SUMMARY

 

This document analyzes the transportation bottleneck at the U.S. Route 29/Interstate 66 Interchange (the 29/66 Interchange) caused by the failure to match transportation-system capacity with land-use travel demand. The material highlights the status of one ramp on one interchange in Prince William County, Virginia.

 

The intent is not to single out one county or suggest that 29/66 is the only location where the breakdown of planning is leading to gridlock. The Gainesville Interchange is not an isolated case: The planning failure there will be repeated over and over unless citizens and their leaders start to consider the regional, sub-regional and community impact of an individual jurisdiction’s land-use decisions. My purpose is to show how far the existing public agency processes are from “balancing” land use and transportation and from reality. 

 

THIS INTERCHANGE PROVIDES CITIZENS WITH A WINDOW ON THE MUNICIPAL/STATE COORDINATION OF TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE IN VIRGINIA

 

It is hard for citizens to grasp the enormity of the ongoing land-use/transportation dysfunction that is “planned” by municipal jurisdictions (towns, cities or counties) on the one hand and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) on the other. But this gross malfeasance has a direct daily impact on their lives and they must do something about it before it reaches the point of no return. 

 

The following description of the 29/66 Interchange and its land-use context provides a window on the chaos resulting from the lack of meaningful coordination of land use and transportation throughout the Commonwealth. 

 

Let us assume you want to drive from Warrenton to a destination in the core of the National Capital Subregion -- Tysons Corner, Arlington, a Smithsonian Museum or the National Capitol. The shortest route would take you north on US Route 29 to Gainesville and then east on Interstate 66. 

 

In the following paragraphs, we examine the 29/66 Interchange in Gainesville between U.S. Route 29 and Interstate 66 and specifically the ramp from northbound US Route 29 to eastbound Interstate 66. We also profile the land-use context in which this interchange and ramp exist.

THE 29/66 INTERCHANGE PLANS

 

VDOT has been planning to “improve” the 29/66 Interchange for more that 20 years. However, the most recent plans developed in 2000 and 2001 actually did not change the number of lanes or the ramp configuration in the interchange itself – despite the fact that planned land uses served by the interchange could not be accommodated by the present configuration. 

 

The most recent VDOT plans proposed to improve traffic flow on highways adjacent to the interchange and make driving in the vicinity of the interchange safer. Specifically the 2000/2001 plans called for an elevated railroad crossing -- eliminating the at-grade Norfolk-Southern Railroad crossing. The plans also provided for a grade-separated interchange between Linton Hall Road and U.S. Route 29 just south and west of the existing 29/66 Interchange.  

 

We use the past tense in describing the most the recent plans because it turned out that the Gilmore administration vastly over promised road improvements and failed to identify the funds necessary to build most of the 20-year backlog of highway “plans.” This project, along with many others in the Commonwealth, is now in limbo for lack of funds.

 

Those who use the 29/66 Interchange in Gainesville when traveling to the core of the Sub-region are in for bad news: Even the proposed modest improvement in the highway interconnections in Gainesville described above has been put off indefinitely 

 

THE LAND-USE CONTEXT

 

This, however, is just the beginning of the story. While VDOT was planning only to modestly improve traffic flow and safety -- and not increase the capacity of the interchange itself -- Prince William County was planning not to lower the density of the planned adjacent land uses. As a result, the county’s land-use plans conflict with the 29/66 Interchange and surrounding infrastructure that it relies upon for access and mobility. 

 

The future land uses in that part of Prince William County between Manassas and Gainesville have been vastly “over planned” and “over zoned” for nearly 40 years. By “over planned,” I do not intend to imply that the area was planned too often or too well. I mean that the area was planned (and zoned) for far more intensive urban land uses than the market could possibly absorb. Consequently the uses which have been built (and will be built) are (and will be) scattered over the entire area. Of critical importance is the fact that there is no infrastructure -- including highways -- to support these planned and zoned land uses.

To understand the land-use/transportation conflict, it is necessary to examine the root causes of the land-use planning excess. In West Prince William, as is the case elsewhere, over planning and over zoning is a reflection of the unfounded hope that if a great deal of land is officially designated for “tax base”  land uses (office, retail, repair service, warehousing, fabrication and manufacturing, etc.), then someone will build these uses. “Zone it and they will come” is the basis for this fantasy. 

 

Some 14,000 acres of West Prince William has been planned and/or zoned for intensive urban land uses. That is enough land area for 10 Tysons Corners, not just the mall, but the whole 1,500-acre Tysons Corner urban complex. The “planned” intensity in West Prince William is much higher than Tysons Corner. A study in the mid-90s found that the existing planning provided for up to 20 times as much building area as Tysons Corner’s 35 million +/- square feet of non-residential space. 

 

Most of this land is now vacant, and the rest is currently devoted to scattered industrial, commercial and residential uses. The area in question is a triangle bounded on the east by Manassas and Manassas Park. To the south of this area is the extensive residential development -- existing and planned -- along Linton Hall Road between Gainesville and Manassas. To the north is Manassas National Battlefield Park and Conway Robinson State Forest. The 29/66 Interchange is in the western apex of the triangle.

 

The over planning and over zoning have been the focus of attention before. You may recall the specter of “Disneyopolis.” This was the name given by The Washington Post architectural critic Ben Forgey to the huge urban agglomeration that would have developed on this over-zoned land if Disney’s America had been developed at Haymarket just West of Gainesville.

 

It is also in this area where Prince William County approved Nissan Pavilion (nee Cellar Door) in 1994 on the site of a mostly vacant “industrial park.” When the Cellar Door proposal surfaced, this industrial site was home to a plumbing shop and an OverNite truck depot. At the time of the rezoning, Prince William professional staff and supervisors were provided with proof in the form of testimony and a report (Traffic Gridlock Will Arrive in West Prince William Through The Cellar Door. S/PI, 1994) that the site was not suitable for a major, auto-dependent recreation venue because of the lack of access. Cellar Door/Nissan Pavilion was approved by all but one supervisor in spite of the fact that there was no creditable basis for such action. 

