It became clearer as the MIS process moved along that the WTC is not needed for the benefit of the general public or Dulles Airport in the year 2020. The model used cannot be calibrated properly and produces erratic results. The best figures the study has produced do not justify such a highway. Furthermore, the population and traffic projections are highly exaggerated. And the study itself shows little freight going to Dulles Airport from Rt. 95. Most incredulously, the estimates for cost of land acquisition have now been reduced to 10 to 20 percent of what they were, by a factor of 7.25!

Remember the old expression when computers were in their earlier stages - garbage in, garbage out? Examination of the computer model used for the study reveals that it has not been validated and calibrated. Among other things, the formulas for traffic generation and destination of home-based non-work trips result in massive unexplained anomalies. And those non-work trips account for a whopping 80% of the total traffic.

Even if the calculations of the model were credible, it produces a traffic estimate of a mere 2700 vehicles that would travel any real distance on a WTC. It becomes clear why the Army Corps of Engineers writes to VDOT, "It is not at this time clear from the traffic analysis that the impacts of even the upgrade/links alternatives have been justified." And from the EPA, "that there is only limited need for north/south travel along the western build corridors." The study also shows only 37,000 vehicles a day on the average in 2020 on any segment of such a highway. That's only as much as many two-lane roads now carry operating at satisfactory levels of service, hardly enough traffic to justify the cost of a new highway.

It has also become clear what the EPA meant when it wrote the following to VDOT: "Our first concern lies with the population and employment forecasting used in the study." The baby boom produced higher rates of growth in the 1980's. Demographic and traffic projections are being straight-lined from a point on that curve producing highly exaggerated data which is simply erroneous.

We all recognize in regard to Social Security, for example, that there is going to be a large number of new recipients as baby boomers reach retirement age, to be paid for by declining numbers in younger generations. The same adjustment applies to everything else as well, including population and traffic projections, but the study has ignored this factor. According to the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, the growth rate for the state has dropped from 1.6 percent to 0.9 percent a year. For Prince William County the growth rate has dropped from 6 percent in 1990 to 2.4 percent!

The Technical Advisory Committee of the MIS-Western Transportation Corridor met in Stafford on March 14 to review the findings of the "Quantico Excursion." It was mentioned as almost an aside to that discussion that the price tag for the WTC had been reduced by $400 million on a $1.2 to $1.5 billion proposal. That amounts to a 24% to 27% reduction. An entire section of the report on cost estimates put out for the public last September had been revised.

Comparison of the old and new sections of the report revealed that the overwhelming bulk of those cuts came in the category of land acquisition. While the hard and soft costs of actually building such a highway had been lopped by about 10%, the costs of acquiring the property to run it over had been chopped by 80% to 90%, varying slightly from segment to segment.

Such colossal differences defy credibility. Is this a move to lower the costs to meet some required cost/benefit ratio for funding purposes? A tactic to low-ball the project to sell it?

The message was clear from Quantico that they want no part of the Western Transportation Corridor project within their boundaries. As their spokesman Ken Oliver put it, "Don't look to property in Quantico to provide Virginia's transportation solutions."

A date for a Public Meeting (not Public Hearing) was set for Stafford for April 7. It was postponed indefinitely due to "difficulty with some public officials." Transportation Secretary Martinez stated he hoped to reschedule it before the end of April. It's more likely to be in May. In the meantime, officials are busy examining the documents that ceded parts of Stafford and Fauquier Counties to Quantico as emergency measures at the time of WWI.

The Bypass Alternatives Review Committee of the Washington Airports Task Force published a full-page ad in several local newspapers Wednesday, April 3 which seems to have originated in Fantasy Land. It presumes a bridge to Maryland, ignoring the fact that Maryland opposes a Potomac River crossing east of Point of Rocks and Maryland owns the river. Building a road in Virginia to the river will not force Maryland to approve a bridge where Maryland doesn't want a bridge. The truth is the WTC stops at a traffic light on Rt. 7. It is truly a "Road to Nowhere."

