DontWiden270.org Bulletin-May 2019

What’s Happening Now?

The Maryland General Assembly adjourned April 8; however, a lot has happened since then and there will be lots of activity between now and when they reconvene January 8, 2020.The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) is barging full steam ahead to push their managed toll lane project forward and DontWiden270.org and other advocacy groups, as well as county and state officials continue to fight back. As described below, we have had considerable success in recent weeks, momentum is growing, press coverage is increasing, and the public is getting better informed and more active in opposing this boondoggle.

What You Can Do

Your involvement is so important! The latest development involves a major upcoming vote by the state Board of Public Works (BPW) on the proposal to widen I-270 and I-495. Our goal is to urge the members of this three-person Board (which includes the Governor, the State Treasurer, and the Comptroller) to vote no on moving this project forward. The BPW will consider MDOT’s request to designate the toll lane project as a public-private partnership (P3) in early June, essentially fast-tracking this reckless plan. Please write the BPW members explaining why they should reject this $9-11 billion P3 project. Click here for suggestions on how to construct and send your letter. Use the sample letter or make your input more meaningful by stating the importance of rejecting this proposal in your own words.

Recent Events

The scheduled BPW meeting

On May 1, the Washington Post reported that Governor Hogan was pushing to include a vote for the P3 proposal on the May 8 BPW agenda despite knowing that Treasurer Nancy Kopp had informed the BPW six months earlier that she would be out of town on a vacation to celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary. Ms. Kopp had previously stated that she felt a project this important, with an impact for at least a half-century, deserved more examination. Despite public outcry urging the Governor to delay the vote until Ms. Kopp could be present, his office confirmed on May 3 that there were no plans to delay the meeting. Asked why the governor’s office couldn’t delay the vote for two weeks, a spokesman in the governor’s office said, “…we have to keep moving. Something of this importance to the public’s safety and well-being shouldn’t be delayed.” Later that day, increasing publicity and a letter of protest by 36 state lawmakers from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties led to the discussion being postponed until a BPW meeting in June.

Town hall meeting in Silver Spring

Montgomery County council member, Tom Hucker, organized a town hall meeting on May 5 to discuss the proposed widening of I-495 and I-270. The meeting was put together with only one week’s notice but nevertheless, with standing room only, nearly 1,000 people turned out to listen to county and state officials and community organizers. The speakers criticized MDOT’s lack of local community and government involvement and called for more transparency, studies focused on the potential environmental impact and the cost to taxpayers, the need for transit options, and more. A 4 minute video showing the highlights of the meeting can be found here. Or click here to watch all of the formal presentations.

Governor Hogan’s tweets

Apparently, Governor Hogan was watching the live presentation of the town hall meeting because midway through he began sending tweets referring to the meeting as a “road kill rally to halt our plans to solve the congestion crisis” and the town hall participants as “pro-traffic activists who plot to keep the roads filled with traffic.” John Kelly of the Washington Post (scroll down to the item entitled “Beltway Bandit) decried the Governor’s language as smearing “… Maryland citizens who are rightfully concerned about their backyards, their parks, the environment and their state’s fiscal health” and stating that “If anyone is pro-traffic in this issue, surely it’s whichever company ends up winning the contract to build and maintain the high-occupancy toll lanes. It will make money only if there’s traffic.”

Looking Ahead

· MDOT has scheduled the last of their public workshops on May 14 in Oxon Hill and May 16 in Germantown.

· The BPW meeting with the P3 proposal included in the agenda is scheduled to take place in a yet unannounced date in June.

The Legislative Session is Over. Now What?

The 2019 Maryland legislature is heading home without enacting any legislation that requires the Governor or the Maryland Department of Transportation to change their plans on adding managed toll lanes to I-495 and I-270. It is disappointing to be sure, and further down I’ll share my thoughts on why that happened.

But while the legislative session is over, this fight is not. There are still eighteen months of preliminary assessments and process MDOT must follow before it can even make a formal decision, let alone move the first shovelful of dirt. So we’ll take stock of what we’ve done, what’s to come, and get our battle plans ready.

