Comment at NVTA 2021 Organizational Meeting 1/14/21 7p

Comment at NVTA 2021 Organizational Meeting 1/14/21 7p


 Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on regional transportation focus areas for 2021.

Northern Virginia faces many challenges related to transportation, many of which are common across America and the world:

  • We continue to contribute to too much to climate change, leading to more severe weather patterns and leaving our children with a huge burden.
  • We are facing a long simmering public health crisis of people being killed or seriously injured on our streets.
  • Our local businesses struggle to compete in an online world.
  • We are increasingly isolated from our neighbors and our communities.
  • Our land is almost entirely built-out, making it difficult to find space to meet the needs of our growing population.
Conveniently, we can address all of these challenges by making improvements in our transportation network - improvements that decrease the amount of trips that are taken in cars and single occupancy vehicles.

Investing in transportation network that prioritizes transit, biking and walking will reducing the number of car trips and:
  • Reduce our carbon footprint;
  • Make our streets safer;
  • Support local businesses;
  • Foster community and more human connections; and
  • Reduce the demand on public land, and may even free up some space currently used for streets and highways to be used for parks and schools.

Normally, one of the greatest barriers to getting people to move away from car trips is habit -- someone who drove to work yesterday will probably drive to work tomorrow.  But the pandemic has given us a unique opportunity: in disrupting normal life, our habits have been interrupted.  Many of us don't go in to work at all at the moment.  As we look forward to life returning to something resembling pre-pandemic activity levels, we could see a world where many people get around using transit, bikes or their own two feet.

But in order to take advantage of this historic opportunity, we must invest in a transportation network which prioritizes these modes of transportation.  We need more dedicated bus lanes, so that bus trips are faster.  We need more protected bike lanes, secure bike parking, and bike trails and bridges, for people to feel safe.  We need sidewalks that are sufficiently wide and free of "street furniture" and construction disruptions for walking to be a reliable option.  We need biking and walking routes that connect to transit.

Many of these changes can be achieved with modest investment - but we need that investment to happen now.  NVTA should prioritize investments in transit, biking and walking in the upcoming year, and should not waste any more money widening roads.  We must build back better, for our neighbors, for our safety, for our children, for our businesses, and for our planet.

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