Thursday, June 6, 2019

Hogan capitulates on Beltway express lanes, I-270 express lanes will go to bid

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan folded up like a card table on the issue of widening the Capital Beltway with tolled Express Lanes yesterday, delaying that proposal, while he and the Maryland Board of Public Works voted to allow a similar plan for a portion of I-270 to move forward to a bidding process. A well-orchestrated anti-highway campaign, backed by big cash funneled from developers who need congestion to justify their urban projects and shadowy dark-money groups from outside Montgomery County, somehow buffaloed Hogan into agreeing to delay the Beltway lanes.

The lanes would be paid for by private contractors, who would recoup their expenses via the tolls on the new lanes. Taxpayers would pay virtually nothing. That arrangement allows the state to bypass the inept Montgomery County Council, which has only worsened congestion since the MoCo political cartel seized control of the Council in 2002.

Why Hogan would capitulate to the noisy 1%, who have received outsize coverage from the cartel-controlled local press, is mind-boggling. It's not the first time. When Hogan had the advantage to choose early voting sites favorable to his party in 2016, he buckled and agreed to a Democratic-favorable site plan. What's the point of being governor if you don't exercise the power you hold?

Treasurer Nancy Kopp sounded confused and unfit to serve on the board, claiming to be unfamiliar with the details of a plan Hogan announced two years ago. She sounded an awful lot like our Council, which spent the last four years outlawing Styrofoam, Raid and teenage tanning beds, when they weren't debating whether or not to ban circus animals. Good God. Once again, Beltway commuters have been hung out to dry by our elected officials at both the county and state levels.

Hogan deserves tremendous credit for coming up with a brilliant end-run around our corrupt, criminal and utterly-incompetent County Council that has failed to reduce traffic congestion AT ALL over decades. His plan could theoretically one day deliver the express lanes on the Beltway via yesterday's vote. The problem is, by capitulating to the delay on the Beltway part, Hogan will be long out of office by the time that phase would begin. Instead of locking it in now, Hogan has left it up to the political winds of 2022 and beyond. We know from painful experience, and the child-like ballot choices of low-information voters, how that's likely to end.

Montgomery County is currently at rock bottom in the region in economic development by every relevant measure, from job creation to new business starts to business growth. Meanwhile, Virginia has successfully built the same type of Express Lanes from D.C. to the Fredericksburg area, and is winning all of the jobs and corporate headquarters. Montgomery County, by contrast, hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over twenty years.

We cannot reclaim our old status as an economic player in the region until we build the long-delayed new Potomac River crossing to Dulles, the M-83 Highway upcounty, and Express Lanes on the Beltway and I-270. Our County Council is one of the few in America actively trying to prevent infrastructure from being built. It's insane.

Transit is not a viable alternative for the vast majority of those using both interstates. The people who propose it with a straight face know that better than anyone - which is why they have to resort to brute force. No one wants to spend two-to-three hours commuting each way daily via transit. The Council's goal is to maintain and worsen congestion to justify their $10 billion Bus Rapid Transit boondoggle, and deliver massive profits to their developer sugar daddies.

The Council must be replaced. We need elected officials who respond to the majority of their constituents who commute by car - not to tie-dye advocates of 1960s bus plans, greedy developers and the Rockefeller Foundation. What irony that Hogan, et al, delayed Maryland Beltway relief at the same time Virginia is starting on the final leg of their Express Lanes to Fredericksburg. Montgomery County is now the bedroom community for the booming job centers in Northern Virginia and the District.

The silent majority must rise up and oust these criminals in 2022.

18 comments:

  1. I enjoy your blog, but you might want to read about "induced demand" when it comes to building new highway lanes.

    No need to expand the beltway. Better transit is needed.

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    1. I am familiar with the concept, but I haven't seen much evidence of it in our particular region or county. I-270 was widened, but massive development was approved at the same time and since, thereby negating the additional capacity.

      Just as importantly, our elected officials deleted three highways from our master plans that were designed to shift traffic off of I-270: M-83 Highway upcounty, the Rockville Freeway, and the extension of I-370 over the Potomac to the Dulles Airport area.

