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South Side Project

 Your officials will decide next week on VDOT’s toll expansion 

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) plan to widen 495 from Springfield to Oxon Hill and extend private High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes has a key vote next week on whether or not to proceed. Make your voice heard!  Send an email to your local officials before noon on Tuesday, Oct. 14!

Officials should not endorse biased and flawed studies. Despite repeated community requests for VDOT to study and report now on the traffic impacts of a widened 495 on connecting roads like MD 210, Route 1 and Van Dorn St, and to study a comprehensive transit, commuter incentive, smart land use and flexible lane alternatives, VDOT has refused. 

 

In addition, the proposed 495 HOT lanes expansion would likely block future Metrorail on the Wilson Bridge, and would clear woods and impact streams and wetlands. 

 

Your local officials have an opportunity to make VDOT do better. That’s by voting next week to reject adding the 495 Southside project to the region’s long range plan and to make VDOT collaboratively seek better solutions.

 

Your representatives on the regional Transportation Planning Board will vote on Wednesday, but the deadline to comment is noon Tuesday! 

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Climate Change an existential danger to the planet. said…
Transportation Planning Board
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
777 N Capitol St Ne Ste 300,
Washington, DC 20002

https://www.mwcog.org/events/2025/10/15/transportation-planning-board/

Interested members of the public will be given the opportunity to make brief comments on transportation issues under consideration by the TPB. For any member of the public who wishes to address the board on the day of the meeting, they may do so by registering to attend and speak in person for only one minute or by emailing written comments to TPBcomment@mwcog.org with the subject line “Item 1 Public Comment Opportunity”, or by calling and leaving a phone message at (202) 962-3315. Comments will be summarized and shared with TPB members as part of their published meeting materials. These statements must be received by staff no later than 12:00 P.M. (Noon) on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, to be relayed to the board at the meeting.
October 11, 2025 at 9:16 AM
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