IS VDOT CHIEF

TALKING ABOUT

MONTGOMERY COUNTY?

A new rule passed by the Virginia legislature will stop a problem that has afflicted Montgomery County for the last 40 years: allowing development, but not building the roads to support it.

If Virginia counties try to do that, they will now lose state transportation funds. We need a law like this in Maryland.

The Examiner article on the law cited Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton's exasperation over developer-beholden county officials' nasty habit of "nixing roads they had previously planned to build."

"'Our big issue is we've seen in many instances the localities approve growth plans, then remove the transportation facilities (a.k.a. roads) for various reasons,' Connaughton said. 'So we get the growth but we don't get the transportation, and then the state is the one left trying to foot the bill, as well as put up with the grief of the citizens.'"

Sound familiar?

The most notorious example of this is in Clarksburg. When plans were made to develop that rural area of the county, a new highway known as M-83 (Midcounty Highway Extended) was a central part of the plan. In fact, it was placed in the Master Plan.

The county council went ahead and eagerly approved all of the real estate development, and collected the hefty donation checks from developers for their massive campaign accounts. But they never built the M-83, leading to traffic jams on 355 and 270 that worsen every year.

The M-83 money was instead spent on goodies for the special interests and developers.

What other roads deemed absolutely necessary by wiser planners in the old days were cancelled?

The Outer Beltway, Rockville Freeway, Northwest Freeway, Northern Parkway, North Central Freeway, Palisades Freeway... just to name a few, and ones that were partly or entirely within the county borders.