MDOT planned an action-packed toll-lane summer to clinch the Governor’s deal. June: Dump 26,000+ pages of rushed/incomplete/illogical/opaque documentation on the public. July: Declare the public review period over. August: Get a hearty thumbs-up from the federal government and start writing construction contracts for approval before Hogan leaves office.
It’s not working out so well:
Opposition to the toll-lane scheme is broader, fiercer, and more knowledgeable than MDOT and Governor Hogan ever expected (see outstanding examples below).
As of this writing, the Federal Highway Administration is continuing its due diligence, reviewing the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement to ensure it meets federal requirements. (It doesn’t – see the latest evidence below.)
MDOT’s private partner, toll-lane giant Transurban, STILL doesn’t have a construction contractor despite shortlisting three bidders a year ago. Something is not right.
And time is running out. Governor Hogan leaves office in the beginning of January. Candidates Wes Moore, Brooke Lierman, and others at all levels of government do not want to claim this harmful project as their own.
Back in 2018, grassroots activists and elected officials planted the seeds for evidence-based opposition to the toll-lane scheme. The evidence keeps piling up and the opposition keeps growing. Thank you for your part in all of it.
ACTION ITEM
Until the day the toll-lane project is withdrawn, we need to keep broadcasting what’s at stake. Your person-to-person and social media sharing are a key part of the grassroots effort. You’ll find the latest revelations in the Sierra Club’s scathing analysis of MDOT’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). The analysis helps lay the foundation for legal action.
Choose topics that grab you from the Table of Contents (pp. v-vi), then share what you learn as widely as you can. Shockers include:
MDOT’s latest efforts to nullify the public voice (text pages 3-11).
Evidence of manipulation of traffic models. Confirmation of increased travel times and new/worsening bottlenecks (pages 11-20).
New info on serious public health risks and MDOT’s failure to disclose them (pages 20-25).
Our determined coalition never lets up
Just last month, hundreds of you urged USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg to require a public comment period for the FEIS. Requesting the same thing at approximately the same time were the Montgomery County Delegation to Annapolis; Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich`; 62 advocacy groups, activist organizations, and Maryland mayors in a joint letter; and from Rockville, Mayor Bridget Newton and Councilmembers Monique Ashton, Beryl Feinberg, David Myles, and Mark Pierzchala.
The Sierra Club’s extensive, expert analysis of the 26,000+ page FEIS was put together in under a month by a dedicated, multidisciplinary team of legal and technical subject matter experts, professional and volunteer advocacy leaders, citizen activists, and more.
The Chair of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Casey Anderson, sent a letter last week asking MDOT and the FHWA for more time to review the potential environmental impacts of the project.
Our partner and chair of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, Ben Ross, called out the possibility of fraud in MDOT’s traffic modeling: Toll Lanes Critic Accuses MDOT of “Scientific Fraud” in Key Report.
Our partner Gary Hodge, vice chair of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, exposed the dangers of turning over public infrastructure to a private entity that looks only to its own gain.
Speedy when they want to be, but slooow in getting back to us
MDOT took 585 days (p. 8) to respond to the public officials, agencies, and members of the public (you!) who collectively submitted 2,909 comments about the Draft EIS. They took 199 days to respond to the 2,138 public comments about the Supplemental DEIS. Absurd!
If you jump through enough hoops, you can find your own comment and MDOT’s response (often just a reference to another section) in the 13 files of Appendix T of the FEIS. Start at the index (p. 2). Good luck.
Not the Washington Post again!
In its 19th hand-wringing editorial in support of Maryland toll lanes, the Post went after the Federal Highway Administration for doing its job and taking time to review the FEIS. The Post, like Governor Hogan, wants ASAP approval of the toll-lane project for reasons that seem to have nothing to do with real congestion relief or effective transportation planning. If those were the Post’s goals, the editorials would be quite different. More like this new one in the Baltimore Sun: “Controversial Maryland toll lane project best kept on the shelf until 2023”.
