Dear God, that's expensive....

This should be a lessen to the anti-transit and anti-rail advocates:

The cost of adding incremental transport space in a (nearly) fully developed urban area is exhorbitant whether it's transit or auto.

Most comparisons tend to focus on new highways in suburban or fringe territory compared with new guideway transit projects in the urban core. When one looks at it that, $2.4 Billion for a well-connected, grade-separated Red Line isn't been unreasonable or asking too much.

Nate Payer
TRAC

How can building a road cost that much money?

The ICC only cost $1.6 billion not $2.6 billion, but thats still a lot of money for a road only 18 miles long Thats about $90 million a mile or about $17,000 per foot. How can it cost that much to move a bunch of dirt, lay down some gravel and put down some asphalt? If moving dirt around is this lucrative, I need to give up my cushy desk job and grab a shovel.

COMMENT: I checked with the State Highway Administration and the cost of the ICC is almost $2.6 billion.

And all that widening will just bring more sprawl. They massively underestimated induced demand the last time they widened I-270, and that got us to where we are today. Do we really want to make the same mistake twice, to the tune of another 4.6 billion?

What's really laughable about that estimate is they claim they can't afford to build the CCT as light rail along the same corridor.

Here in Baltimore we could build the Red Line as heavy rail, and probably fund the Green Line extension as well for that amount of money.

The ICC with financing will cost at least $3 billion and some believe it is even higher - as much as $4 billion. A huge proportion of the money for the ICC is coming from tolls paid at Baltimore area highways and tunnels - money that could have gone to the Red Line.

Also, the money for 270 isn't earmarked in any way at this study stage and in fact, as Ben Ross of Action Committee for Transit points out, Md law allows great flexibility in moving funds between highways and transit.

From the MDOT website:

All funds dedicated to the Department are deposited in the Trust Fund and disbursements for all programs and projects are made from the Trust Fund.
Revenues are not earmarked for specific programs...

The Transportation Trust Fund permits the State tremendous flexibility to meet the needs of a diverse transportation system.

http://www.e-mdot.com/Transportation%20Revenues%20and%20Expenses/TransportationFund.html

Here, on the same subject, is Lt. Gov. Brown:

As one of the few states to bring all modes of transportation under one agency umbrella and to use a separate, consolidated transportation trust fund to finance its programs, the State avoids the institutional barriers and other common obstacles to the coordination and flexibility necessary to establish optimal transportation policy and priorities.
http://www.gov.state.md.us/ltgovernor/speeches/071212.html

Many of us here in Montgomery County are fighting against this bad idea. We're getting told similar stuff, like there isn't $70 million to retrofit Rockville Pike (MD 355) into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard but while there's $4 billion for lexus lanes. This is a bad idea for everyone. It's forward to the 1960's. We don't need more asphalt. We need more trains, just like Baltimore.

Can't this decision go to a referendum, and not to the politicians who only care about getting reelected?

COMMENT: Maryland has no referendum system for matters such as transportation projects. But citizens certainly can weigh in with their state legislators about such proposals.

Build it, but toll the new lanes (that's one of the proposals). A toll on 270's new lanes and a toll on the exisiting HOV lanes (free for carpools) could fund lots of highway and transit projects around Maryland.

Adding new capacity and then tolling that new capacity just seems backwards to me. It's what we are doing with the 695-95 interchange, and that seems silly too. Isn't congestion based pricing supposed to happen on existing infrastructure?

6.4 billion can buy a heck of a lot more than more traffic nightmares.

People complaining about I-270 is completely worthless due to the Fact that I-270 is the main connection to Northern Virginia in which they are also Widening I-495, I-66, and I-395/95 with HOT Lanes.

If they don't widen I-270 it will definately made Traffic alot worse in the future when Virginia Completes the Widening of I-495, I-66, and I-395/95.

