Gov. Hogan, MDOT, and the forces pushing private toll lanes have money and power. They also have an unfixable problem: they can’t make an honest case for the project without having the whole house of cards collapse.
The State is now rushing to finalize the toll-lane scheme before the 2022 elections. The CEO of toll-giant Transurban recently admitted that the I-495/I-270 project faces "quite a few issues", and it's uncertain if the deal can close before Hogan leaves office.
This is the time for our coalition – grassroots groups, allied elected officials, and thousands of activists like you – to double down on our efforts to stop MDOT’s dangerous plans.
We KNOW what we’re fighting for and what Hogan & Co. are trying to take from us:
The right to State transportation policies that improve our lives, not make them immeasurably worse.
The right to travel on our own highways, the ones built by our own tax dollars, without paying/subsidizing an international conglomerate focused only on profits.
What we do and who we elect in the coming months can make all the difference.
Read below for important election actions, timeline updates, and the latest MDOT misfires (hide-and-seek for 30 months?). Then take a welcome look at how much all of us together have accomplished in the past 2 months. Inspiring!
From Maryland Matters, 4/22/22
ACTION ALERT: Help elect primary candidates who oppose the toll lanes…and can win in November
Primary Election for Governor
Our next governor could stop the toll-lane project (or, if the election goes badly, push it ahead). Do all you can, starting now, to help elect a Democratic nominee who unambiguously opposes the toll lanes AND can win on November 8.
This is not advocating for a “single-issue” vote. Any candidate who actively or passively supports the toll-lane project also supports what goes with it:
Profit-driven public policy
Hiding critical documentation from the public
Systematically lying to the public
Taking deliberate steps to increase congestion and create new bottlenecks
Scrapping the already-successful $132M remedy for lower I-270 congestion
Charging sky-high tolls
Putting toll lanes on the entire Beltway
Knowingly making $$$ decisions based on flawed traffic modeling
Unleashing climate-damaging air and water pollution
Worsening health and safety
Exacerbating racial and economic injustice
Damaging functioning neighborhoods and communities
Failing to protect the public interest
On May 1, the Baltimore Sun tentatively named these four as the leading Democratic candidates: Peter Franchot (the founding toll-lane cheerleader), Rushern Baker, Wes Moore, and Tom Perez.
DontWiden270.org created a shorthand table of the positions of these four based on their responses to the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition’s valuable gubernatorial questionnaire (read all the candidates’ full-text responses here) and other sources.
Note: Regarding Hedges column above, please see here.
ASAP, start supporting a candidate who fully opposes the toll lanes!
Primary Election for Montgomery County Executive
What applies for gubernatorial candidates applies here, too: if candidates support the toll lanes, they support that long list (above) of dreadful positions intrinsically tied to the project.
Despite what you may have heard or read about head-scratching endorsements for Montgomery County Executive, the toll-lane positions of the three leading candidates couldn’t be clearer. Please note: Easily-countered endorsements, frustrating though they may be, are off to the side compared to our big-picture need to work together to defeat the toll-lane debacle.
County Executive Marc Elrich has forcefully opposed the toll lane plan since 2018, and consistently champions fair, effective alternatives. Read his March 10, 2022, letter to the Federal Highway Administration.
Hans Reimer is a self-proclaimed supporter of the toll lanes: “…tolling and congestion pricing are the right way to limit sprawl and pay for highway capacity.”
David Blair is on record supporting the toll-lane project. See his response to the 2022 Washington Area Bicyclist Association questionnaire.
What’s (possibly) ahead
June 2022: Expected issuance of MDOT’s final, federally-mandated Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). Note: Transurban, the conglomerate with the toll-lane contract, was tasked with “helping” MDOT with the EIS process.
July 2022: Expected release of the US Department of Transportation’s Record of Decision on the project. (If you haven’t already done so, please click here to encourage our Congressional delegation and USDOT to end the project.)
July 19: Critically important primary election.
Summer-Fall 2022: Possible next stages of ongoing lawsuit filed by a losing bidder for the MDOT toll-lane contract.
November 8: Critically important general election.
Fall-Winter 2022: Possible filing of lawsuits by the Sierra Club of Maryland and others.
From Maryland Matters, April 20, 2022. Could that poster be the Capital Accord?
The toll-lane forces (try to) strike again…
Remember that Capital Beltway Accord, the one currently directing MDOT and VDOT action? It’s been 30 months since the handshake between Governors Hogan and Northam and the public still hasn’t seen the document. Depending on who Maryland Matters asked, the Accord either is missing, hidden, never finished, “moving down the track”, or “does not exist.” Then there’s MDOT’s predictable response: “…disclosure of these records would be contrary to the public interest.”
MDOT sent the public yet another email blast of false assurances from the I-495/I-270 P3 Office. See Arthur Katz’s astute take in Maryland Matters.
George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis released a study hailing the economic benefits of Transurban’s toll-lane expansion into Maryland. Guess who provided financial and material support for the Center’s research. Yes. Transurban.
Together, we keep countering MDOT’s tactics!
By the May 1 deadline, more than 400 of you sent messages to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) opposing MDOT’s sneak attempt to add the Beltway to the toll-lane plan. That was a tremendous action response -- thank you!
Our strong allies in Rockville, Mayor Newton and Council Members Ashton, Feinberg, Myles, and Pierzchala, sent this powerful letter to the TPB.
Our longtime advocate and ally, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, sent the Federal Highway Administration this recent accounting of the County’s pressing, unaddressed concerns about the toll-lane project.
Many of you sent messages in April to our U.S. Congressional delegation, urging them to call for a redo of MDOT’s faulty environmental review. Thank you!