November 18, 2004
Welcome to Atlanta
It's now looking more likely that we will eventually have an Intercounty Connector linking I-95 to I-270. Add that to 7100 linking I-66 to I-95 in Virginia, and you already have half of an outer beltway, adding the Washington area to cities like Atlanta and Houston as cesspolls of sprawl and traffic where new highways simply add to congestion by increasing the number miles driven.
Traffic will not be solved by building concentric rings to help people move from satellite community to satellite community - it will only be solved by integrating outlying areas where the tech/defense/biotech boom has taken root (Dulles/270/Tysons) through the central city, not around it.
Does this mean that Washington should ease or eliminate the building height restriction for some parts of town to lower commercial rents? Perhaps. But what's for sure is that the way to make the area more liveable is not to encourage people to spend more time in their cars navigating a never-ending tangle of interstates and parking garages.
Posted by rj3 at November 18, 2004 9:21 AM
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