I-95 commuters won’t give up their cars, study shows

Virginia transportation officials have been studying the entire 179-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in Virginia, looking for ways to ease the highway’s notorious congestion.

• Of some 3,000 responses, 200 emails, and 40 in-person comments, residents were given options to include expanded transit, vanpool, telework options, and asked which solution would ease their trip on I-95.
• The most popular response was an extension of Metro, followed by expanding the Virginia Railway Express service.
• The third — “none of the above.”
• “That means they’re never going to take mass transit,” a Virginia Department of Transportation official told me Thursday night during a presentation of the study’s findings at Freedom High School in Woodbridge.

And, for the crowd that refuses to get to work any other way but driving alone, adding another lane to the highway would costly, and would do little to relieve congestion.

• Opening a new lane between milepost 118 in Thornburg and 170 in Springfield in 2030 would help alleviate congestion near milepost 143 in North Stafford, VDOT states.
• However, by 2040, the relief is all but lost as the lane fills up with new drivers that once commuted to work or school by carpool or transit, but now opt to drive.
• The same holds true if up to three new lanes were added in each direction, which would make the stretch of I-95 between Occoquan and Springfield one of the widest in the nation, at 17 lanes.
• “There isn’t a lot of difference, which surprised us,” the VDOT official continued. 

Plus, there’s the cost of the new lane — $12 to $13 billion per lane, in each direction.

Northern Virginia is the juggernaut of the state and will see its population grow by 20% by 2024.

• Half of the state’s population is anticipated to live between Fredericksburg and Washington, D.C. by then.

VDOT says there are some things they can do on the roads to try to ease delays, like add more overhead message signs that warn of crashes or adding more cameras to spot trouble.

• A quick removal towing service could be added to cut in half the time it takes to clear a crash from the highway, similar to what’s used on the I-95 E-ZPass Express Lanes.
• Variable speed limit signs could be used to better regulate the flow of traffic, so drivers don’t come up on a slow-down at high speeds and rear-end other drivers.
• These signs could reduce crashes by 30%, and increase the number of cars that travel safely on the highway by 7%, according to the study.

A final round of public meetings about the I-95 study will be held in November.

• VDOT is scheduled to present its final report to the General Assembly in Richmond when it reconvenes in January.