Getting it Wrong in the Free State

In Montgomery County, Maryland things are getting totally out of hand according to many people I am hearing from. The county apparently wants to be perceived as forward thinking in terms of pedestrian safety and environmental concerns. Heck, for years the county would not allow any advertisements to be placed on its transit buses because of the "visual pollution" that would create. Of course, the latest downturn in the economy and the need to raise revenue from an ever-decreasing tax base has changed their collective minds on that. One of the biggest complaints I hear is that the County Council keeps approving development even though it means adding more children to schools that are surrounded by trailers because the money to repair, replace or expand just isn't available.

The latest travesty involves a road or a highway that has been on the planning books for something like 50 years and construction on it just recently got underway. Anyone living in this region would have to be hiding under a rock to have not heard about all of the controversy the Intercounty Connector (ICC) has brought. State officials say they went above and beyond to make sure that the highway used all of the latest construction innovations to minimize the impact on the surrounding environment. Yet, the current group of planners and elected nincompoops is now planning to eliminate the hiker/biker trail that was one of the centerpieces of the "green" aspect of this highway. They now say that the inclusion of six to eight feet of hiker/biker path will require them to do bad things to the environment. What a crock of box turtle dung. They can build a highway that is 75 or so feet wide but can't build an extra couple feet of paved space for self-powered, two-wheeled vehicles we tend to call "bicycles?"  Talk about another bait and switch.

I have supported the building of the ICC because the county and the region just don't have enough east/west arteries. I felt like the state had done a good job to mitigate many if not every single one of the environmental concerns. I also felt like they were using many of the new construction techniques in areas of environmental concern. But actions such as the proposal to eliminate promised accoutrements make me very suspicious about the sincerity of the intentions from the start.

On the subject of the ICC, I got the following note from Chuck: "Have you driven by any of the entrances to the construction of the [ICC]? I have never seen so much legal notices posted. Do you think there is something going on here?"

I have noticed that there are many more security cars parked near the entrances in addition to the trespass notices. The notices themselves are not all that unusual in that there is equipment to be protected as well as the wish to not have kids riding dirt bikes and ATV over these newly-created moguls and hills and trails. That is more of an insurance issue.

The security forces are not something I think I have seen before. My first thought was that since this project had dragged on for so long and since there was so much animosity surrounding it by residents and environmental hired guns that the people at the state transportation department were concerned about environmental sabotage groups like the Earth Liberation Front or others. I have not heard that they have received any specific threats but this is not something that is normally made public unless someone does some digging. For example, what is the cost of this security when compared to other major construction projects in the region like the Wilson Bridge construction or the Springfield Interchange Project? If it's significantly higher then I think that someone needs to explain why.

---

Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Comments

[Greg Cantori]

The Bay continues to decline, obesity rates are skyrocketing, air and noise pollution are trademarks of car use, and just in case we forget, cars are the number one killer of all young people age 1-33 years old.

If we do our work effectively as a people and government, the necessary decreases in car use statewide should compensate any need to expand our highway system. We simply need to better maintain what we already have and increase biking, walking, carpooling, car sharing, telecommuting, flex working and mass transit. Come on people - where's our creativity and leadership on this?

[Pathmeister]

I'm very dismayed about the cutting out of much of the ICC path. But remember that a huge amount of the blame falls squarely on the state, from its Record of Decision a couple years ago. The county's role is now about whether to build the trail through parkland, which is the one area where it has the ability to make changes to the path route (the state didn't leave any room for the path in other areas, for example under overpasses). Also, the county Planning Board seems more willing to allow the path in some park areas now that path supporters have clarified what is needed. Stay tuned.

[ohmypolarbear]

The increased security is definitely not a typical feature of construction sites. The Wilson Bridge construction site (on the VA side, though, not MD) has a bike trail going through it (which I commute on every day), and multiple places where someone could just wander in. It has been that way for the past two years, although they were a bit tighter about locking the fences at night during the height of the construction when there were lots of raw materials (and explosives for demolishing the old spans) lying around.

@BeyondDC: One solution is to issue the development permits with the condition that the developer provides some funding to increase the capacity of the schools proportionally - maybe not all of it, but at least some support. It would increase the value of the property they're building on, so it seems like a good investment to me.

[BeyondDC]

I agree; the ICC deal is rotten.

But I want to comment on the school thing. What's the alternative? Stop development and send all those kids out to more rural counties where there are even fewer schools, and where the spread-out population is even more expensive to serve with infrastructure? No; the only responsible action is to take on more development where development already exists. NIMBYism does not work in government.