TOLL LANE PROJECT IN 2025: NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

As best the public can tell, the status of the Hogan/Moore toll lane project at the start of the new year is this: Outcome uncertain, stakes remarkably high.

2025 will be the 8th year a MD governor uses taxpayer dollars to – at a minimum – keep the harmful, inequitable toll lane project alive. Despite dramatic state funding shortfalls and painful transportation cuts, the Moore administration’s latest Consolidated Transportation Plan still calls for $77 million for engineering for the I-495/I-270 project (p. 294).

On the one hand, and for multiple compelling reasons, the project seems increasingly unlikely to be implemented (see “On the Back of the Back Burner” below). On the other hand, as long as the plan remains officially part of the governor’s program, it poses serious risks the public can’t ignore (see “Big Opportunities for Bad Choices”).

Our coalition of activists, advocacy groups and elected allies continues to urge the Moore Administration to cancel the toll lane project and turn to smarter, more effective alternatives (see “Not Over ‘til it’s Over”).

The toll lane plan is on the back of the back burner. Why?

No money

“Moore and the legislature head into the 2025 session facing a five-year budget outlook that fiscal analysts have said includes billions of dollars in structural deficits.” Along with the operating budget deficit is a $1.3 billion cut over six years for transportation projects. As for federal funding, the Biden administration has twice denied MDOT’s request for grants for the toll lanes, including for the American Legion (AL) Bridge. Now there are concerns about the impact a second Trump administration could have on state finances.

Lack of credible plans

State Delegate Marc Korman, Chair of the House Transportation and Environment Committee, called on MDOT Sec. Wiedefeld to provide “a more realistic update on what's going on with the American Legion Bridge, 495 and 270.” Del. Korman said, “We've had six or seven years of unrealistic discussions…We're acting like we're still going to go forward with this full product…we need to talk about what it is we realistically want to do, what that realistically will cost and how that fits in with the life of the bridge and the roads…” (Consolidated Transportation Program Presentation,1:31:40).

Sec. Wiedefeld seemed to agree, at least in part: “Definitely on the American Legion Bridge, I think we should have a more detailed discussion and really talk realistically about what the future holds for [the bridge], both in terms of its immediate needs and then its future” (1:32:00). So far, no new discussions have been shared with the public.

No legal clarity

A strong legal appeal of the I-495/I-270 toll lane plan is awaiting final judgement this year. The appeal, filed by the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, says:

• “Federal law requires that agencies thoroughly assess and candidly disclose a project’s damage to health, ecosystems, and historic sites before deciding whether to approve that project. Administrative law further requires that agencies consider all relevant factors, reasonably explain their decisions, and support their conclusions with record evidence” (p. 10).

• “The Agencies [MDOT and the Federal Highway Administration] violated these fundamental duties when approving their plan to expand and add toll lanes to fifteen miles of I-495 (the Beltway) and I-270 near Washington, D.C…The Agencies’ briefs double down on these failures. They continue to ignore inconvenient facts, rely on inapposite analyses, and disregard the requirements of various federal laws” (p. 10).

From Maryland Matters, 1/2/25, House of Delegates file photo by Bruce DePuyt

The toll lane plan offers big opportunities for bad choices

The Governor could be pressured into a for-profit public-private partnership (P3).
Highway proponents, lobbyists and Virginia elected officials are urging Moore to extend toll lanes from Northern VA, across the AL Bridge, and onto Maryland I-495. As our advocacy coalition has been documenting for years (including here, here, and here), this would be a devastating move for Maryland’s residents, economy, governance, congestion-relief efforts, public health, equity, and environment.

If Moore gives in to the pressure, he’ll have little choice, funding-wise, but to try again for a P3. State officials have been clear about the dangers:

• Transportation Sec. Wiedefeld has said re: P3s for complex projects: “…you give up a lot of the ability to control the future…And you're doing it at a cost. The reality is the taxpayers are still going to pay for it in some fashion…They [the private partners] are not giving the state money” (minutes 22:12 to 23:27).

• State Comptroller Brooke Lierman said about the risks of P3s: “The Purple Line is a textbook case of why long-term transportation P3s can be so dangerous. At the end of the day, if there is a disagreement or the numbers no longer work for the private partner – it just walks away. And then, it is taxpayers and residents who suffer…”

MDOT could let VA’s Southside Project “slip” private toll lanes onto the MD Beltway.
The Moore Administration has not said the obvious “no” to Virginia’s proposal to put for-profit private toll lanes across the Wilson Bridge and onto the MD Beltway in Prince George’s County. This Southside Project would effectively end the chance of extending the Metro Blue Line across the bridge, and cause a major new traffic bottleneck at Oxon Hill, MD, where the toll lanes end. The only “solution” to toll lane-created bottlenecks, as we’ve seen in Northern VA, is to build more toll lanes, which create more bottlenecks, and on and on. If Moore allows this, he will leave future governors with an intractable problem and limited ability to stop private toll lane expansion around the Beltway.