Two of the signers of the ad used their former connections to other organizations which in fact oppose the WTC. Both the Piedmont Environmental Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation are on record as opposing any new highway. Yet B. Powell Harrison and Jack Walter continue to identify themselves by their former affiliations. They deliberately mislead the public into the false assumption that they represent the position of those two organizations.

No truly dedicated preservationist or environmentalist would mislead the public into the proposition that preserving Rt. 15 at the expense of other cultural and historic sites such as Manassas National Battlefield Park is a good idea. Yet that is what BARC is promoting. There are 152 cultural and historic sites along the powerline corridor. BARC mentions just the handful which are located in their area and ignores most that are south of Rt. 50 and everything south of Rt. 29.

They also ignore the hundreds of homes along the powerline, stating that just 10 would be impacted. Their ad was a practice in delusion.

The WTC study evolved from a Western Bypass Study which was abandoned when it was revealed that such a bypass would not relieve the Beltway. Instead of being dropped, the proposal was given a new name and destination and went marching mindlessly forward.

Never mind that according to Dulles Airport's own map, travel times to Dulles from the West and South change very little in the future. And never mind that the study identifies no special needs for freight or passenger traffic to Dulles. In fact, according to the study's traffic estimates and Dulles' own cargo figures, if half the trucks destined for Dulles Airport originated from Rt. 95 and each carried only 15 tons of cargo (half the normal load for a semi tractor-trailer), that would compute to only about 100 trucks a day in 2020.

Furthermore, a new "western" access planned for Dulles is actually on the north side somewhere in the vicinity of Old Ox Road and the Dulles Greenway and would be for freight only, not passengers. A northern access point for traffic originating from the south makes no sense at all.

Kathleen Seefeldt promised to oppose a highway such as the Western Corridor in her campaign literature from the 1995 election. "I have opposed......since the beginning." "I have been a part of the lead opposition..." And, "Not only would the National Park Service not allow this construction but these parks (Manassas National Battlefield Park and Conway Robinson State Forest) would be impacted in an unacceptable manner."

Let's get on with projects which do have merit, including improvement to our existing roads. Imagine life in Northern Virginia without a Wilson Bridge! There is no question that something needs to be done there. Traffic on Rt. 234 south of I-66 would be greatly improved with completion of the 28 Bypass. That right of way was acquired years ago, but developers don't support building it because the property around it is already developed. Never mind that it would help traffic for the general public. The second phase of the plan for Rt. 28 to Dulles which consists of grade separations at the intersections would also benefit everyone.

CARD - Citizens Against Roads for Developers, Inc.
CTB - Commonwealth Transportation Board
EIS - Environmental Impact Study
MIS - Major Investment Study
PAC - Policy Advisory Committee
PWBCS - Prince William Board of County Supervisors
TAC - Technical Advisory Committee
VDOT - Virginia Department of Transportation
VHA - Virginia Highway Administration
WTC - Western Transportation Corridor

• New roads encourage land speculation and induce more residential development. Developers want to maximize profits and will push for public water and sewer services. They will request various changes to the Comprehensive Plan and rezonings that allow higher densities.

• The Prince William Board of County Supervisors has voted more than 90% of the time to approve such changes.

• Our school system and other services will suffer further deterioration because the average dwelling costs the county about $1600 more a year in the services it needs than it pays in taxes.

• More residential development will bring with it increased traffic, overburdening arterial roads such as Catharpin Road and Linton Hall Road, requiring additional new roads that will in turn induce further development and additional traffic. A California study shows that for each mile of new road such as the WTC, another 1.2 miles will be needed which will generate the need for another 1.44 miles and so on mathmatically until we just can't pave enough. California should know and they've stopped building such roads.

• The environment will be negatively impacted: Overburdening the ground water system will result in contaminated wells and streams. At that point, the solution becomes a public water system. The county already has a plan for providing water to everyone, including every household in Western Prince William. They are in the process now of constructing water service for Haymarket. The assessment to each landowner was between $3000 and $4000 per acre they owned. Our ground water is a precious resource. Don't take it for granted until it is too late.

