Md. can't afford to build the ICC

In "Road block?" , state officials and AAA Mid-Atlantic officials lament the loss of transportation revenues as Marylanders drive less as a result of high gas prices.

[Ken]

Here come the whiners... they never tell you that the ICC (which has been consistently supported by a majority of voters in Maryland, something else they won't tell you) could have been built for half of its current cost had Parris Glendening not tried to cancel the project. Fortunately we had folks like former Gov. Schaefer who were able to prevent the sale of the land acquired for this project to Glendening's developer cronies.

[Douger]

"The writer is executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth."

Or better known as the coalition for "liberal elitist telling people that they should live in filthy, crime ridden cities with lousy schools, riding next to a wino who's puked on the seat and crapped his pants on the bus."

There. Fixed that for you.

[Number Six]

Douger wrote:

"The writer is executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth."
Or better known as the coalition for "liberal elitist telling people that they should live in filthy, crime ridden cities with lousy schools, riding next to a wino who's puked on the seat and crapped his pants on the bus."
There. Fixed that for you.

Thanks for the translation, but most of us understood what he was saying.

Serious case of NIMBY. How the ICC will not reduce congestion on 495 and, to a less extent, 70, is beyond me.

"Thousands" acres of trees. Is he serious?

[Surf52]

Never pass up[ the opportunity to flog a dead horse.

[Whiners]

I bet the above posters are the same ones who moan about property right infringements. When you voluntarily surrender your property to buid a useless road, then you can talk about elitism.

[qzone]

what about the thousand of acres lost to new development the last 5 years? BUILD THE ICC ALREADY

[Rob]

Whiners wrote:

I bet the above posters are the same ones who moan about property right infringements. When you voluntarily surrender your property to buid a useless road, then you can talk about elitism.

I doubt that there is 1 person who currently lives along the ICC route that didn't buy their property when the ICC was officially part of the master plan. The voluntarily purchased property that they should have known would one day be condemned or would be located near a major thouroughfare. I have zero sympathy for these people. The road is necessary.

[Douger]

Whiners wrote:

I bet the above posters are the same ones who moan about property right infringements. When you voluntarily surrender your property to buid a useless road, then you can talk about elitism.

Not noticing that there's a huge difference between applying the eminent domain principle to secure land for roads and using the tactic to reward developers.

[concerned non lawyer]

Well then, stewart, I guess we should just do away with BRAC. Ft Monmouth will be glad to hear that. All that building and business moving into Maryland is just bad for "smart growth". BTW, the cost for BRAC has skyrocketed and we could save billions by not moving NJ people here. You sound like a "no drill" guy too. The ICC will certainly relieve SOME congestion won't it? The people who will use it, won't be on another road will they? And with the price of gas going out the door, anything we can do to shorten didtances between two points has to be good. But then again according to your address, you alreadyl ive in Washington, and probably work there, so you are not qualified to judge this expansion. Ask someone who is stuck in traffic everyday how they feel about it.

[BennyFactor]

The ICC is a waste, even if we have to return and forfeit some of the federal ca$h attached to the project. on the upside, the current administration can scapegoat the previous administration (and rightly so) for viewing all transportation as roads, when the world is screaming for transit infrastructure investment.

[Seadog]

I commuted East and West across that part of the state for 28 years. I would have loved to have had the ICC.

There are no major East-West roads between I 495 and I 70. If you have to commute there your only choices are to go way out of your way to use one of the above mentioned highways, or do what most people do and wind your way through a maze of secondary roads and residential streets.

My previous job was in Rockville and the 20 mile commute took 75 minutes. My new job is in Greenbelt and the 24 mile commute only takes 35 minutes. The difference is that I take all super highways to my new job.

The "thousands of acres of trees" line is an outright lie. Were are not talking about pristine wilderness here. This is the most heavily developed part of the state.

The ICC is too late to do me any good; but, it is needed, desparately.

Seadog
Clarksville, MD

[Surf52]

Whiners wrote:

I bet the above posters are the same ones who moan about property right infringements. When you voluntarily surrender your property to buid a useless road, then you can talk about elitism.

Take my house. Please!

[Steve Gearhart]

Hey, concerned non lawyer, the ICC has little impact on BRAC as it does not serve the majority of military installations in the state. At most it will affect Andrews (increase of 600 jobs) and Bethesda Naval Medical Center (an increase of 2500 jobs) whereas BRAC has it highest impact in Harford, Baltimore and Cecil counties including Baltimore City.

Up here we plan to see a major influx of over 8000 jobs. The ICC has almost NO impact on the majority of BRAC-related contracts unless people are commuting from the west side of Montgomery Count before going north to Aberdeen or Ft. Meade. Given the current housing market...people will choose to live north of the ICC as opposed to living in Montgomery County.