Most immediate is that MDOT has scheduled a new round of public workshopson the plan and the narrowed list of alternatives. One of the workshops will be at Wootton High School on Thursday, April 25th at 6:30 pm (and repeated at 7:30 pm). If you can’t make that one, just check the MDOT website for the other dates and locations.    

Next, Governor Hogan may soon attempt to get approval from the Board of Public Works to hire contractors to work on the project. The Board consists of Governor Hogan, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot. Treasurer Kopp recently testified in support of additional oversight of these kinds of projects, so hopefully she will oppose barging ahead with a contract. We don’t know where Peter Franchot stands.  

Now, going back to the Legislative session, here’s my take: We did well this legislative session. Not well enough, since we didn’t get anything enacted. But we went from 0 to 60 on the issue in a few short months. We put the concerns about this project and broader concerns about how Maryland does its transportation planning on the radar for lawmakers, the media and a lot of citizens.

Coming out of the session, we have a much bigger coalition working with us now –neighborhood-based groups like Citizens Against Beltway Expansion, transit groups like Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, the League of Women Voters and a number of organizations in the environmental community like the Maryland Sierra Club and Preservation Maryland.

Plus, we have made this a much hotter issue for a lot of legislators. Delegate Kumar Barve eventually saw how vital this issue is to his District, many elected officials from Montgomery County have become actively engaged and we started to make some headway in the Senate. And through our coalition we have begun finding allies in other counties as well.

In the end, after hearing from an overwhelming number of you, Delegate Barve used his influence to move a bill out of his Committee and through the House: Delegate Jared Solomon’s HB 1091, which would have created basic oversight for privately-financed transportation projects to protect taxpayers, the environment and the State’s fiscal health. We also got an advisory amendment attached to the State budget. These don’t solve our problem, but they are evidence that we have begun building support where it counts.

However, we have work to do in the Senate. Ultimately, Senator Nancy King, who represents Montgomery County’s District 39 and chairs the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, killed HB 1091. Senator King told Maryland Mattersthat she trusts MDOT Secretary Pete Rahn and didn’t want to delay traffic relief, and so decided to keep HB 1091 bottled up in her committee (notwithstanding that there were enough votes from members of her committee to move the bill forward.)

We must urge all the lawmakers to continue working on this issue before the next session of the General Assembly and to be prepared to enact legislation as soon as the General Assembly reconvenes in January 2020. This issue is too important for our champions to leave until the 2nd half of the session. They need to hear the message that protecting our homes and neighborhoods must be the top priority as soon as the next session is gaveled in. You can help by reminding them of this, whenever you can – by email, phone calls, and if you see them at public events.

Finally, we never had much of a chance to celebrate the massive turnout at the March 9th meeting. I wanted to end on this because that day carried enormous influence – with Delegate Barve and other leaders. (If you have pictures you’d like to share, we now have a Facebook album of the event to go with the video.)

We’re going to have to keep doing things like this – and bigger – in order to win. And to the many, many people who volunteered time, donated money and found other ways to help – thank you and … we’ll need more of all that in the coming months.

We will continue to keep you informed on important issues and how you can help. 

DontWiden270.org Testimony on SB 442: State Transportation Department’s Disregard for Public Views Amplifies Need for County Consent Bill

(Rockville, February 27th) Abandoned promises and disregard for public preferences by the State’s Transportation agency has sapped the confidence of I-270 neighbors in the State’s process and increased the pressure for Legislative action, DontWiden270.org founder Peter Altman explained in written testimony submitted to the Senate Finance Committee for its January 27th, 2019 hearing on SB 442, the “County Consent” bill.

The bill would prohibit construction of toll roads, highways, or bridges without the consent of a majority of the affected counties. If enacted, the bill would effectively require the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) to work out a plan for I-270 with Montgomery County leaders, who have consistently expressed their opposition to any plan that would result in tearing down homes or businesses. It is cross-filed in the Maryland House as HB 102.

