Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Montgomery County willing to mortgage Upcounty's future to kill M-83 Highway


More than half a decade ago, the Montgomery County Council again nixed plans to build the M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended that has long been in the County's master plan. The highway was one of two major infrastructure projects that were essential to the major growth proposed for the Upcounty area, and Clarksburg in particular. When Clarksburg was allowed to grow more than 800% in population earlier this century, its new residents were promised the M-83 Highway, and a Corridor Cities Transitway light rail system that would connect the proposed new growth centers between Rockville and Clarksburg to the Shady Grove Metro station. In the end, however, all of the growth was allowed to occur, and developers reaped their massive profits - but the promised highway and light rail were never built. That display of naked greed by our developer-controlled County Council wasn't enough - now the Council and Planning Board want to remove the M-83 from the master plan altogether, so it can never be built.

Such a move would be a dereliction of duty by the public officials charged with ensuring adequate infrastructure to maintain a functioning transportation system. Montgomery County doesn't have that even today. Imagine what traffic will be like in another decade with leaders who continue to block completion of our master plan highway system.

As a quick review of the correspondence received by the Planning Board ahead of two public meetings and a November public hearing on changes to the master plan reveals, it isn't residents who are asking for the M-83 to be removed from the plan. In fact, the only letter from an actual Upcounty resident on the question is asking the Planning Board to keep the M-83 in the plan. Those who are asking to have the highway removed are the same handful of tiny groups who have tried to block construction of the highway at every turn. M-83 wasn't even up for discussion, until these groups met privately with Montgomery County Planning Department officials earlier this year.

Our anti-highway, war-on-cars Planning Board is all too eager to indulge this ultra-minority request. Shockingly, so is the "leadership" of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. The same MCDOT that once determined that Alternative 9a - the master plan alignment of M-83 - should be constructed, until the Council politically interfered with the department, overruling sound traffic engineering practices with radical ideology.

Montgomery County officials continue to rule against the wishes of their own Upcounty constituents. You know, the folks who pay their salaries, and keep the lights on at the County Council and Planning Department. 

You would think the Planning Department and County Council would at least feel a stinging sense of shame at their disastrous record on growth in the Upcounty.

Think again.

Longtime residents will well remember the talking points planners and Councilmembers alike sold us as they rammed through sector plans for new growth centers like "Science City," Watkins Mill, Damascus, and Clarksburg. There would be job centers right in these areas, so many new residents wouldn't have to drive down I-270 to Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia! There would be vibrant town centers in Clarksburg and Watkins Mill! There would be a library in Clarksburg! There would be an M-83 Highway between Montgomery Village Avenue and Ridge Road, which - given that we knew the vast majority of new Upcounty residents would commute by car - would divert much of the new Clarksburg, Germantown, and Damascus traffic from I-270, MD 355, and little old Brink Road onto a modern parkway that also would include a major new bicycle link! And for those who could be convinced to board a convenient rail transit alternative, there would be a Corridor Cities light rail system!

None of it ever happened. Not one bit of it.

And no politician paid the price. Even in the myriad of scandals surrounding Clarksburg alone, the Council and Planning Department let Derick Berlage be the lone fall guy. Now, after collecting twenty years' worth of fat checks from their developer sugar daddies, they want to kick Upcounty residents where it hurts one more time, really hard.

They'll probably get away with it. Again. The Council is pretty open about the fact that there simply aren't enough votes in the Upcounty to pose a risk to the holders of the At-Large Council seats in the next election year. And the individual Upcounty Council districts have been severely gerrymandered, to ensure that the residents of the various growth areas like Clarksburg, Damascus, and Germantown can't unite to knock out any one Councilmember come election time. They have repeatedly thumbed their nose at Upcounty residents, and privately call County taxpayers "suckers" and "losers."

Getting away with murder doesn't make it right, however. The Planning Department, Planning Board, and County Council will continue to augment and solidify their legacy of shame, failure, embarrassment, reckless irresponsibility, and dereliction of duty. They'll continue to let a handful of special interests, and their developer sugar daddies, block economic growth and progress at every turn. 

We've seen the results of the failure to build the M-83 Highway, the new Potomac River crossing of I-370 to the Dulles area in Virginia, the Rockville Freeway, the Northwest Freeway, the North-Central Freeway, and the Northern Parkway in Montgomery County. Residents sitting in traffic. Higher shipping prices. Job creation and business growth numbers at or near the bottom in the D.C. region. And a failure to attract a single new major corporate headquarters in over a quarter century.

Heckuva job, Brownie!!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny how in your 916 words, you don’t mention the Agricultural Reserve at all.

Anonymous said...

Even on the weekend, traffic on 270 is a nightmare. The townhomes with 355 right on their doorsteps are nightmares.

Anonymous said...

Is there a Pulitzer Prize for Bloggers yet? Thanks Robert for tying all this together.

Anonymous said...

Another useless sermon on anti-Council action from the Dyer digest. There is no, I repeat no need for more highways at this stage in the county's post-covid world. Mass transit use for those who continue to commute daily is the alternative of choice, or the future expansion of I-270 should the need arise. This area (M-83) of greenspace needs to be protected and preserved.

Anonymous said...

Bait and switch!

Anonymous said...

9:24, your naiveté is apparent.

Anonymous said...

That horse left the barn along time ago with all that development. If TBTB care about Md. Farmland, why allow it to be ruined by solar panels. Dems love to spread misery.

Anonymous said...

Typical case of the county trying to screw over upcounty.

We saw it with early voting centers too. Silver Spring has 3, despite having only 9% of the county population, while upcounty gets only 1 (Damascus). Nothing in Clarksburg. Germantown gets 1, despite having a larger population than Silver Spring.

Anonymous said...

You think SS is only 9% of the county population? You think Germantown is more populous?? You're conflating the downtown CDP (which has one early voting center at Vet Plaza) with the greater SS area. Well over a quarter million people live across all of SS.

Anonymous said...

Doing what they do best!

Anonymous said...

But they are sold.

Anonymous said...

Why does this article not mention that there is a public meeting on this subject tonight?

Anonymous said...

No conscience, no shame. They don't care what the residents and taxpayers want, regardless of where we live in the county. All of the public meetings are performative at best -- just another box to check.

Robert Dyer said...

9:42: There is a direct link in the article to the page that lists all upcoming meetings and hearings on this matter.

Robert Dyer said...

5:30: There is no impact to the Ag Reserve from the M-83 Highway.

Anonymous said...

More like photo ops and cameo appearances.