American Legion Bridge
by James A. Bacon
It looks like the Outer Washington Beltway, which would connect with Maryland by means of a bridge across the Potomac River, is not just an idea being pushed by the McDonnell administration. Sen. Mark Warner declared on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show that he supports a new bridge himself.
Tom Sherwood, an NBC reporter and Currents Newspapers columnist, quoted John “Til” Hazel, one of Northern Virginia’s more prominent developers, to the effect that the American Legion Bridge is crowded and due to get 50,000 more vehicles the next 10 or 15 years. Did Warner, he asked, see a need for new bridges across the Potomac?
“Yes, yes,” said Warner. “We can’t keep funneling all the traffic into, you know, these few choke points across the river. But the money won’t be easy to find, he conceded. As governor he campaigned in support of a funding source for Northern Virginia transportation in the form of a half-cent regional sales tax, he said, but “I got my tail beat.” Now state transportation funds are “close to bankrupt,” the senator noted, and the federal Highway Trust Fund “is broke as well.”
But the need is there. “Infrastructure, which used to be a competitive advantage for our country, infrastructure, which, in the Capitol region, helped us grow, now is becoming a choke point and is going to kill the golden goose where the jobs are, whether it’s in Montgomery County, PG County or out in Northern Virginia, in the Dulles courthouse square.” People have been talking for 10 to 15 years and the progress, he said, “has been, at best, incremental.”
Northern Virginia’s power brokers, whether Republican or Democratic in their partisan loyalties, likely will line up behind the Outer Beltway — sometimes referred to as the “techway” — while the smart growth movement assuredly will oppose the mega-project. The Coalition for Smarter Growth makes two main points: (1) the Outer Beltway and bridge will do little to alleviate traffic congestion, and (2) the money would be better spent on easing existing congestion hotspots.
I have no problem with building a Bypass as long as those who use it and benefit from it also pay for it. I see that as unlikely. The pattern in Virginia is to tax (or toll) the general public on amorphous grounds like “economic development” and “quality of life” to pay for projects that the power brokers crave but don’t want to pay for — like the Rail-to-Dulles METRO project.
It will be interesting to see if the smart growth guys can revitalize the same informal alliance with fiscally conservative populists, like those who helped defeat the NoVa sales tax increase last time, to oppose the Outer Beltway project which appears to be regaining momentum.