Seadog, I concede that there is no good east-west passage. And even with the ICC there still won't be any. The plan to build the ICC is outdated, but the state purchased the land years ago so whatever plan is instituted, will be guided by this. The problem is that since the original plan was drafted and adopted, massive amounts of development has gone up since then and will require either bridges or access exits and ramps to these communities. Not only increasing in cost but congestion as well. That is why most people will agree that it will not solve any congestion issues.

As far as the thousands of acres of trees...there are actually a couple thousand acres of woodland...but that has already been deemed to be cut down. And while I agree that anyone who bought a property that backs to one of these easements had to know what was going to happen eventually, the conversion of those easements will affect property values, which will in turn influence the state's housing market to some negative degree (probably a small impact).

The people who are getting the shaft are the people who have to give up their land temporarily so that construction crews can create a base for their vehicles. This is much more of an issue since the ICC plans did not change with the advent of development. That means that the government can come in, take a portion of your property that is NOT physically connected to the ICC, raze the land (destroying trees, streams, ponds, etc.), severely affecting the local environment, leave you a mess...and pay you as little as possible for your trouble. My father did an ICC project appraisal for a church over a year ago where they were forced to give up close to 40% of their parking, suffer the loss of a pond and will have to contend with having construction equipment sitting out in front of the church. The state tried to pay them only $50k to build an auxiliary parking lot in back...destroying MORE property. I've yet to hear the outcome of their case.

The ICC, however, WILL serve as an east-west corridor. Beyond that...it will not solve any of the problems for which it was initially proposed for. And it may cause even more problems for the future. Oh, and for you illegal immigration opponents out there, how many of those construction workers do you think will be legal? Just a thought…

[John]

The ICC is a joke. It would dump traffic right back into overcrowed streets.

[Richard K]

ANYONE who has commuted down I95 from Baltimore to DC just to go west on 495 then back north on I270 to Rockville or Gaithersburg knows just how necessary this road has been. For everyone that keeps spouting off about how this will add more congestion and CO2 emissions... you're living a dilusional life.

The ICC means less commute time which leads to much less CO2 emissions for everyone using the ICC and all of the other drivers who are spared the hell of I495 traffic in Montgomery county.

Like someone said... BUILD IT ALREADY!

[Seadog]

Richard K wrote:

ANYONE who has commuted down I95 from Baltimore to DC just to go west on 495 then back north on I270 to Rockville or Gaithersburg knows just how necessary this road has been.

Not to mention the daily miles-long backup from Rt 212 to the Westbound Beltway ramp.

If you are sitting in stopped traffic, you are getting ZERO miles per gallon.

[Number Six]

While I support the ICC, if the state really wanted to reduce emissions and traffic, they would build a MARC line between Frederick and Baltimore with minimal stops along the way.

I would use it in a heartbeat.

[Keep Trying]

John wrote:

The ICC is a joke. It would dump traffic right back into overcrowed streets.

WTF! So you are saying the roads are not crowded now? I guess that all of the people that would use the ICC don't drive at all now? How did you think that comment, much less get yourself to type it on a public blog?

[Tired of Taxes Tom]

If you're old enough, you'll remember how long I-795 took to complete. The Beltway signs indicating "Future" for that exit were up for years. The arguments against I-795 were the same -- WRONG!!!

I-97 was in the planning stages for OVER 20 YEARS because of this garbage. Remember what it was like driving all the way down Ritchie Highway to get to Route 50? Or better yet, dealing with that mess on a summer Sunday night? Would you rather 97 did not exist?

Face it, folks, this is one of the very few new projects our state SHOULD begin...should have done so years ago.

[Tired Of Complainers]

Pretty disingenuous at best. The opponents blocked the road for years during which time the cost quadrupled and important federal funding opportunities were missed and now they CLAIM they are concerned that the project is uneconomical.

They delayed the ICC for years during which the region would have experienced the greatest benefit from congestion and pollution relief and NOW they claim they are concerned that the road will not relieve congestion. TRUTH CHECK: The road may not materially relieve existing congestion, but it WILL reduce future congestion. To argue otherwise is just plain silly. Extra capacity to accommodate inevitable growth equals relief. It doesn’t mean that the struggle to reduce congestion is a victory, but at least it will take some of the pressure off.

I commute east-west around the beltway every morning and have often wondered what the true cost of that mass of congestion is. How do you measure the extra impact of not just the thousands of idling engines on 12 lanes of traffic not to mention the impact on the blood pressure and mental health of the commuters who spend more time stuck in traffic than with their children?

As for the concern that the road will attract more development, of course it will. As much as people don’t want to acknowledge it, the population of the entire country is growing and so is our region. To support the growth, which is the product of both a mobile population AND increasing population size, the area will need to have more jobs and more housing. Of course, the nimbies would prefer to just send that growth elsewhere, but where? Someone else’s back yard? Get over. Build the roads or mandate a one child policy (please don’t take me seriously on this suggestion). The population is growing.