A 'corridor' for change

For those of us who find ourselves still in need of a good old-fash­ioned dictionary from time to time, the term “corridor” has a fat definition box— in part, to include “a tract of land or seaway, a narrow pas­sageway, a lane for traffic of commerce or aircraft.” Yet how various transpor­tation proponents in Northern Virginia and Richmond define the termseems to be at the heart of the matter in a new development of a decades-old controversy.

The latest ripple in the debate — which would have been far more controversial 20 or 30 years ago — was created this past week in Richmond when the Commonwealth Transporta­tion Board designated a still-undefined “corridor” of land and water generally situated from I-95 northward across Prince William and Loudoun counties.

The intentionally vague designation is what is officially known as a “Cor­ridor of Statewide Significance.” The term was conjured up by lawmakers in Richmond a couple of years ago, and, thus far, at least a dozen sectors in the commonwealth have been tapped for eventual purposefulness designed to ease or foresee transportation bottle­necks.

While the “corridor” designation does not specify a future paved roadway, or Potomac River bridges, or any other specific transit venues at this point, the ambiguity of the designation is being used by various transportation pro­ponents to see in the plan what they choose to see.

Some view the corridor as merely the first of several steps leading to a highly controversial “outer Beltway” around Washington that would in­clude, among other possibilities, a way to drive northwest from eastern Prince William through Loudoun counties to Dulles airport and other points north and totally avoid the inner Beltway’s congestion. Corridor proponents ar­gue such a plan would provide a major north-south corridor in a region domi­nated by east-west traffic patterns.

Opponents counter that any new parkway built within the designated corridor would not significantly ease regional traffic congestion, could serve to exacerbate it, likely would interfere with the historic Manassas battlefield, and doesn’t provide any real solutions to today’s east-west traffic.

Our view is that both sides have arguments worthy of scrutiny, which is why the board’s action to leave the question open to all possible solutions makes sense at this stage. As activist Bob Chase of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance said this week, the board’s action is “about as benign a step” as could be taken, signaling the start of a process — not an end.

In fact, according to Virginia Trans­portation Secretary Sean Connaugh­ton, a former Prince William board chairman, the newly designated corridor will look at a wide array of transportation venues in the years to come — including buses, bike paths, pedestrian walkways, and yes, paved highways. No doubt the right mix of these modes (and perhaps others) will be part of any final plan.

But at least one thing appears certain already: The corridor will be a long process coming in the wake of an al­ready-long controversy, so the time to get serious about it cannot come soon enough.