When Montgomery County expands Montrose Parkway in the next two years, drivers could be faced with a six-lane expressway from Interstate 270 that ends on a two-lane street behind a shopping center.
Without dollars from the county, a state project to improve the Montrose Road/Rockville Pike interchange would lag years behind the county project.
So on Tuesday, council members announced an $80 million bond initiative to help grease the wheels of this and other state projects throughout the county. This is the first time the council has matched state funding in more than 15 years, said county transportation analyst Glenn Orlin.
Its backers say the move is necessary.
“We are all caught in congestion day after day,” said Council Member Nancy Floreen, who rode to her at-large seat four years ago on the “End Gridlock” slate put together by County Executive Doug Duncan. “We?ve been talking about it for four years. The price of gas is going up every minute.”
While the bond issue is not automatically subject to a voter referendum in an issue of this size, voters can petition to have it put on a ballot, county budget analyst Tim Firestine said.
Some multijurisdiction projects are exempt from that process, though it is unclear whether these funds would fall under that exemption.
Council Member Steve Silverman, D-at large, said there is a model for this kind of cost-sharing in school construction where projects can be speeded up through additional county funding.
The council will have to find $1.1 million in next year?s budget for the bond debt service and will allocate $40 million in bonds for the fiscal 2007 budget. The council will “float” another $40 million in bonds the following year and spend the money over a three-year period.
The most recent state project in Montgomery to get county funding was the expansion of Route 118 through Germantown, Orlin said.
