🚀 go-pugleaf

This widening affects the adjacent Custis Trail, and any future
widening could severely degrade the adjacent trails, including the
W&OD.  Please forward far and wide.

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ATTEND VDOT PUBLIC MEETING WED, SEPT 26, 7-8:30 PM @ WASHINGTON-LEE HS
CAFETERIA

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is holding a public
meeting this Wednesday evening, September 26, 2007, from 7:00 to 8:30
PM, in the Washington-Lee High School cafeteria (1300 N Quincy St,
near Ballston Metro) to provide a status report on the preliminary
design of it's I-66 "Spot Improvements" project.  Various aspects of
this project, including right-of-way drawings, will be displayed in an
open-house format, and a brief presentation and question-and-answer
session will begin around 7:30 PM.  Once again, VDOT has released very
little project information in advance of this public meeting.

If arriving by auto, use the parking deck above I-66, where a
pedestrian bridge connects to Entrance #7 of the high school. The
Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation (ACST) will be
stationed in Room 126, immediately outside the cafeteria.

If this construction is ultimately approved, this $76 million project
could add four miles of a third westbound lane to I-66 at three
disconnected locations: from the Spout Run (Lee Hwy) entrance to the
Glebe Rd exit, from the Fairfax Dr (Glebe Rd) entrance to the Sycamore
St exit, and from the Washington Blvd (East Falls Church) entrance to
the Dulles Connector Road exit.

Please attend the VDOT meeting to learn about this project and how it
would impact our community. Also, please submit written comments
describing your concerns and criticisms for the public meeting record
(info near bottom).


ARLINGTON COALITION FOR SENSIBLE TRANSPORTATION (ACST) POSITIONS ON
THE I-66 "SPOT IMPROVEMENTS"

1) NO WIDENING WITHOUT A COMPREHENSIVE CORRIDOR PLAN: The Arlington
Coalition for Sensible Transportation (ACST) firmly opposes the "spot
improvements" as unnecessary, unwarranted, counterproductive, and
"arbitrary and capricious".  As ACST has maintained since 1999, no
significant changes to I-66 should be made until a comprehensive plan--
developed with sound technical analyses and extensive public input--is
adopted for this major multimodal corridor. Twice previously, in
October 2001 and in May 2004, the National Capital Region
Transportation Planning Board had authorized VDOT to conduct funded
multimodal corridor studies, but the first study was never initiated
in 20 months, and the second study, dubbed "Idea-66", was clearly
manipulated to recommend the third westbound travel lane requested by
Congressman Frank Wolf. In fact, VDOT's Idea-66 Study clearly showed
that expanded HOV hours and/or automated tolls-- permanently ensuring
uncongested travel--and enhanced bus service are each superior overall
to another westbound travel lane.

In June 2007, the Commonwealth Transportation Board authorized the
Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) to
initiate a third multimodal corridor study for I-66 inside the
Beltway; however, this study will not get underway until after the
preliminary (30%) design of the three "spot improvements" is completed
this coming winter.


2) VDOT MUST COMPLY FULLY WITH THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT
(NEPA):  NEPA mandates that all federally funded projects adequately
consider all reasonable alternatives to the proposed "action" as well
as all significant impacts to the natural and human environment.  ACST
contends that both VDOT's pursuit of "interim spot improvements" and
the specific "improvements" being pursued are "arbitrary and
capricious".  VDOT's March 2005 "Idea-66" report (posted at [http://
www.idea66.com]) hardly discussed *any* "spot improvements", much less
the three on-ramp-to-off-ramp third-lane segments now being designed.
Moreover, VDOT has yet to issue a "Purpose and Need Statement" for
this project or any other written information about its required
environmental study.  VDOT evidently concocted the three "spot
improvements" in mid-2005 as a way to spend Rep. Frank Wolf's $27.6
million in federal (SAFETEA-LU) earmarks by minimizing NEPA
requirements.

