We need to grab this chance to submit public comments, even if the circumstances show MDOT’s lack of respect for the public:
MDOT ignored calls from elected officials for a 90-to-120 day public comment period.
MDOT delayed granting the extension until COB on the very last work day before the original deadline.
MDOT deliberately limited the extension to the 15 days that include the year’s busiest travel and shopping periods plus Thanksgiving and Hanukah.
No matter: We will be heard
Consider this issue of the newsletter a mini-tour of project deficiencies and low-lights. All the items below will give you information and ideas for your comments on the project’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS). Note:
Comments can be as short or involved as you want.
If you’ve submitted a comment already, thank you, and consider writing another on different points (there’s no shortage of points).
How to submit your comments
Do any of the following by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, November 30 (click here to access all instructions):
Send an email to oplanesMLS@mdot.maryland.gov.
Submit an electronic comment form.
Provide verbal public testimony via voicemail (855-432-1483). Three-minute limit.
Start every comment the same way
Use these words near the beginning of your comment so MDOT cannot misrepresent your intent (something they’ve done before) when they tally public opinion: “I support the no-build option and oppose the I-495/I-270 toll-lane project.”
Take inspiration and ideas from the Rockville Mayor and Council’s powerful SDEIS comments:
“It is critical that MDOT and [the Federal Highway Administration] reinstate transit as a key project element...”
“The Purpose and Need omits safety considerations typically featured for transportation projects...”
“…implementing only Phase 1 South will create a major congestion and bottleneck in the eastbound direction at the points where the managed lanes end…and cause an existing chokepoint to get even worse.”
“The issue of economically challenged populations or social equity continues not to be adequately addressed by the SDEIS.”
Tell MDOT that Innovative Congestion Management (ICM) on lower I-270 works; toll lanes won’t!
If you use lower I-270 now, you know that barring an accident, construction, or storm, traffic is generally free-flowing.
The welcome congestion relief was created by MDOT’s ICM program, which began in 2017 and is now 77% complete.
The ICM program installed ramp metering, extended merge lanes to create extra through lanes, converted a shoulder to an HOV-2 lane, and turned an old HOV-2 lane into an extra through lane.
But the toll-lane project would destroy the taxpayer-funded ICM improvements on lower I-270, create congestion where there is none, and make the notorious I-270 northern bottleneck even worse.
Lower I-270 will be irreparably harmed by toll lanes. Read all the details here.
Point out that the SDEIS traffic model is spectacularly flawed
Our partner, the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, found that, “The output of the SDEIS’s traffic model is contrary to common sense, logic, and traffic forecasting done by MDOT itself….”
Read here why MTOC, DontWiden270.org, and Citizens Against Beltway Expansion called for retraction of the SDEIS until the failed traffic model could be fixed.
Consider these excellent points from our partner Citizens Against Beltway Expansion
Click here for paragraph-long summaries of the items below, and more:
“After enduring 5 years of construction delays, drivers who use the general lanes [northbound from the American Legion Bridge to the intersection of I-270 and I-370] will be rewarded with a 7 minute and 30 second increase in their daily commute, round trip.”
500 acres of tree canopy would be cut down.
15 parks would be harmed, including 3 national parks.
MDOT would not treat most of the stormwater runoff, which would further degrade local waterways.
MDOT did not analyze the impact on global warming.
There is no assessment of whether low-income communities or communities of color would suffer more of the harmful impacts.
Give MDOT your opinion of the sky-high tolls just approved on 11/18/21
See the table of final tolls here (p.78 of the file). Note:
The maximum toll rates apply when there’s heavy congestion, the only times most people would consider using toll lanes.
The tolls in the table are in 2021 dollars. Given the approved yearly escalation rate, tolls for passenger vehicles will be well over $4/mile when the toll lanes open. That means $50 tolls to drive from the George Washington Parkway to Shady Grove!
Note the exorbitant tolls for multi-axle trucks. The cost will drive big rigs into the general lanes, causing more -- and more serious -- accidents, extra wear and tear on the roads, more trucks on secondary roads, etc.
Call MDOT on the project’s outrageous financial risk to taxpayers
This truth-telling editorial in the Washington Post says it all: “Hogan has claimed that the lanes would have ‘virtually no cost to taxpayers,’ because the 50-year deal…would be paid for using private financing. That’s not true.”
The public’s going to pay for those toll lanes one way or another: through sky-high tolls, taxes, fees, assumption of financial risk, compensation to the rapacious Australian contractor for revenue shortfalls, and much, much more.
Please submit your comments to MDOT ASAP. The deadline is 11/30!
Please share this newsletter widely so others will know to submit comments, too. Thank you!