by Arlington
Potential Red Line restart moment: In a deal to build toll lanes on I-77, the state promised the toll operator that it wouldn't add any more free lanes to I-77 in the next 50 YEARS. From a public interest standpoint, this should never have happened, but, hey, it means that rail will be the more-attractive way for the state to add capacity for the next 50 years. Ha!
The contract penalty to Mobility Partners makes adding lanes to I-77 x-Millions less attractive (and lots, politically, less attractive as a pure "waste" of money) and makes the Red Line more attractive (at least paying a penalty to NS in the form of rail upgrades gets you rail upgrades) and it also means, potentially, there's a chunk of highway money that gets freed up (the money not spent widening I-77.
The contract penalty to Mobility Partners makes adding lanes to I-77 x-Millions less attractive (and lots, politically, less attractive as a pure "waste" of money) and makes the Red Line more attractive (at least paying a penalty to NS in the form of rail upgrades gets you rail upgrades) and it also means, potentially, there's a chunk of highway money that gets freed up (the money not spent widening I-77.
"Trying to solve congestion by making roadways wider is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger pants."--Charles Marohn
