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Spotlight Project:
Advancing potential improvements.
The Commonwealth Transportation Board has advanced several “improvement concepts” for further consideration and detailed study as part of a comprehensive effort to enhance transportation safety and travel reliability in the I-66 Corridor west of Interstate 495 in Northern Virginia.
Two of the concepts that will be further developed under the environmental review process are Managed Lanes (ML) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Both concepts are potential candidates for the PPTA project delivery method and satisfy all of the detail-level project desirability criteria outlined in the PPTA Implementation Manual and Guidelines (Manual), which include addressing a clear public need, generating public benefits, and demonstrating market demand for PPTA delivery.
Traffic congestion will continue to worsen unless major improvements are made.
Despite highway expansion in the I-66 Corridor, up to two-thirds of the corridor roadway operate at a poor level of service during peak a.m. and p.m. hours. By 2040, peak period congestion in the eastern portion of the corridor is expected to increase to 8-10 hours per day (each direction) affecting vehicular operations as well as the reliability of bus transit services.
Adding capacity, easing chokepoints, delivering more travel choices.
Improvements under consideration would widen the road, provide multi-modal options and possibly finance the project through tolled express lanes, similar to the I-495 Express Lanes. The goal is to make I-66 a better transportation facility so that motorists and commuters save time and money, while cutting down on the stress of waiting in traffic.
Improvements already moving forward.
The following improvements are underway, recently completed or planned for the I-66 Corridor. Details are available at www.virginiadot.org/projects
- Active Traffic Management – underway
- Widening from Route 29 at Gainesville to Route 15 in Haymarket – underway
- Spot improvement 2 inside Beltway – underway
- Bus ramp at Vaden Drive – begins late 2014
- Route 28 interchange improvements – preliminary engineering underway
- Route 15 interchange improvements – begins in late 2014