Beltway transit study will affect area
      by Theodore Kim
      The Gazette Staff Writer
      Apr. 26, 2000

      In one of the most sweeping road and mass transit analyses ever conducted
      of the region, the Maryland Department of Transportation has further
      broadened an ongoing transportation study of the Capital Beltway in an
      attempt to curtail the route's suffocating traffic.

      While the aim of the analysis is to explore long-term Beltway transit and
      transportation solutions for the entire metropolitan area, the findings
      will have lasting effects, in particular, on commuters in Silver Spring
      and eastern Montgomery County, where roughly 260,000 vehicles use the
      Beltway daily, according to recent state figures.

      The average for the entire Beltway is 200,000 daily vehicles, officials
      said. However, it is expected to balloon to more than 300,000 vehicles by
      2020, said Neil Pedersen, director of planning and engineering for the
      State Highway Administration.

      "People already know how bad things are," said Henry M. Kay, director of
      Planning and Programming for the Maryland Mass Transit Administration.
      "What people don't know is how much worse it's going to get."

      The efforts of state officials, begun in 1994, have already yielded a
      handful of conceptual proposals to ease Beltway traffic throughout the
      entire region, including adding new express bus routes and constructing
      High Occupancy Vehicle lanes.

      HOV lanes, which are intended to encourage individuals to commute
      together, are already in use on Interstate 66 and I-395 in Virginia, and
      I-270 in western Montgomery County.

      "We won't be able to build our way out of congestion," Pedersen said. "The
      reality is that we're going to have congestion no matter what we do. What
      we're trying to do is make it 'less bad.' "

      State officials are also exploring the option of creation of a new rail
      system - dubbed the "Purple Line" by lawmakers - that loops the
      metropolitan area, generally following the path of the Beltway.
      A total of six light rail (trolley) and heavy rail (subway) concepts are
      now being considered, although the design of specific routes and station
      locations are years away from materializing, officials said.
      As currently sketched, all six options would cut through parts of the
      Silver Spring area, with several proposed routes running north of the
      Beltway, and others near the District border.