Observer Online | Higher Still on Greenway

Edition of Sept. 14, 2007

Higher Still on Greenway

The State Corporation Commission this week approved higher tolls for the Dulles Greenway, the private toll road that runs from the end of the Dulles Toll Road to Leesburg.

Where tolls are already high, at $3 each way, the tolls could rise to $4.80 during peak hours in 2012.

When this highway was opened, everybody was excited at the prospect that all those drivers from West Virginia and all points west could bypass the neighborhoods of Loudoun County and western Fairfax County to reach their destinations further east.

But as this road has evolved, the tolls have continued to rise to the point that the few people I know who travel from Leesburg or farther west into jobs in Reston or Herndon can't afford to travel on the Greenway every day in their commute.

I use the Greenway a few times a year, to get my car serviced, on my way out of town on vacation or to visit friends and attend business meetings in Leesburg. Up until now, I never hesitated to use the Greenway because I use it so infrequently that a $6 charge every now and then never bothered me.

But the prospect of spending $10 for that same trip is way over the top. And consider the plight of people who would be expected to pay $50 a week, $200 a month and $2,400 per year for the luxury of an efficient transportation network.

The higher the tolls go on the Greenway, the less useful it is to anyone. And that means that in the years to come we can expect congestion on Route 7 and neighborhood streets to worsen. And when more and more drivers choose the free, public roads, expect the toll road operators to increase the tolls, again and again and again. Where will it all end?