The lack of a "Purpose and Need Statement" for this VDOT project
impedes meaningful discussion and analyses of the proposed widening
and reasonable--and likely superior--alternatives to it; however, ACST
maintains that VDOT has been derelict in failing to adequately
consider any alternative "spot improvements".  For example, to improve
highway safety, police enforcement, incident management, and emergency
evacuations and to possibly move buses when the travel lanes are
congested, VDOT could simply provide a continuous 12-ft wide inside
paved shoulder, instead of third-lane segments with substandard,
narrow inside shoulders at multiple locations.  Alternatively, or in
addition, VDOT could advance shorter on-ramp extensions and/or provide
extra police enforcement locations as superior spot improvements.  TO
ADEQUATELY COMPLY WITH NEPA, VDOT MUST FULLY AND FAIRLY STUDY SUCH
ALTERNATIVE SPOT IMPROVEMENTS AND PREPARE AT LEAST AN ENVIRONMENTAL
ASSESSMENT FOR ITS PROPOSED ACTION.


3) VDOT'S PROPOSED WIDENING WOULD WORSEN TRAFFIC CONGESTION AND SAFETY
AND WOULD DEGRADE OUR ENVIRONMENT: VDOT is using a badly flawed
traffic-modeling process to rationalize the proposed spot
improvements.  Instead of first forecasting future traffic volumes
with a trip-generation model (used in the previous Idea-66 study),
VDOT has used a computer simulation of only *2005 traffic volumes* to
"demonstrate" that the proposed spot improvements would reduce traffic
backups along westbound I-66, would not greatly worsen traffic
movements at nearby intersections, and would be more effective than
shorter on-ramp extensions.  VDOT MUST USE A VALID TRIP-GENERATION
MODEL TO APPROPRIATELY MODEL TRAFFIC IMPACTS AT THE FOLLOWING
LOCATIONS: 1) ALONG EACH WIDENED I-66 SEGMENT AND THE CONNECTING
FREEWAY SEGMENTS IMMEDIATELY EAST AND WEST, 2) ALONG EASTBOUND I-66
(where traffic congestion is already worse), AND 3) AT NEARBY
CONNECTING INTERSECTIONS (including on Lee Hwy, Glebe Rd, Sycamore St,
and Route 7).  IN ADDITION, VDOT MUST SHOW HOW CREATING TWO NEW
BOTTLENECKS (just west of the low-volume Glebe Rd and Sycamore St exit
ramps) AND NARROWING SAFETY SHOULDERS WOULD AFFECT TRAFFIC CONGESTION,
SAFETY, AND INCIDENT MANAGEMENT.  By inducing new auto trips and auto-
dependent development while not improving or incentivizing non-auto
travel, the proposed spot improvements would increase noise, water,
and air pollution, including global warming carbon dioxide emissions.


FOR MORE INFORMATION: Please visit ACST's website [http://
www.acstnet.org] and blog [http://www.acstnet.blogspot.com] .  VDOT
has a new project website at [http://www/i-66spotimprovements.com] and
a project telephone "INFO" line (1-888-643-3266), but the previous
Idea-66 feasibilty study and the 2006 traffic modeling study remain
posted at [http://www/idea66.com] .

PLEASE SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS, no later than October 10, 2007, to:
Mr. Jeff Daily, P.E., Project Manager, Virginia Department of
Transportation, 14685 Avion Parkway Chantilly, VA 20151 Phone:
703-383-2205, Email: Jeff.daily@vdot.virginia.gov .

UPCOMING PUBLIC MEETINGS: Speak out for a wiser I-66 at the following
additional meetings.  Partial funding to build the I-66 "spot
improvements" is already included in VDOT's current Six-Year
Improvement Program (SYIP) and is proposed for the Washington region's
FY08-13 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Please voice your
opposition to this wasteful and destructive use of scarce
transportation improvement funds.

1) Thursday, October 11, 7-8 PM, public forum on the FY08-13 TIP for
the Washington Metropolitan Region, Metropolitan Washington Council of
Governments, 777 N Capitol St NE, Suite 300, Washington DC 20002 (near
Union Station Metro).  Learn more at [http://tinyurl.com/2nf7d2] .

2) Tuesday, November 13, 6:30-8:00 PM (briefings begin at 5 PM),
Commonwealth Transportation Board fall public input meeting for
FY09-14 SYIP, Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government
Center Parkway, Fairfax 22035. See VDOT news release at [http://
tinyurl.com/35gnd2] .


Allen Muchnick, president
Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation
PO Box 5574, Arlington VA 22205-5574
703-271-0895
info@acstnet.org
http://www.acstnet.org
http://www.acstnet.blogspot.com