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PARKING

WMATA forecasts indicate that 28 percent of persons using public transit to get to work will use their automobile to get to transit facilities. Nineteen percent of non-work home-based transit usage will also be of a "park-and-ride" 1 nature. While these statistics apply to all transit travel and not just to rail service, it is likely that the vast bulk of it will be directed toward METRO rail stations. The parking currently planned at these stations will fall far short of being able to deal adequately with the parking load generated by METRO. Table 24 shows the effect of various transit patronage estimates on the adequacy of parking, assuming the current plans for approximately 27,250 spaces at METRO stations. Under WMATA's projection, there is only one space available for each 3.8 cars needing a space during the day. Because WMATA's patronage projection is judged to be high, the second column of the table shows the corresponding statistics assuming the maximum patronage level developed in Chapter III. Even under these assumptions, there is still only one space per

2.2 cars attracted to METRO stations.

This excess of "park-and-ride" METRO patrons compared to the available parking poses a situation which is basically unworkable: either parking will be added or METRO patronage will fall beneath levels because of inadequate "park-andride" access. Because of the need for convenient access for feeder bus and

"kiss-and-ride" passengers, on-street parking in the vicinity of METRO stations will be virtually non-existent, and existing commercial facilities are not expected to be sufficient to serve the excess of parking demand created by METRO. The result, if nothing is done to rectify the situation, would be further erosion of the projected patronage. However, the combination of crowded parking facilities and low overall METRO system patronage due to access inadequacy is likely to create considerable pressure for expansion of parking

For comparison, 32 percent of San Francisco BART patrons drove their cars alone to transit stops, and 53 percent of Lindenwold Line passengers drove alone to stops.

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WMATA estimates from 1974 NIA, fare system No. 2.

DWMATA estimates scaled down to reflect experience of other areas. Based on 70 percent of total transit work trips using parking and 30 percent of total home-based transit non-work trips using parking.

facilities, possibly to be financed by the local jurisdictions. Alternatively, it is likely to lead to increased development of commercial parking facilities, an option at variance with zoning directions in many of the jurisdictions involved.

LAND USE IMPACTS OF METRO

It is probably fair to say that the greater the extent to which public funds are involved in the building and operating of METRO, the greater the public interest in its land use impact. The land use pressures which will be exerted by the presence of METRO ought to be consistent with and acceptable to the jurisdictions where the impacts are felt and consistent with their planning for community development. These propositions are not seriously arguable and have not been since the inception of planning for the METRO project; the problem for citizen groups, planners, and elected officials has been rather to determine what community interests are and how they would be affected by METRO. Ideally, a community would arrive at a long-run consensus about community objectives which would then be clearly expressed to elected officials whose only intent would be to serve the public's desires. The task for planners then would be to analyze and describe alternative ways and associated costs of achieving the public's objectives.

There are two fundamental difficulties involved. One is that the process by which the public begins to understand and appreciate the impact of such a facility as METRO works very slowly, regardless of how comprehensive the information may be which is initially provided. The second difficulty is that the public may change its mind. The two may or may not be related. In the case of METRO it appears that in the Washington area communities there was not a general recognition of the land use impact of a rapid rail system oriented to the metropolitan core. Most people saw it as a means of decongesting the highway radials, without foreseeing that in fact METRO would be providing an increase in capacity which would permit corridor flows to be that much greater.

It was chiefly when zoning cases for property near planned METRO stations began to arise in the various jurisdictions that the land use impact of METRO was

perceived. The reactions, in suburban jurisdictions at least, were negative to the point of questioning the desirability of completing some parts of the rapid rail transit system, notably the Greenbelt line in Prince George's County. Concomitantly, especially in the high income jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia, the public began to express resistance to the high growth policies which hitherto had dominated land use planning in those jurisdictions. Putting these circumstances together with the prospects of spiraling public costs for METRO has resulted in considerable public interest in a re-evaluation of the size and extent of the METRO system.

Recognition of these changing public attitudes suggests several questions of public policy which have not been sufficiently explored to date:

1. How would METRO patronage be affected by lower growth rates and more or less permanently lower (than expected) densities in the suburban jurisdictions?

2.

3.

In light of the large public expenditures by all jurisdictions, including the federal, should land use objectives, which would be affected by METRO, be more explicitly stated and should they be placed in a broader public interest setting?

Finally, should the size of the system and the location of stations be re-evaluated in terms of changed public views about land use in the Washington metropolitan area?

Estimating the likely consequences of METRO curtailment on development is not possible in the presence of so much uncertainty concerning local goals and directions. It should be noted, however, that the patronage and revenue forecasts now employed in WMATA planning are based on development policies which may not be acceptable to the jurisdictions involved. If these zoning policies are taken as a firm indication of local preference, then the feasibility of METRO should be reviewed in that light. Alternatively, a condition for building METRO into areas falling beneath a critical trip density might be their willingness to adopt compatible zoning measures.

TRANSFER OF INTERSTATE HIGHWAY FUNDS

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 (P.L. 93-87) allows states to transfer funds from discontinued Interstate Highway projects to transit uses, subject to meeting various federal planning requirements and contingent upon Federal Highway Administration and Urban Mass Transportation Administration approval. Transfers of this sort involve 80/20 matching, i.e., four dollars of federal money for each dollar of local money. Amendments to the Act which were passed in 1974 (P.L. 93-643) increased the level of funding potentially achievable through Interstate Highway fund transfers by adjusting planned highway costs upward to account for inflation. (The 1973 legislation had been phrased in terms of 1972 Interstate Highway costs and its transfer provision had not allowed for likely cost increases after 1972.)

The amount of METRO funding potentially available through Interstate transfer provisions is shown in Table 25. Because of the relatively high level of federal matching associated with Interstate highway fund transfers, these present a fairly attractive alternative to the local jurisdictions searching for additional METRO capital cost contributions. The matching ratio of 80/20 is more attractive to local jurisdictions than the two-third/one-third written into existing WMATA legislation, and further Congressional action generally

would not be needed to release these highway funds.1 However, the Interstate

transfer provisions require that requests for funds of this sort be joint state/local applications, and in some cases the states surrounding Washington have indicated that they have more attractive uses than METRO for which to expend transfer funds. Furthermore, some state authorities have indicated that they believe that future legislation may create greater flexibility in Interstate Highway transfer provisions and that more attractive alternative uses of transfer funds may appear in the future. Another potential problem is that the availability of transfer funds to the jurisdictions involved is

Appropriating the local share for D.C. transfers would apparently require Congressional approval.

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