To Berliner, ‘Second Crossing’ Is A Bridge Too Far (VIDEO)
Council President Roger Berliner is asking his fellow County Council members to sign on to a resolution that spells out the county’s opposition a bridge across the Potomac River that would connect the Intercounty Connector to Virginia routes to Dulles Airport.
The Transportation Planning Board, part of the multijurisdictional Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, will consider Wednesday a proposal to study a “second crossing” of the Potomac River.
Virginia politicians have supported the bridge. In Maryland, the focus has been on improving the span at Point of Rocks in Frederick County.
Berliner used a phrase from former Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson to describe the second crossing: a “zombie bridge.”
“This is a zombie bridge and we need to put a stake into this,” Berliner told reporters at his regular briefing for the press. Here are his remarks on the proposal:
To follow up the point on congestion, Berliner said that studies show people who travel down I-270 either go to locations inside the Beltway or near the Beltway. They aren’t going out to Dulles, about 14 miles west.
The Loudoun County (Va.) Board of Supervisors has directed its staff to find potential corridors for bridge routes.
“… [T]he idea of an additional river crossing appears to be gaining momentum. We must once again make it clear that Montgomery County opposes another Potomac River bridge crossing,” Berliner wrote in a memo to colleagues.
Because the bridge would require cutting through the county’s Ag Reserve, it would take years before it could be built.
“If you think it took a long time for the [Intercounty Connector] to be built, it would be built in a nanosecond compared to this bridge,” Berliner told reporters. “Why spin your wheels on something that won’t happen?”
He also questioned why Maryland would build a bridge, and the road leading to it, that would benefit Dulles Airport, when the ICC was built to benefit Thurgood Marshall-Baltimore Washington International Airport.
“This is just not ever going to happen,” he said.
Tom Ferleman for County Council
From M-83 to a second Potomac Crossing, the County Council is unwilling to fix our traffic congestion. We need to widen I-270, unclog the spur, expand the existing bridge, and build a second crossing. Is this hard? Does it cost a lot of money? Yes, and YES! But without visionary leadership that is willing to do hard things, we will never fix our community problems. If elected to the County Council I will #BringJobsHome, roll-back taxes on families, reduce our transportation congestion, and invest is a sustainable education pipeline that ensure young people have local job opportunities after graduation.
(thomas@ferleman.com; https://ferleman.com)
It’s clear that Berliner has never had to commute across the AL bridge. If he had, he would know that it can take an hour to go a few miles during rush hour.
what a moron! if there is any more proof this bozo and the rest of county council cares little about the people they “represent”.
when are people of Montgomery county going to wise up and ditch these losers. Or maybe they want this? well then they are getting and living with the stupidity they deserve
The Big Ticket items such as Purple Line (PL) and Second Crossing (SC) should appear on the Ballot as potential Bond Issues.
The SC might be organized to produce significant Toll Revenues, as multitudes would elect to stay off the beltway and existing bridge. The County Council would do well to test the opinions of the voters in their Districts, before entrenching in their positions.
Mr. Ferleman seems to be on target.
Stop choking the county and build something that will improve literally tens of thousands of lives, socially and economically! We are watching daily pain and suffering and ignoring it. Please acknowledge how vulnerable we are when and if the AL bridge were to close down for any number various of reasons.
Thank you to the entire MoCo council for not falling for the lie that we can build our way out of our traffic problems. Building bigger, new roads will not decrease congestion. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
Only innovative new transportation solutions, like the purple line, bus rapid transit, dedicated funding for metro, etc will solve our problems. It’ll take time, and money, but those solutions are proven to work, unlike more highways.
I grew up in St. Louis and return often to visit family and friends. It has always amazed me to see the cooperation between Illinois and Missouri on building multiple bridges across the Mississippi river. I believe there are 4 concentric circles or “beltways” around the metro area and each has a north and south bridge crossing, not to mention the several older downtown crossings. Plus there are ICC type connectors that run across the circles. The result is much better traffic flow & options to work around accidents when they do happen. What a huge difference it makes! There is nothing about building a new additional bridge that would in any way increase development that isn’t already happening or planned. It is clear that metro financing is a failed agreement, so one cannot expect anything in the way of public transportation as a solution until the metro jurisdictions can come up with an appropriate funding mechanism. In the meantime, nightmarish traffic conditions continue to plague our residents and excessive fees and regulations stymie building affordable homes in Montgomery County, so people have to buy further and further out, which exacerbates the whole problem of traffic congestion. All of this requires big picture thinking and ideas, not parochial protectionism by narrow minded current political leaders.
What a joke that US funds and builds Bridges in Afghanistan and Iraq but none near it’s capital. The liberals of Moco are the dumbest I have seen anywhere. Already Moco is becoming a bedroom community to Nova. The nightmare transportation will then make it even worse, property values in upper Montgomery are all stagneted since 10 years while rest of DC and VA are up by 30%
These dems are statists who live in a delusional fantasy world where public transit is the only way, so they will do everything in their power to make life impossible for drivers. The WMATA is woefully inadequate, and would have to be drastically expended to even make the delusion 1% attainable, and that’s assuming they could finally run competently. They can’t. So people need to drive, and liberal democrats, being statists, want people to be reliant on the state. Plus they fear that if it’s easier to get to Nova, people might leave montgomery county and just commute to their jobs, living in a less oppressive area where liberals are thinking 75% of the day what they should ban next. Please vote these statist clowns out of office. That is unless you like your excessive commute and high taxes and enjoying the increasing crime.