It’s getting easier to see why traffic is jammed in Fairfax and Montgomery counties when local officials responsible for transportation decisions act like ostriches, with their heads firmly buried in the sand.
Phil Andrews of Gaithersburg was the only one of the 19 members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Montgomery County Council who was willing to speak his mind about a controversial new book that exposes most of what passes for smart transportation policy — “more mass transit, force people out of their cars” — as ideological hokum, special-interest pleading or just pure bunk.
We wondered how open local officials are to new thinking, so a month ago, The Washington Examiner sent a copy of “The Road More Traveled” to each member of the Montgomery and Fairfax boards. We asked them to read the book — which is well-written, factual and concise — then tell us their reaction. The deadline was Friday and we said their responses or lack of would be published.
The book was written by Ted Balaker and Sam Staley. They uncovered mountains of data and other evidence that discounts most conventional wisdom on transportation policy among federal bureaucrats, state functionaries in Richmond and Annapolis and the Fairfax and Montgomery fiefdoms.
The book has been widely praised by this newspaper and The Washington Post, plus a rapidly growing list of government officials, academic experts and private sector executives looking for new approaches to reduce or even eliminate traffic congestion. (Yes, it’s been done in major cities elsewhere and it can be done here, too.)
In short, “The Road More Traveled” is chock full of fresh thinking about one the biggest worries facing most of us living in the Washington region — what’s the traffic like out there today. It’s a significant book that local officials need to read, just as many elsewhere already have.
Despite several follow-up reminder calls and e-mails, only Andrews read the book and then told us what he thought of it. One other official — Penelope Gross of Fairfax’s Mason district — sent a single snarky sentence instead of a serious response.
No response was received from these members of the Montgomery council: George Leventhal, Marilyn Praisner, Marc Elrich, Valerie Ervin, Roger Berliner, Duchy Trachtenberg, Nancy Floreen and Mike Knapp.
No response was received from these members of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors: Gerry Connolly, Sharon Bulova, Joan DuBois, Cathy Hudgins, Dana Kaufman, Gerald Hyland, Linda Smyth, Elaine McConnell and Michael Frey.
The Fairfax ostriches weren’t entirely silent, though. They tasked the bureaucrats in the Fairfax transportation department to do their talking for them. That way, instead of having to take positions as individuals, the supervisors could hide behind a 10-page memo produced by the bureaucrats.
Just moments before our deadline passed, Merni Fitzgerald, who is paid more than $120,000 a year as Fairfax County’s director of public information, e-mailed a copy of the transportation department’s memo to The Examiner.
When I asked Fitzgerald if each individual supervisor reviewed the memo, she replied with a classic illustration of PR spin meant to obscure fact: “This document reflects comments and input from the Board ofSupervisors as well as from various members of the county staff.”
When asked if her answer meant none of the supervisors reviewed the memo, Fitzgerald repeated the spin. So I asked her to cut the BS and tell us how many of the supervisors actually read the book. Her reply: “You would have to ask them individually whether or not they read the book.”
Funny, I thought the taxpayers of Fairfax County were paying Fitzgerald more than three times as much as the U.S. Census Bureau says is earned annually by the average American worker to be the spokesman for the county supervisors.
Considering how bad traffic has gotten in Fairfax and Montgomery counties under their watches, it is perhaps understandable that the folks in charge aren’t eager to comment on a book that makes clear why commutes of an hour or more each way are becoming commonplace.
But I doubt that the voters trapped in those miserable commutes will be patient much longer with officials who refuse to pull their heads out of the sand.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog.
