock has grown more than tenfold to $166 billion a year. The amount of fuel wasted sitting in stalled...

It doesn’t get much more Northern Virginia than this. Traffic woes and construction delays are daily gripes on the local Facebook group, “Western Prince William Chatter.” Then Steve came along -- and brought joy to the group's 20,000-plus members. "It seems he is the light at the end of the tunnel when you're STUCK in that horrible traffic! Thanks for entertaining us Steve and for those calling him Bob, just no," one Facebooker wrote. Before WPWC members gave him a name, Steve was simply known as a rubber tire crane. He came to the Manassas area to lift 10 concrete...

Commuters who live in western Prince William and Fauquier counties can leave the driving to someone else come Dec. 17 when a new bus begins round-trip service from Haymarket to Arlington. The “OmniRide Haymarket Express” will make four trips in the morning and four return trips in the afternoon and early evening. It will run along I-66 between Haymarket and the Rosslyn Metro station. The trips will originate from the new park-and-ride lot on the northeast corner of U.S. 15 and Interstate 66. The Monday-through Friday service is meant to give workers an alternative to traveling by car. It’s the...

When the 66 Express Lanes opened a year ago, officials promised the tolls would mean a smoother ride on the interstate, a major east-west thoroughfare from Northern Virginia into the District that is infamous for its headache-inducing congestion. The state’s promise — less congestion and faster travel times during rush hour — has been fulfilled for many commuters able to pay or carpool, but the new toll system has had an adverse effect for many of the remaining road users. For some commuters, the rush-hour period has simply shifted later — outside the toll hours — and dumped them onto...

WASHINGTON — Toll lanes around the Capital Beltway and I-270 in Maryland could be built in several separate phases and even operated by different companies under the latest plans released to industry insiders. It indicates Beltway construction could last for years. The first phase would include fixes for the Legion Bridge.A new document sent last week ahead of the next forum for private companies that could design, build and operate the lanes said that while Maryland eventually plans more than 70 miles of toll lanes from Frederick to Bethesda and from the Legion Bridge to near Oxon Hill, building out...

WASHINGTON — Extended Interstate 66 HOV hours and high morning tolls aimed at reducing the number of cars hitting a chokepoint passing the Dulles Connector Road appear to be the biggest drivers of traffic changes since tolls for solo drivers began in December.A new state review of traffic and tolling data on I-66 and parallel roads over the first six months finds more concentrated and severe eastbound traffic delays through the Rosslyn area now than in the same period last year between 8 a.m. and 9:15 a.m., but significantly reduced traffic jams on I-66 inside the Beltway elsewhere and during...

WASHINGTON — Routine sign replacement above an orphaned freeway in Foggy Bottom uncovered a roadside relic Thursday morning, evoking memories of an ambitious and contentious era in highway design.Cones were in place and two left lanes were blocked by 10 a.m. on the Interstate 66 Potomac River Freeway. Road crews with grinder saws and hammers were lifted by bucket trucks up to a weathered overhead structure behind the Kennedy Center.As strips of rotting plywood were pried off the face of a nearly 50-year-old sign, the outline of an Interstate 695 shield and two white arrows came into view, indicating a...

Two people are injured after a driver fled from a U.S. Secret Service officer before eventually crashing into an oncoming car in Northern Virginia, the agency said Sunday. The pursuit began when a Secret Service Officer sought to pull over a vehicle driving the wrong way on I Street NW in Washington, the agency said, according to a statement posted on Twitter by an NBC Washington reporter. Instead of stopping, however, the driver exited onto I-66 traveling westbound in the eastbound lane, according to the statement. The driver then collided with another vehicle traveling eastbound, before fleeing the scene on...

With Metro still tackling safety and operational issues, and toll rates occasionally hitting $40 or more on the Interstate 66 express lanes inside the Capital Beltway, tolerable options for commuters in Northern Virginia seem hard to come by these days. Kalai Kandasamy wants to offer an alternative. The cybersecurity and information technology consultant developed a Sluglines app in 2016 that helps prospective riders and drivers coordinate trips, and he believes that establishing slug lines in the I-66 corridor could alleviate travel headaches for some workers. “Slugging fills up those empty seats, and it’s good for the environment,” Kandasamy said. “It’s...