“The Maryland Department of Transportation abandonment of promises and disregard for public input is exacerbating anxiety about the future of neighborhoods by the highways and undermining faith in the process, making it even more important that legislators protect residents by giving counties a greater say in toll road projects like the one that threatens our communities,” Altman said. “The County Consent bill would ensure that MDOT cannot just do what it wants, public be damned.”

Altman documents three examples of a “pattern of promising, then declining to follow-through on those promises, of taking public input on the project, then disregarding that input” in his testimony, including MDOT’s decision to drop consideration of transit from further consideration as a solution to congestion on I-270 and I-495 despite strong public preference for transit, as well as promises made and abandoned by Governor Larry Hogan and Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn:

• Earlier this month, the Maryland Department of Transportation published a summary and compendium[1] of public comments received about the controversial plan to widen I-270 and I-495. MDOT’s tabulation showed heavy rail and light rail to be the 2nd and 4th most preferred options. Nevertheless, just weeks after publishing the comments summary, MDOT quietly posted an update on its website[2] indicating that it intends to drop the most-preferred options of transit and traffic demand management from its list of alternatives, and will continue its focus solely on options that involve adding lanes to the highways.

• Governor Hogan first promised that no homes would be knocked down[3] for the project on September 4th, yet despite repeated requests from residents and local officials, he has refused to make a binding commitment to that effect.[4]

• Secretary Rahn repeated[5][6] the promise to local elected officials and the public during MDOT’s October 11th “Road Show” event in Rockville, but undermined that promise in January when during testimony[7] on HB 102, the House version of SB 442, he noted that MDOT would take homes if “necessary.”

Altman also testified on the numerous case studies and academic papers documenting that adding lanes to highways does not work as a long-term solution to congestion.

Altman’s testimony can be downloaded here.

For more information about SB 442, see https://bit.ly/2UaWkMS.

About DontWiden270.org: The neighbor’s group was founded in response to Governor Hogan’s plan to widen I-270 and I-495. Since its formation, the group’s volunteers have been active in educating community residents about the threat and what they can do about it. The group was the first to get Governor Larry Hogan on record promising the project would not knock down any homes, led the call urging the Governor to make his promise a binding commitment, organized local citizens to attend public meetings with MDOT and local elected officials, written to and met with elected representatives with the City, County and General Assembly about the project, and watchdogged the Hogan administration’s backtracking on its promise to protect homes. The petition in support of HB 102 can be read here: www.dontwiden270.org/supporthb102.

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[1] Alternatives Public Workshops Summary, January 2019. Published by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration and the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administrations, and downloaded February 12, 2019 from https://495-270-p3.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/495270MLS_PW_Summary012418_FINAL.pdf.

[2] MDOT’s overview of the screened alternatives is here: https://495-270-p3.com/environmental/alternatives/screened-alternatives/ and a short video on the subject is here: https://495-270-p3.com/screened_alternatives_video/.

[3] Video of September 4, 2018 exchange with Governor Hogan: https://youtu.be/7aMxx2ii9JQ.

[4] A copy of Secretary Rahn’s October 19, 2018 response is posted here: https://bit.ly/2E77ZFC

[5] MDOT OFFICIALS ON WIDENING I-270: ‘WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE YOUR HOME, MyMCMedia.org, October 11, 2018. https://www.mymcmedia.org/mdot-officials-on-widening-i-270-were-not-going-to-take-your-home/

[6] Maryland Transportation Secretary Promises Not to Raze Homes in 270/495 Expansion, Bethesda Magazine, October 12, 2018. https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/transportation/maryland-transportation-secretary-promises-not-to-raze-homes-in-270-495-expansion/?fbclid=IwAR0LN7k8HbUC9fSEs81crabBddehfBjNH2OwJwzZseQZ92asCkBzIxxzr6E.

[7] Video record of Environment and Transportation Committee hearing, January 22, 2019, posted at https://bit.ly/2GWUgnU. Secretary Rahn’s comment occurs at 1:09:40.