Intercounty Connector

Connector freeway wouldn't solve real congestion problemThe Sun's May 10 editorial "Tying Montgomery Co. to the Baltimore region," claimed Montgomery County needs a new east-west road.This runs counter to positions taken in the past two months by the Montgomery County Council and Prince George's County Council, who want to abandon the proposed Intercounty Connector (ICC).The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), prepared in 1997, found that the proposed ICC would not solve the problem of congestion on the Capital beltway, Interstate 270 or I-95.

ROCKVILLE -- They've said it once and they'll say it again: the $1.1 billion Intercounty Connector from I-95 to I-270 is a dead end.In its strongest action, the Montgomery County Council passed a resolution yesterday opposing the Intercounty Connector (ICC) and calling on Gov. Parris N. Glendening to stop buying land for it. The vote was 5-2, with one abstention. The council president recused himself, as he always does on ICC matters, because he owns land in the corridor."This is the ultimate example of wishful thinking in transportation planning.

Bowing to political and legal reality, Gov. Parris N. Glendening has essentially abandoned his plan to sell parcels of a state-owned right of way in an effort to kill the long-debated Intercounty Connector in Montgomery County, aides said yesterday.A legal opinion from the Maryland attorney general's office confirmed yesterday what Glendening administration officials had already concluded -- the governor needs the approval of the Maryland Board of Public Works to sell "most, if not all" of the state's properties purchased for the road.

Maryland has a wonderful state treasurer in Richard N. Dixon.Just ask him."I'm the most qualified treasurer in the country. And as I talk to my fellow treasurers, it's clear I'm the most powerful," Dixon says.Son of a janitor and a product of segregated schools, Dixon first drew notice in Annapolis as a member of the House of Delegates.He impressed people with his knowledge of the budget -- and with his style, tooling around in a red Corvette, smoking cigars and wearing a mink overcoat.But the former Army paratrooper and stockbroker from Carroll County seems to have found his calling as Maryland's chief financial steward.

EVER SINCE Gov. Parris N. Glendening killed the Intercounty Connector in September, his lieutenant governor has limited her views on the matter to a terse sentence or two.But at a town meeting for the Asian-American community in downtown Silver Spring last week, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend found her tongue.With little prompting, she launched a spirited defense of Glendening's decision, saying the governor "could spend 10 years and millions of dollars on litigation or spend the money on getting [other]

COLLEGE PARK -- The group studying alternatives to a much-debated intercounty connector between Montgomery and Prince George's counties says it could support an east-west toll road.The 8-4 straw vote by the Transportation Solutions Group is the first indication of what will be recommended to Gov. Parris N. Glendening in July.Glendening created the working group last year after backing off from 15 years of solid support for an intercounty connector.The road, which would ease east-west travel, is also considered by officials at Baltimore-Washington International Airport to be essential to keeping BWI competitive with Dulles and Reagan National airports.

GOV. PARRIS N. Glendening may believe that he has driven a stake into the heart of the Intercounty Connector, but the real victim may be Maryland's economic future. Without this long-proposed highway, there's no easy way between Montgomery County's job-rich, high-tech corridor and the Baltimore region.The ICC would link Interstate 270 with Interstate 95, providing Montgomery County businesses better access to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and the Port of Baltimore. Workers in the major population center -- including Howard, Anne Arundel, Baltimore city and county and Prince George's -- would be nearer to thousands of well-paying, skilled positions.

In killing the ICC, the governor shows a limited visionAs a strong supporter of the Master Plan Alignment for the Intercounty Connector (ICC) since entering public office in 1991, I am extremely disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised, that Gov. Parris N. Glendening has decided not to proceed with the ICC.While this road is controversial, it is also vital to the economic fortunes of the capital region and critical to enable its citizens to commute safely...

Building more roads takes social toll, but won't ease congestionThe Sun's editorial "Shortchanging transportation" (June 15) rightly urges state leaders to take action on transportation funding.But first we should ask whether we are we spending our transportation funds wisely. Throwing huge sums into road construction is a bankrupt solution that will waste taxpayer dollars.According to national and regional transportation studies, we cannot build our way out of congestion in the Washington or Baltimore regions.

COLLEGE PARK -- A state transportation panel that has given preliminary endorsement to a $1.1 billion highway linking Prince George's and Montgomery counties also wants to study putting a toll lane on Interstate 95 between the Baltimore and Washington beltways.The Transportation Solutions Group, formed last year by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, raised the possibility in a 54-page draft report circulated publicly for the first time yesterday."It's an interesting proposal," said John D. Porcari, Maryland secretary of transportation.