 

Without Disney’s America as a catalyst, little has happened in the last eight years to the land planned and zoned for industrial and commercial uses around the 29/66 Interchange with the exception of projects -- like Nissan Pavilion -- which were initiated after Disney announced its intent to build and before it pulled out. 

 

While the employment uses have not materialized, the residential land that was to provide housing for the job holders in the projects located in West Prince William has been developed and expanded. Residential development has taken place along Linton Hall Road to the south as well as north of I-66 and west of Conway Robinson State Forest and west of Gainesville. This puts more and more long-distance commuters on the 29/66 Interchange because the job and service base in the Gainesville area has not materialized.

MATTERS ARE MADE WORSE

 

In an attempt to breathe life into stagnant, speculative commercial land investments in the Gainesville area, the supervisor representing the Gainesville Magisterial District formed a sector-plan task force and appointed its members. The majority owned vacant and underutilized land or represented owners of such land in the area. 

 

The Gainesville Sector Plan study area was limited to the western apex of the West Prince William triangle and area to the west of the 29/66 Interchange south of Interstate 66 and north of U.S. Route 29. Because of the proliferating agglomeration of “strip” development and related uses, some Gainesville residents hoped that the task force would provide a “new vision” for the Gainesville area. The over planning and over zoning described above had already attracted scattered, incompatible projects.

 

Instead, the task force shuffled the deck chairs to make some parcels, such as ones owned by task force members, more profitable in the short run.  By and large, they left unchanged the plans for millions of square feet of commercial and industrial land in the area around the 29/66 Interchange. In addition, they planned more intensive residential land uses in the area south of Haymarket and added a “town center.” The town center idea begged for an answer to the question: Of what “town” would this be the “center”? 

 

While the task force added a “town center,” they left the rest of the intensive retail and commercial land uses immediately adjacent to the 29/66 Interchange as previously planned. The retail commercial square footage in the Gainesville task force’s plan for the “town center” and the “regional center” would accommodate about four Tysons Corner Shopping Centers. They did not address what would happen to access and mobility if even some of this intensive retail and related commercial development materialized. 

 

It is clear that development as planned would precipitate a repeat of the traffic conflicts created by Springfield Mall and the adjacent uses being sited near the I-95/I-495 Interchange. Much less intensive development exists in Springfield than is planned for Gainesville. The Springfield agglomeration of retail and service uses which is one intersection away from the I-95/I-495 Interchange is contributing significantly to the half-billion dollar price tag for the current reconstruction of the Interchange.

 

Prince William County planners offered their own version of the plan for the 29/66 Interchange area which made only minor changes to the existing plan. In addition, a group of concerned residents developed a “resident’s plan” with significantly less commercial development, lower residential densities and a realistically scaled village center instead of the mammoth “town center” and “regional center.” The more modest and more realistic resident’s plan was largely ignored by the official County process.

On August 6, 2002, the Prince William Board of Supervisors approved the “replanning” of the Gainesville area by the citizen task force. Some of the regional press coverage suggested that this was a new plan. In fact, it was a warmed over plan that compounded past mistakes and failed to bring the land use into balance with the transportation facilities.

 

Again, on October 15, 2002, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors totally disregarded the balance of land use and transportation when it approved the rezoning of two major parcels to allow for intense urban development in the interchange area without addressing the cumulative mismatch with existing or planned transportation facilities.     

 

The Gainesville Interchange is not the only one that will grind to a halt in the I-66 Corridor in Prince William County. On 18 March 2003, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors in what was termed by the Prince William Times as “a Classic 5-3 land use vote” rezoned land at the next interchange west of the U.S. Route 29/I-66 Interchange. The US Route 15 Interchange at Haymarket is a simple diamond interchange that already operates at unsatisfactory levels of service due to drivers who avoid the US Route 29/I-66 Interchange backup by driving west and following U.S. Route 15 south to reach U.S. Route 29 south.

 

Again missing an opportunity to bring land use into balance with transport capacity, the Prince William Board by approving the request of landowners in three quadrants of the interchange to reshuffle preexisting zoning to make it “more marketable.” The land at this interchange will be marketable, not because there is a demand for even a fraction of the land use zoned for commercial use in West Prince William. It will be marketable only because the area near the Gainesville Interchange is inaccessible due to the Gainesville Interchange becoming gridlocked. Thus the cancer spreads.

 

UNBALANCED TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE

 

To summarize, while the municipal (county) planning process was grinding forward without concern for the transportation impact, VDOT was proposing interchange area changes without regard to the planned land uses. The VDOT 29/66 Interchange area plans, which have been shelved, would not have accommodated traffic from the then current Prince William County Comprehensive Plan nor would it have accommodated the traffic from the task force’s revised plan that was adopted to replace it. 

 

During the plan review process, the County staff asked a traffic consultant how many traffic lanes would be required on the ramp from US Route 29 North to I-66 East to accommodate the County’s existing or proposed plans for adjacent land use. (The task force plan, the staff plan and the existing Comprehensive Plan all had traffic generation potential that was of approximately the same magnitude.) 

 

The answer is “five.” That is a five lane on-ramp.  How many lanes would I-66 have to be to accommodate a five lane on-ramp? No one knows for sure, but in all likelihood, it would be more than 10 lanes in each direction. A few years ago in a study of the I-66 corridor, a VDOT consultant found that if unconstrained by roadway capacity, the land-use planned by municipal jurisdictions along I-66 would require 16 travel lanes in each direction.