Dulles Greenway Traffic has Stopped Falling for First Time Since 2005

Monday, September 24, 2012

Dulles Greenway Traffic has Stopped Falling for First Time Since 2005

Based on the first eight months' numbers, traffic on the Dulles Greenway is up just a tad -- about one percent -- over 2011, that according to a report from Toll Road News.

That's good news since 2012 might be the first year in which total traffic matched the year before since the pike peaked in 2005. The last six years have all seen traffic decline from the previous year. And this on the supposedly developing fringe of the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Average daily traffic on the Greenway this year is around 46,900 versus 46,400 in 2011, up about 1% but still 23% below the 2005 peak.

Traffic and revenue forecasters have got their numbers scandalously wrong every time they've produced forecasts here. When the road opened in 1996 Vollmer (now Stantec) over-estimated traffic by a huge margin. Errors in travel time savings and local value of time saved led them to recommend tolls that were much too high.

Read the complete Toll Road News article.