I-66 Multimodal Study Final Report - Virginia Department of ...

Recommendations4.0 RecommendationsThis section presents recommendations and conclusions drawn from the I-66 Multimodal Studyevaluation of potential long-term, multimodal improvements for the I-66 corridor inside theCapital Beltway. As detailed in Section 3.0, the I-66 Multimodal Study examined four multimodalpackages of improvements. Each package included transit services, bicycle and pedestrianfacilities, travel demand management strategies (TDM), technological applications, androadway improvements that worked to complement each other with the objective ofmaximizing the potential for the package to achieve the twin goals of the study: improvingmobility and reducing highway and transit congestion.The recommendations are presented in two categories: 1) core recommendations, which areconsidered a top priority and tie to the study approach; and 2) package recommendations,which are derived from the multimodal packages evaluated in this study. The package recommendationsmade use of the evaluation of measures of effectiveness (Table 4.1) and the recommendationframework (Table 4.2) in identifying promising strategies to meet the study goalsof improving mobility and reducing highway and transit congestion in the corridor.Core recommendations represent improvements identified in earlier studies that have beensupported or adopted by the region. Some of these improvements have been advanced into theregional Financially Constrained Long-Range Plan (CLRP), while others are awaiting identificationof funding prior to becoming part of the regional CLRP. These identified improvementsin infrastructure and transit/high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) services were assumed to be partof the 2040 Baseline for this study and, as such, should be implemented before the recommendedpackage elements are considered for implementation. This tiered approach providesthe opportunity for reassessment and confirmation of the future need for any improvementsabove and beyond the core recommendations.Package recommendations represent a combination of multimodal improvements (transit,bicycle and pedestrian, TDM, technology, and roadway) that the study analysis indicates couldbe gathered together as the most promising package that would further improve mobility andreduce highway and transit congestion in the study corridor. Performance measures were generatedfor each of the four multimodal packages and two sensitivity analyses to help assesshow well the corridor issues and needs and study goals are addressed. Person-miles traveled(PMT) in the study area was used as a measure to assess improved mobility. Congestedvehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in the study area was used as a measure to assess reduced highwaycongestion. Congested VMT values also reflect an impact to bus transit operations in thatbuses are affected by highway congestion. Load factors for transit (average number of passengersper vehicle) were looked at as a measure of congestion on the bus and rail system. Finally,person throughput at four study area cutlines was reviewed as a further indicator of multimodalmobility.The recommended package of multimodal improvements is a long-term planning-level proposalthat is not intended to “leap frog” over other improvements adopted for the corridor. It4-1