The state could waste a billion on a problem that’s already been fixed.
Lower I-270 doesn’t need congestion relief: MDOT’s excellent Innovative Congestion Management System took care of it. But MDOT insists that construction of unneeded, unwanted toll lanes on lower I-270 (as opposed to upper I-270; see note*) remain part of the Regional Transportation Planning Board’s long-range plan. The nonsensical 2045 construction date can be moved up at any time. (*Note: An array of smart solutions for congestion on upper I-270 should have been a state priority years ago.)

It’s not over til it’s over!

Together we need to stay on top of these issues and do all we can to call attention to them. Please follow the newly-convening state legislature as it confronts the transportation funding shortfall. Maryland Matters is a good source for this news, as are newsletters from your district’s delegates and senator.

To find details about alternatives to toll lanes and to request updates and alerts, go to the websites of the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Action Committee for Transit, and the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Sign up for newsletters from Citizens Against Beltway Expansion and use the newsletter archive at DontWiden270.org to find more about specific toll lane issues.

And any chance you get, please urge our county and state officials to reject the harmful and inequitable toll lane plan. Thank you!

Update: MDOT Actively Pursuing Toll Lane Plans. Grassroots’ Legal Appeal is a Blockbuster

The Moore Administration – away from the public eye and counter to the needs of the vast majority – continues working on multiple fronts to get toll lanes started on Maryland I-495 and I-270. At the same time, on the public-interest side of the toll-lane project divide, the Maryland Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation are appealing a court ruling that let the Moore-Hogan plan stand (see “Eye-Opening Brief,” below).

Here's what we know about MDOT’s latest “stealth” actions, and what the powerful grassroots legal appeal has to say.

MDOT Action #1: Conducting toll lane-related field work…in Virginia

In May, June, July, and August of this year, the Virginia Department of Transportation sent out notifications that MDOT would conduct field work along VA’s I-495 in support of “…a new American Legion Bridge and expanding multimodal transportation options along the I-495 and I-270 corridor…” Typical of messaging on this project, the notifications do not mention toll lanes. Also typical, MDOT did not itself notify the MD public.

This field work matters because it shows MDOT actively implementing Larry Hogan’s original plan. Governor Moore –because of pressure from Virginia? pro-toll-lane interests? – is taking steps now to ensure MDOT’s proposed toll lanes will connect with VDOT’s private toll lanes.

But the Moore Administration is getting ahead of itself. It has no funding for the multi-billion dollar project (see “Events May Complicate..."). And as far as the public knows, MD and VA still have no formal toll lane agreement (more on that in Action #2, below). The Administration is potentially digging MD and its taxpayers into a deep hole.

2022 MDOT rendering of its toll-lane construction commitment in VA, south of the American Legion Bridge. MDOT would build the brown portion of the highway in this rendering; VDOT would build the blue.

MDOT Action #2: Apparently allowing VA to start design phase and permitting efforts (p. 3) for construction of electronic toll lane signs in Montgomery County, MD

MDOT signed a "secret" agreement with VDOT in May of this year – without giving the Maryland public or our local officials a heads up. We know about it only because a local VA news site linked to a VDOT website that posted the agreement.

This so-called signage agreement allows VDOT to start construction on its electronic toll lane signs in MD. It also allows VA to acquire right of way in MD and relocate utilities along MD I-495. And – this is huge – it requires VDOT and MDOT to negotiate a new bi-state agreement for the American Legion Bridge and I-270 project (see “MDOT signed...”).

It's a big deal. It gives VDOT and its private contractors a toe-hold in MD. And it means the Moore Administration could be negotiating a new and immensely important, high-stakes toll lane agreement right now, behind closed doors – as though the public and our officials have no stake in the outcome, no part to play.

MDOT Action #3: Cooperating with VDOT on extending VA’s private toll lanes into Prince George’s County, MD

MDOT supports VDOT’s Southside project despite serious concerns and opposition from WMATA and Prince George’s County, and despite clear evidence that the toll lanes would functionally preclude expansion of the Blue Line over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

In the absence of any Moore Administration explanation of why it supports VDOT’s project or what the benefits to Marylanders would be, we’re left to see this is just one more way for the Governor to impose toll lanes on an unwilling public along Maryland I-495.

