How To Get Traffic | Arlington, Virginia: More Evidence That Growth Can Be Green

New data from Arlington County, Virginia, provide an in-depth lookat how a jurisdiction known for great planning has leveraged excellenttransit service and transit-oriented development into efficienttransportation performance.

Arlington, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., is oftencited for good reason as a smart growth success story: I reported onthe inner suburb back in 2008, in a two-part series ( here and here )noting how Arlington had added over 24,000 homes and 17 million squarefeet of office and retail space with little discernible effect onautomobile traffic. (More recent reports put the latter number atcloser to 25 million square feet.) This was done primarily byconcentrating growth in corridors well-served by transit, while leavingintact the county's beautiful neighborhoods of single-family homes.

The story can now be

22 percent of Arlington households do not own a car, compared with 16 percent for the metro region as a whole;

Only 40 percent of daily trips are made by driving alone;

16 percent of all trips, and 23 percent of in-county trips, are made on foot;

"Arlington residents make more total trips per day than theregional average -- 3.9 versus 3.5 -- but they travel fewer miles per daythan the regional average, because their trips are shorter: 15.8 milesversus 25.6 miles." (This is my personal favorite statistic, becauseit illustrates the power of regional accessibility , or Arlington's relatively central location within the metro area as a whole.)

Additional data can be found in the county's presentation to a development forum earlier this year:

Arlington provides 173,000 rail and 24,000 daily transit trips;

30 percent of trips into Arlington from Washington and 40percent of trips into Arlington from suburban Montgomery County,Maryland, are made by transit (the number is closer to 20 percent fortrips from other metro area suburban counties);

Fully 45 percent of trips from Arlington into D.C. are made on transit;

64 to 87 percent of travelers using Arlington's Metrorail stations (depending on the station) arrive on foot;

The number of people walking to Arlington's Ballston Metro stationdrops sharply as walking distance increases beyond a quarter-mile (thatmay be influenced somewhat by the fact that population density isconcentrated close to the station);

Metrorail usage is much higher during rush-hour periods;

Bus ridership is spread among a range of ages, incomes, and ethnicities.

If you consider that, in the U.S. as a whole, only about 5 percent of commuting trips and only about 2 percent of total trips are made by public transit, and well over 70 percent of work trips are made by driving alone , Arlington's numbers begin to look very impressive indeed. Add that the national share of trips made by walking is around 9 percent ,compared to Arlington's 16 percent, and the story only gets richer. Smart transportation, smart land use, and a good location within ametro region get results.