Ballston VA just Metro-developed?

Mel Webber in an editorial in ACCESS notes that BART ridership has stagnated at a disappontingly low level, and 24 years after its opening there are barely the 258k riders/day forecast for 1975 for the original system. He comments: “Metro areas around the country have been building or extending rail systems and with some notable exceptions, experiencing similarly disappointing patronage and urbanization effects.” Then looking for some success to attribute to rail transit, Webber cites as a shining example the Washington Metro Orange Line’s “rapidly urbanizing sub-centers.” He thinks of the Ballston-Court House corridor in northern Arlington county VA.

Webber forgets that as well as getting the Metro line this area has gotten efficient and attractive highway connections to the rest of the greater DC area via the George Washington Parkway and I-66, the latter being the only new urban motorway constructed in the Washington area since the 1960s. Though only 2x2-lanes here, the I-66 gives the Ballston-Court House corridor unparalleled road accessibility to the Beltway, Tysons Corner, and the Dulles corridor to the west as well as east to downtown DC and south to the Pentagon, Crystal City, Alexandria and National Airport.

It is really stretching things to give the Orange line all the credit for development at Ballston-Court House while not mentioning the new I-66 and the old Geo Wash Pwy and other roads including the vintage spaghetti Rosslyn-Pentagon. Those new apartments, condos and offices, well-equipped with underground or decked parking garages, are sold by spruiking the convenience of the Metro, to be sure, but they also sell on how convenient it is to drive places.