      The specific problem to blame for much of our Beltway congestion, besides the bottlenecks at places like Pooks Hill and the Legion Bridge, is that elected officials made the disastrous decision to not run I-95 through D.C.

      As a result, we have East Coast I-95 traffic coming around our Beltway, which was never designed to hold that volume of vehicles.

      So we have seen past widening be ineffective, but an examination of the actual engineering blunders caused by politicians shows that induced demand was not really a factor on I-495 or I-270.

      As someone who has used transit extensively, it takes about 2 hours to accomplish most trips one-way, and therefore is impractical for a majority of residents who do not reside and commute to work directly on a Metro line. Cars are going to be zero-emission within the next 15 years. Your County Council has and is approving massive new numbers of housing units countywide, many far from rapid transit at places like Westbard and Olney. So the demand for road capacity will only increase from here.

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  2. I think people in DC are very pleased that an interstate highway does not bisect their city

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    1. 1:03: I'm sure some are, but the freeway system is regional in nature. To block key parts of it in D.C., MoCo and Arlington, they are playing the role of trolls under the bridge the rest of us must cross. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

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    2. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

      So why not build more housing in Westbard, then?

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    3. 8:12: There not only is no critical "need" for developers to profit from new housing at Westbard, it is not within the accepted transit-oriented development walking distance to Metro, and growth there is auto-oriented sprawl as a result.

      Sprawl at Westbard only increases the need for more highway capacity. Ergo, your argument makes no sense whatsoever. Meanwhile, there is clear need for congestion relief on our highways, and we can't allow trolls under the bridge to subvert the needs of the majority of taxpaying residents.

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    4. You keep using the word "sprawl" in a manner completely opposite of its meaning. Infill development is not "sprawl".

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    5. 8:42: "Infill development" in a low-density suburban area not within a quarter-to-half-mile from Metro absolutely is sprawl.

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    6. According to you, and to you alone.

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  3. Halfway to good! More capitulation ahead!

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  4. "Elected officials made the disastrous decision to not run I-95 through D.C. As a result, we have East Coast I-95 traffic coming around our Beltway, which was never designed to hold that volume of vehicles."

    Do you seriously think we would be better off if the Maine-to-Florida traffic that currently runs along the Wilson Bridge, ran along the Southeast-Southwest Freeway, the 14th Street Bridge, and Shirley Highway through Arlington and Alexandria?

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    1. 5:06: Yes, we would be. And you forget that much of that traffic also comes around through Bethesda, past the I-270 interchange, and into Virginia to 95 via the Legion Bridge.

      So, clearly, we would be far better off if all of that I-95 traffic never got on our Beltway, and instead kept going straight through D.C.

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    2. People driving from DC to Boston don't drive straight through Midtown Manhattan. Why would they drive through downtown DC?

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    3. 11:32: There are many more highways through NYC than DC. There was an established right-of=way for I-95 through DC, and that is why it was supposed to be built there. What an idiotic decision in retrospect to have canceled it.

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    4. There has never been an "established right-of-way for I-95 through DC". There is nothing between the south end of I-95 at the Beltway in Prince George's County, and the north end of I-395 at New York Avenue NW in the District. No land was acquired for this.

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    5. 8:39: There most definitely was right-of-way and land acquired. The dummies in our governments transferred much of the I-95 right-of-way to WMATA, which used it for Metro - for example, Fort Totten Metro station and Metro along the CSX trackage near Catholic University and Brookland area.

      The right-of-way is clearly shown on maps from decades ago.

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    6. A desire line on a 50 year old map /= "right of way".

      The only area in the District that is public property and undeveloped along that line is that park east of Fort Totten, between Galloway and Gallatin Streets. Building the highway along that route would require the taking and demolition of thousands of homes and businesses.

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    7. 11:19: Wrong! All you have to do is stand on a bridge across the tracks in NE DC, and you will see the width was there. It was indeed a public right-of-way acquired - how do you think they built the Metro, Einstein?

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