Montgomery County and the state of Maryland had five years to prepare for the planned relocation of thousands of workers and patients to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. They did nothing about the extra traffic they knew would be generated by the Base Realignment and Closure consolidation until it was already upon them. Now they plan to do something worse than nothing: They plan to spend $11.8 million of federal BRAC money on what nearby residents are calling the “Death Lane.”
The Washington Examiner has obtained a copy of a study of the proposed “auxiliary through lane” near the Rockville Pike/Cedar Lane intersection by independent traffic engineering consultant Joseph Cutro for the Locust Hill Citizens Association. Cutro’s conclusion, affirmed by other traffic engineers, is that besides being “a total waste of taxpayer dollars,” the proposed merge lane would significantly increase the number of sideswipe accidents while doing virtually nothing to ease traffic congestion.
