Crucial I-270 proposal up for vote
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
November 10, 2009
The Montgomery County Council is scheduled to take a crucial vote Tuesday on the future of Interstate 270, a transit proposal that could ripple through most of the county.
On Tuesday's council agenda:
» Voting on whether to widen I-270 from Shady Grove Road to Frederick.
» Deciding whether the Corridor Cities Transitway -- linking Clarksburg, Germantown, Gaithersburg and Rockville to Shady Grove Metro -- should be bus or light rail.
» Proposal for the massive development near the White Flint Metro station
» The county's "smart growth" policy
A council committee has recommended that Maryland officials pave express toll lanes in each direction and supplement the project with rapid bus transit, but advocates of light rail -- which include developers -- have latched onto recent state figures in hopes of changing the council's mind.
Tuesday's vote is technically only advisory -- council members are being asked to draft a letter to state officials about their views of I-270 expansion -- but the political reality is that state officials traditionally give wide deference to local governments whose jurisdictions are affected by big highway projects.
Much is in play: The proposed bus/light rail line, called the Corridor Cities Transitway, not only is designed to ease congestion in the traffic-clogged county, but also will have a direct effect on the size and scale of the so-called "Science City" development, a proposed 60,000-job center in Gaithersburg.
A coalition including the Sierra Club, the Action Committee for Transit and the Coalition for Smarter Growth have lobbied the council to focus on building mass transit and skip road-widening.
"We need to learn to the lessons from the last time we widened I-270 and it was swamped with traffic immediately," coalition policy director Cheryl Cort said. "We need something other than this endless widening of I-270."
On the other side is, among others, Rich Parsons, the former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, who is lobbying for Science City on behalf of Johns Hopkins University. He said a recent state study found that up to 3,000 more people per day would use light rail over buses, which means that a widened I-270 can only ease traffic.
"There are huge traffic benefits at stake," he said, dismissing all-transit advocates as "ideologues."
Council President Phil Andrews has argued for a smaller widening -- using two reversible lanes -- and a rapid bus line. He reiterated his support in a memo to colleagues last week, saying a bus route would save $1 billion immediately and would allow the project to get started faster than light rail -- which could take years to get going.
"Getting the CCT built as soon as possible is crucial for Clarksburg, Germantown and Gaithersburg West," Andrews wrote.
