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| Take Action: Sign up to get our updates. Contact your local elected officials and write a letter to the editor (use information below for talking points) |
| Update: Nov 11, 2004 |
| Loudoun
County considered putting their portion of the WTC back on their transportation
plan in 2004 but the effort lost steam in May when citizens opposed it by the
hundreds. The Board sent the resolution back to the Planning Commission. Other
pieces of the project survive in the Tri-County
Parkway and Manassas Battlefield Bypass
studies. On Nov 1, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) put out a request for information from private companies interested in building the WTC through a public-private partnership. The deadline is Jan 14, 2005. The highway and development currently under consideration in Loudoun county can be used to justify one another. |
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We want more convenient ways to get to work and do errands. Some road projects can help improve traffic and our quality of life, but not every road will. Outer Beltway projects like the Western Transportation Corridor (WTC) are sometimes prioritized despite the fact that they do not relieve traffic and they take billions of dollars away from transportation projects that will help. The Western Transportation Corridor is a proposed $1.5 billion highway west of Washington's suburbs and it is part of the Outer Beltway. It would stretch more than 50 miles through Fauquier County, western Prince William County, and Loudoun County west of Dulles Airport. Many of the proponents of the highway are developers who need a road through semi-rural areas to make those areas viable for development. Dulles Airport is also a proponent seeking to attract freight. VDOT's own studies show that the road would do little to relieve traffic congestion on the Beltway or I-66, and it would actually increase traffic on several congested roads since it would open new areas to development (a phenomenon called induced traffic). |
 Map of the Western Transportation Corridor from the 1997 Major Investment Study. Click for a large map |
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Instead of building the WTC, we should be funding fixes to our current traffic problems on I-66, Rt. 7, Rt. 50, and local roadways. We should plan development to reduce driving and increase opportunities locally to walk or take transit and to accomplish multiple errands in one trip. |
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Related Issues:
Manassas Battlefield Bypass (a piece of the
WTC)
Tri-County Parkway (a piece of the WTC)
Outer Beltway
Roads & their impacts
Techway
Transportation
More Information:
Arguments against building the WTC
Who wants the WTC?
Induced Travel