Good News: The Legal Appeal is an Eye-Opening Page-Turner

The opening brief the Sierra Club and fellow plaintiffs submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a reasoned, fully supported, ultimately damning look at what the Moore Administration would do. Selected quotes from the brief (below) paint a stark picture of some of the toll lane project’s profound flaws.

“The Agencies [MDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)] ignored, denied, and downplayed evidence of serious health and environmental harms, rather than offering the public and decision makers the full and fair accounting of the project’s impacts that federal law requires” (p. 3).

“To add four lanes to the Beltway and two to I-270, MDOT would pave over 100 acres of land, eliminate more than 400 acres of forest, damage eight linear miles of streams and take 15 acres of parks…” (p. 10).

“Adding lanes to the Beltway and I-270 would draw tens of thousands more vehicles onto these highways each day. The new lanes would also bring vehicles closer to the neighborhoods bordering the highways, exposing residents, school children, and workers to higher levels of [fine particulate matter pollution, called PM2.5]” (pp 12-13).

“Breathing PM2.5 can damage the lungs and the heart, aggravate asthma, and cause heart attacks and even premature death” (p. 12).

“The Agencies decided years before completing their environmental review that they would not assess the highway expansion project’s PM2.5 pollution or its health impacts. Apparently, no amount of public comment, contrary scientific studies and EPA findings, or guidance from experts the Agencies consulted, could sway them otherwise, or even motivate a substantive response” (p. 43).

“The project would worsen congestion in North Bethesda near the toll lanes’ endpoints on the I-270 spurs. Compared with the No Build Alternative, traffic speeds would sometimes drop by close to 50 mph in this area under the project” (p. 21).

 “According to the Agencies’ own data, building the toll lanes would lead to as much as a 40 mile-per-hour (mph) decrease in northbound speed during the afternoon rush hour around the I-370 interchange in Gaithersburg” (p. 46).

“The Agencies’ own staff acknowledged that the project’s purported congestion relief would not be ‘equally distributed.’ They observed, for example, that the project would worsen traffic on I-270’s general purpose lanes during afternoon rush hour.

They also expressed concerns about the ‘significant’ degradation of eastbound traffic during morning rush hour on the Beltway’s Inner Loop near the toll lanes’ endpoints” (p. 46).

“But they never acknowledged that the project would contribute to that ‘heavy congestion’ on I-270, as demonstrated by their modeling. Nor did they disclose that most of the segments that would experience project-induced increases in congestion are located in environmental justice communities” (p. 46).

For a more comprehensive look at some of the many, many reasons to oppose the toll lane project, read the entire, powerful, grassroots brief. A decision on the appeal is expected next year.

And a Different Kind of Page-Turner

An excellent new article in StreetsBlog USA skewers every argument Wes Moore and Larry Hogan ever made for building toll lanes where they aren't needed or wanted. Read it, share it, and know that people everywhere are opposing these misguided projects.

Take Quick Action to Stop Private Toll Lanes in MD

We need your help! Please click the Sierra Club message link to tell regional Transportation Planning Board members to vote ‘no’ on Virginia’s harmful plan to build private toll lanes into Maryland.

What’s At Stake: On June 20, the TPB will vote on the last, highly contentious piece of its long-range plan: Virginia’s proposal to put private toll lanes across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to Oxon Hill in Prince George’s County, MD. It’s called the Southside Express Lanes project, and our broad coalition of advocacy groups and elected allies strongly opposes it.

Here’s why:

• The Southside project would likely block any chance of the long-awaited Metro Blue Line crossing the Wilson Bridge into Maryland.

• VA is proposing to bring high-priced toll lanes toMD even though the Moore Administration recently withdrew (p. 5) its own plan for inequitable toll lanes on the Capital Beltway from east of I-270 to the Wilson Bridge.

• The Southside project would cause a major new traffic bottleneck at Oxon Hill where the toll lanes end. As we’ve seen in Northern VA, toll lane bottlenecks lead to more toll lanes, lead to more bottlenecks, and on and on.

• Multiple municipalities, agencies, and organizations have told the TPB they don’t want the Southside Project.

Please tell the Transportation Planning Board today that you oppose the Southside toll lanes and support smart, effective alternatives that meet the public’s real needs. Add your own words or simply send the pre-populated text.

Your message will go to TPB members ahead of the June 20 meeting. You can watch the vote, either live or recorded, here.

Thank you for taking action!

Sierra Club banner over highway lanes