WASHINGTON — The two-year-old high-tech system that allows the Interstate 66 “red X” lanes to be opened outside of rush hour will be taken down within the next 12 months, WTOP has learned.The active traffic management system, which includes digital signs over each lane on a stretch of about 12 miles of I-66 just outside the Capital Beltway, cost $39 million. Work began in 2013; the system was first activated in September 2015.Construction on two HOV or toll lanes in each direction between the Beltway and Gainesville is set to ramp up this spring, and that will disrupt the system....

FAIRFAX, Va. — Both Interstate 66 tolls for solo drivers and expanded HOV hours have not slowed traffic on most major parallel routes during the morning rush hour, Virginia transportation officials said Tuesday.A new analysis — which found the average daily toll paid in January was $12.37 — also showed that even an increased number of cars on some roads like U.S. Route 50 did not significantly change travel times in January, compared with the same time a year earlier.“What we’re still seeing is the project is working as intended,” said Nick Donohue, Virginia’s deputy transportation secretary.The Virginia Department of...

WASHINGTON — With construction on new toll lanes ramping up this year on Interstate 66 between Gainesville and the Beltway, Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board is due to approve a number of projects next week that will be paid for by the toll lane operators. After a public hearing Thursday, the board is due to vote Jan. 10 on how to spend $496 million of a $579 million payment that Express Mobility Partners gave the state as part of the construction agreement. An additional $79 million is due to go toward oversight of the project, including public outreach, and there is...

WASHINGTON — About two years ago, during the last big debate over Interstate 66 rush-hour tolls for solo drivers, there was a lot of talk about $17 round-trip tolls. Virginia’s transportation secretary said this week that the tolls drivers have seen inside the Beltway so far remain in line with those projections. New data the Virginia Department of Transportation provided Thursday from the first day of tolls on Monday morning show the average morning toll for drivers who paid with an E-ZPass, or who will get automated violation notices in the mail, was $10.70, while the average afternoon toll paid...

Drivers in metro Washington, D.C. are experiencing the new realities of commuting in the U.S., and it’s not pretty: It cost drivers $40 to drive 10 miles on I-66, a main commuter route into the nation’s capital from the western suburbs in Northern Virginia, at one point this week. Is this the future for private car owners across the U.S.? The answer is yes. Tolls on public roads aren’t new. But the I-66 toll, which fluctuates based on demand and doesn’t have a ceiling, is by far the most expensive per mile. This toll at “the peak of the peak...

Outraged Washington, D.C.-area commuters and politicians took to social media Tuesday to blast a new tolling scheme on a busy interstate heading from Virginia into the nation’s capital, as fees along the route peaked to an eye-popping $40 during the morning rush hour. The Interstate-66 tolling plan, which launched Monday, opens up express lanes on the highway in northern Virginia to single drivers, as opposed to just carpoolers. But the sticker shock prices being posted on electronic signs along the roadway led some commuters and residents to give the roadway a new nickname. “This is #highwayrobbery. People are just trying...

WASHINGTON — Drivers on eastbound Interstate 66 saw tolls fluctuate frantically and top out at almost $35 during the Monday morning commute, the first with dynamic tolling on the highway. Rush-hour tolling began at 5:30 a.m. and early morning drivers saw tolls at around $3.50. Within an hour, the tolls had risen to $10 and eventually reached $34.50 at the height of rush-hour. By 9 a.m., prices were back down to below $10, said WTOP’s traffic reporter Dave Dildine, who spent the morning driving on I-66 to report the latest conditions. “It’s going to take some time for us to...

WASHINGTON — Drivers on eastbound Interstate 66 saw tolls fluctuate frantically and top out at almost $35 during the Monday morning commute, the first with dynamic tolling on the highway. Rush-hour tolling began at 5:30 a.m. and early morning drivers saw tolls at around $3.50. Within an hour, the tolls had risen to $10 and eventually reached $34.50 at the height of rush-hour. By 9 a.m., prices were back down to below $10, said WTOP’s traffic reporter Dave Dildine, who spent the morning driving on I-66 to report the latest conditions. “It’s going to take some time for us to...

Thanks to Del. Kaye Kory for sending me this; I strongly agree! I’d add that anyone who thought it was a good idea to jam a bike/pedestrian right next to car and trucks on I-66 seriously needs to have their heads examined. WTF???COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA RICHMONDAugust 11, 2017The Honorable Aubrey Layne Virginia Department of Transportation Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor 1111 East Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219Re: I-66 HOT Lanes Shared Use Trail ObjectionsSecretary Layne:We are writing to express our opposition to the current design of the shared use path on Interstate 66 (I-66 Trail) proposed...