NoVA Traffic Capacity

The Northern Virginia road system is severely under capacity. I don't know if it was always under capacity, or just became insufficient as the amount of traffic grew, but it definitely cannot handle the current traffic levels. Peak hours already see miles-long traffic jams, even without any accidents or road work. And accidents or any other capacity-reducing events jam the system even more.

I'm thinking about it from a network and computer systems design perspective. When designing a system, the aim is to create an N + 2 or greater capacity, where N is the peak traffic level. Let's say you need 5 machines to handle peak load. You need at least 7 machines in the pool. That way you can take out one machine for maintenance at any time, and still be able to handle a failure of another machine, without any effect on serving traffic.

The NoVA road system is more like N - 1. It can't even handle peak load, let alone be able to take a failure or scheduled maintenance and sustain the same traffic levels. There's only so much expansion that can be done, as there's simply not enough space to build more roads or bridges. So the solution must be to reduce traffic levels. Metro really needs to expand. Lane sharing should be allowed for motorcycles and scooters - that will encourage more people to ride, and reduce traffic levels, since motorcycles take up a lot less space on the road than cars do.