Photo by aeleazer1

Photo by aeleazer1

It doesn’t take a traffic engineer to tell you that traffic on I-66 is often bad. But it does take a traffic engineer to tell you that in 30 years, it’ll be really bad.

Last week the Virginia Department of Transportation published a Tier 1 Draft Environmental Impact Statement on options for the I-66 corridor, reports WTOP. The report not only found that traffic congestion could extend to 10 hours a day in the next 30 years, but that mitigating that congestion with roadway expansion alone would require adding nine lanes of traffic—in each direction.

Of course, adding more lanes alone isn’t a feasible option, and neither is any of the 46 other possibilities explored by the report. Instead, it says, planners and regional leaders will have to consider a combination of options, including things like more express lanes that charge based on traffic conditions to more fixed transit options, like additional Metro lines:

The study finds that adding two HOT lanes in each direction, plus a Metro or VRE extension or other new transit option, would be among the best ways to accommodate total expected travel demand. Another good option would be to add the same HOT lanes with four additional general purpose lanes.

It also suggests that cheaper, short-term solutions could include improvements at nine key chokepoints along I-66, as well as better communication with commuters about what the best options are on a given day.

Public comments on the report are being accepted until April, after which it will be left to local leaders to decide how to proceed—and how exactly to pay for everything.