• The Route 234 Bypass south of Rt. I-66 will serve the area extremely well along with even more improvements already planned for I-66. Traffic studies for a Rt. 234 Bypass extension north of I-66 have revealed that there is not enough traffic to justify extending it. Prince William Institute, ATCC, Dominion Semi-Conductor, and Lockheed Martin have all located here where there is already excellent access to Dulles Airport.

• Improvements are already planned for Wellington Road. The second stage of Rt. 28 improvements is grade separations at intersections. Delays at Gainesville are associated with the railroad tracks, not with the road network. Providing grade separations between the railroad track and Rt. 29 and/or the track and Wellington Road would be a worthwhile improvement for everyone.

• The above roads provide a high level of service meeting the transportation needs of the Gainesville industrial area, Manassas Airport, Broad Run Industrial Park, and the Prince William Institute. This network of high efficiency roads will meet all conceivable business and economic needs for at least 30 years, and probably much longer.

The Resolution passed by the PWBCS called for a route to the east of Linton Hall to be considered, but VDOT has not done that. They state that they could do that during an EIS yet to come even though it would be outside the chosen corridor. An EIS involves Federal agencies which may not be satisfied with just the alternatives within a corridor and may require study outside a corridor at certain points.

Governor Allen has come out favoring the WTC as relief for the Beltway and Rt. 95! It's too bad his Secretary of Transportation did not tell him beforehand that such a road would accomplish neither goal. His remarks were made during a weekly radio show "Ask Gov. Allen" aired each Thursday. His support, albeit for no supportable reason, looks like a lame duck governor fulfilling a campaign promise in order to assure support for whatever office he runs for in 2000.

Being one who is unequivocal in his views, Del. Bob Marshall left no doubt at the Regional Meeting of the CTB on the Six-Year Transportation Plan that the WTC is unneeded and unwanted. He made the point that the biggest plan ever to hit Prince William County was Disney and such a road was not deemed necessary to accomodate even that! He also advocated finishing Rt. 95 through D.C. as a real relief to Beltway traffic. Representatives from CARD also participated. Our remarks can be read on our new Internet site: http://www.erols.com/card1997/index.com

As if one major highway study weren't enough for busy citizens, there have been eight other major studies and/or plan reviews which could impact the quality of life in Western Prince William County, all taking place simultaneously. Below are contact numbers for more information.

Citizens Against Roads for Developers, Inc., CARD, was formed in October 1996 when it was found that the vast majority of homeowners who could be impacted by the Western Transportation Corridor did not even know of the VDOT Study. Public hearings were already scheduled for November and most residents were unaware that their property was located within a proposed corridor. CARD is a grassroots organization whose purpose is to inform citizens of such proposals and provide information about how their property and quality of life would be impacted. The membership is comprised of a cross-section of the community.

CARD has spent all of its energies and resources on gathering and analyzing data about the WTC and other road proposals and dispersing that information to citizens and public officials. We have attended numerous transportation meetings, researched volumes of data, and spent many days preparing and diseminating information to the entire community.
We have a new web page where a lot of what we have compiled can be accessed: http://www.erols.com/card1997/index.html. We also have a video and information packet available for $10. See below for address and phone number.

As we stated to the press, the anonymous letter and phone calls to a Manassas bakery in reaction to the bakery supplying pastries to a fund-raising party for Gainesville Supervisor Wilbourn is "stupid, ugly, and unnecessary." CARD neither proposed, organized, advocated, suggested, nor discussed such activities. We would like to know as much as anyone who used our name. In fact, the letter did not even identify the sender as a member. It was written on a computer and not signed at all.

The Manassas City Police never contacted us in regard to the matter. The target of CARD is the Western Transporation Corridor and other roads proposed to benefit special interests rather than the general public, period!

The Greater Washington Board of Trade is coming out with their own traffic study. However, it depends upon the same faulty model and same exaggerated data as the WTC study. It is a duplication in errors.

Prince William County does have a traffic model which has been verified and calibrated. It was developed for the Disney Study. There was no such highway necessary even for such a massive project as Disney. If it wasn't needed then, it surely isn't needed now.