Too often, the "regional" transit agenda puts DC second or third

Steve Belmont's Cities in Full categorizes the WMATA subway system as polycentric and oriented to promoting sprawl, allowing for suburbanites to grab what they can from the city for work, and use the subway system to go back home with the goodies. (My characterization, not his.)

The initial planning for the heavy rail (subway) system in the DC region was in fact oriented to suburbanites, and was integrated with freeway planning that was intended to build I-70 (now I-270) and I-95 within the city limits.

In fact, many of the subway lines, not just the part of the Orange Line that runs in the median of I-66, were supposed to be built in the medians of freeways (this is true of the Green Line from Fort Totten to Greenbelt, and of the red line from Union Station to Silver Spring and beyond).

Early 1960s diagram for subway planning in Washington. Note the legend, "Rapid Rail Transit for the Motorist." They meant "suburbanite" when they used the word "motorist."

The region hasn't dropped the centrality of suburban concerns when it comes to planning for extensions to the WMATA system, to serve areas extremely far from the center of the region. Over the past few years there have been proposals to extend the WMATA system from Greenbelt to BWI Airport, and southward deeper into Prince George's County. And the expansion of the system to Dulles Airport is not an idea, but now is underway. ("Fort Meade proposes Metro extension: Master plan includes adding to rail line to accommodate new jobs" from the Baltimore Sun and "Plan for Metro to BWI Gaining Momentum" from the Post), and towards Charles County ("Prince George's Sees Andrews As Hub of Development" from the Post.)

With the ascension of former Fairfax County Chairman Gerald Connolley to Congress, there are new attempts to extend the WMATA heavy rail system westward. See from the Washington Business Journal, "Gerry Connolly, Jim Moran push rail extension in transportation bill."

(At a meeting I attended a few years ago sponsored by the Washington Business Journal and Greater DC Cares, then Chairman Connolley spoke, making the point that rapid transit in the region is biased towards the eastern side of the region, that the west needs more rapid transit connections, especially as that is where a great deal of the region's growth (a/k/a "sprawl") is occurring.)

Inside Nova reports on Connolley's latest efforts, in its "Lane Ranger" transportation blog, in this entry, "Leaders want Metro to Potomac Mills."

This isn't exactly insane, but it is close.

First, long distance trips of this distance may be better delivered through high capacity railroad passenger service.

Second, it could even be that light rail service focused on Fairfax and Prince William counties connecting to the extant subway system makes more sense in beginning to create a more dense network of transit within the region, one that is appropriately scaled to the type of trip, demand, and set of activity centers, origins and destination preferences.

Third, thus far every one of these efforts to extend WMATA INCLUDING THE SILVER LINE EXTENSION, propose to add demand--more riders--while failing to add capacity at the core of the system, and the core of the subway system is expected to reach capacity by 2025.

-- Metro Core Capacity Study

That means that the maximum number of trains with the maximum number of cars with the maximum number of riders with the maximum amount of platform and the maximum amount of escalators and staircases will be reached already, without any extensions and that extensions will further stress the system.

So if we extend the system further, without expanding the capacity of the core stations and lines to carry more riders/move more people, we are creating an even deeper crisis than we already have.

Fourth, it's bad enough that no one is really dealing with this issue, other than calling for adding bus service. Last I checked, one bus even an articulated bus 60 feet long, has less capacity than one subway car. So for bus service to make a difference we need at least 8 buses to equal one subway train.

Fifth, in 2003, WMATA gave up responsibility for planning expansions of Metro subway service. These responsibilities were turned over to the separate jurisdictions.

Sixth, the separate jurisdictions plan separately. With one exception (Arlington County), the separate jurisdictions do not plan for heavy rail expansion in a coordinated fashion. (DC hasn't stepped up to take on greater responsibility for transportation planning for the core of the subway system even though the city's competitive advantage as a place to live, work, and visit is fully dependent on an excellent subway system.)

The Silver Line extension to Dulles is a perfect example of this. The maximum capacity of trains using the tunnel between Rosslyn and DC is 26 trains in each direction, based on the amount of time it takes to move the switches between the blue and orange line tracks. This can be adjusted some if the blue line routing is changed, so that most trains do not go through Rosslyn. (See "A cheaper route to Metro core capacity, part 3: More complex service patterns" from Greater Greater Washington).

The planning for the Silver Line extension could have been used to add capacity to the system in new ways, had it been coordinated by WMATA. But it wasn't.

In this proposed configuration, the Silver Line could have been continued into DC as the "separated blue line" proposed by WMATA in 2001 but dropped in 2003 due to financial problems.

This map was produced for me by David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington. This map also shows a proposed brown line, as well as the configuration of the proposed Purple Line light rail service in Montgomery and Prince George's County in Maryland.

And this could have added another train crossing between Rosslyn and DC, easing capacity constraints on the current tunnel, which has a maximum capacity of 26 trains per hour depending on how many trains switch from one track to another.

But this wasn't done, because WMATA wasn't planning an expansion to the subway system. Instead, the State of Virginia was planning an expansion to the subway service in Virginia only, without taking any responsibility for issues outside of their limited scope of adding service to Dulles.

What do we do, when planners and elected officials refuse to take responsibility for these very pressing needs and realities--the subway system will reach capacity and we aren't planning to add more subway system capacity to deal with it.

This frankly is a far more serious problem than whether or not WMATA has a dedicated funding stream.