There wasn't much public in the public hearing held by the Maryland Transportation Authority last week in Beltsville on its proposed tolls on the just-around-the-corner Intercounty Connector. A couple of dozen folks who might actually be described as public - not media, not state officials or contractors - took seats in the sparsely occupied cafeteria at High Point High School. But only a handful actually approached the microphone to share their views with the members of the authority's board.

Still time to stop expensive highway With an intelligent push for light rail, bus rapid transit and carpooling under way, there are few good reasons remaining to build the polluting dinosaur of a project known as the Intercounty Connector ("Budget blues," editorial, Dec. 21). The interest payments on the project alone will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, not just now but well into our future. How can we build a road that costs $180 million a mile without funding simple, much less expensive alternatives that could eliminate the need for the ICC?

Despite recent claims to the contrary, Maryland's Intercounty Connector - expensive though it surely is, at $2.4 billion - will deliver a very strong return on investment to Maryland residents, including many residents of the Baltimore metropolitan area. According to U.S. Census data, more than 130,000 people from greater Baltimore commute to the Washington area every day, many to jobs on the Interstate 270 technology corridor. Traffic forecasting illustrates the enormous benefit these travelers will experience from the ICC. The ICC will provide a much-needed link from BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport to the Washington metropolitan region, ensuring long-term economic benefits for Maryland.

Better mobility boosts economy In "ICC? It's time to see to more urgent needs instead" (Sept. 21), Dan Rodricks seems to have forgotten that the Intercounty Connector - which will be the most environmentally sensitive road ever built in Maryland - will support regional jobs and statewide mobility that will help Montgomery County and its neighbors continue to deliver the significant tax revenue that helps fund everything else in the state. So the ICC will, in the long run, be just as useful to Baltimore's success as the current $1.1 billion Interstate 95 toll road project north of Baltimore, or the state's payment of a huge percentage of the city's transportation costs.

Here in the Baltimore metropolitan area, we're a bit disconnected from that whole Intercounty Connector thing going on between Montgomery and Prince George's counties. For a lot of us who keep mainly to the Baltimore Beltway and the roads that intersect it, the ICC might as well be a bridge in Alaska. It's "down there" somewhere, designed to connect Interstate 95 near Laurel with Interstate 270 near Gaithersburg. But Baltimoreans and Marylanders everywhere should pay attention. A lot of our money - and our quality of life - is at stake.

ICC approval shows Ehrlich's foresight The Sun's article on a federal judge's refusal to hold up construction of the Intercounty Connector ("Judge removes final ICC roadblock," Nov. 9) referred to the decision as a "vindication" for the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. I would argue that it was the administration's greatest accomplishment. Mr. Ehrlich and his staff were highly engaged in this project. They left the mechanics, however, to transportation professionals who knew the intricacies of road construction.

Lease at Pimlico saved state money It is unbelievable what poppycock The Sun has written about the Maryland Racing Commission and its lease of space from Magna Entertainment Corp. ("Racing agency to leave Pimlico," May 5). But as a former chairman and current member of the Maryland Racing Commission, I can say that it makes absolutely no difference to racing commission executive director Michael Hopkins or to anyone on the commission where the offices of the commission might be located.

Gov. Robert Ehrlich broke ground yesterday on the Intercounty Connector - again. For the third time since May, when the federal government signed off on the $2.4 billion road, the governor has picked up a shovel, tossed a little dirt and declared the long-stalled project - planned since before he was born - finally under way. Perhaps the governor figured that, after more than 50 years of delays, long-suffering commuters didn't believe him the first or...

As motorists hit the highways this holiday weekend, more than half will be speeding through Maryland tolls with E-ZPass electronic transponders - a Memorial Day milestone that has planners thinking about the next stage: high-speed lanes that would allow cars to pass through tolls without slowing down. Already in use in some states, the "full-speed" toll collection lanes are included in plans for the Intercounty Connector in Montgomery County and in a widening slated for Interstate 95 north of Baltimore in the next few years.

State and federal highway officials have signed off on a final plan to build a $2.4 billion highway through Washington's suburbs - an agreement that could clear the way for construction of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s top transportation project to begin as early as this fall. Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan and Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen announced yesterday that they had reached agreement with federal officials on a revised environmental impact statement for the Intercounty Connector.