Despite the Mass Transit Diversion, building more cheap Trolly-Like Light Rails along I-270 will not Decrease the Traffic Bottlenecking on I-270. If it were true then I-270 would not be a parking lot during rush hour between Shaddy Grove and the American Legion Bridge/I-495 due to the Fact that there are SEVERAL Rapid Transit(METRO, MARC, and Ride On Bus) Options along the MD 355/I-270 Corridor.

It will be impossible to get I-270 Commuters to utalize Mass Transit Buses and Rails due to the fact that most people that are stuck along the Bottlenecking I-270 are commuters going to work along the Tysons Corner-Dulles Corridor in Virginia and most of the Commuters live in Northern or Western Maryland due to cheaper Housing.

James--

So your suggestion is to expand I270, bankrupt the state in doing so, and all the while encourage more people to move into greenfield developments far away from their jobs?

That makes absolutely no sense. We need to promote affordable housing in the urban environment and near jobs, not out in farmland.

Jed--

So your suggestion is to expand I270, bankrupt the state in doing so,

James--

I haven't yet read anything about Virginia going "Bankrupt" for Expanding I-66, I-495, I-394/95, and VA 267 Dulles Toll Road.

You tell me how the Heck Maryland will go "Bankrupt: for adding Revenue Generating HOT Lanes on I-270 and Constant Fare Increasing of the METRO and MARC Rail.

Jed--

and all the while encourage more people to move into greenfield developments far away from their jobs?

James--

Dodging the Truth aren't ya, SMH.

Over 250,000 people reside along the I-270 Bethesda-Frederick Corridor and 70-80% of the working class residing along the I-270 Corridor Work in Virginia in which they arer Widening almost ALL of the Highways in Northern Virginia.

Jed--

That makes absolutely no sense. We need to promote affordable housing in the urban environment and near jobs, not out in farmland.

James--

So basically your suggesting that close to 60% of Maryland Tax Payers should move to DC and Virginia since in order to be closer to their Jobs.

So now I get it, this the special interest groups and some lawmakers have been attempting for years to shrink the Maryland State Population especially with the Middle and Upper Class which would explain the Sky High Property Taxes.

The Maryland Department of Transportation's publicly reported $2.4 billion cost estimate for the ICC is and always has been pure fiction. Earlier this year, MDOT scootched that estimate up to close to $2.6 billion, but that's still fiction.

The true cost is closer to $4 billion, including about $1.5 billion in interest on roughly $2 billion in debt that the Maryland Transportation Authority is issuing for the ICC.

Some of those dollars will be paid over the years, but even if you discount future dollars, the figure is more than $2.6 billion.

More than 80 percent of the ICC's cost is being financed through debt, to be paid:

a. with $1 billion in federal transportation funding to this single boondoggle. That $1 billion is carved out of Maryland normal annual federal appropriation. It is not new money for the ICC;

b. tolls from the ICC itself, tolls that could exceed 20 cents per in the first year; and

c. tolls from all of Maryland's other, aging toll facilities, including the several tunnels and bridges in and around Baltimore.

The finances status of the Maryland Transportation Authority, which owns those facilities is so tight, and the ICC's impact is so huge, that the Authority plans to double average toll rates statewide by 2013, partly to pay for the ICC.

At least one bond rating agency has implicitly stated that the Authority might have to raise tolls even faster to maintain its current rating. Even then, the Authority will have little money available for capital improvements and extraordinary maintenance.

Fact checking with MDOT can be high-risk behavior.

In what might have been a rare moment of candor, the Ehrlich administration listed the ICC's cost at $3.1 billion back in 2006.

Of course, the O'Malley administration changed this back to $2.4 billion.

Both Ehrlich and O'Malley have called the ICC a BRAC project and claim that it will serve the Bethesda Naval Medical Center.

Folks, if you know the geography in Montgomery County, you know that claim about the ICC just might be complete fiction, too.

It is beyond pathetic that Martin O'Malley is blowing billions on the ICC -- an 18-mile toll road that was fast-tracked by George Bush and Bob Ehrlich, under the highly questionable pretense that it would enhance homeland security.