The Montgomery County Planning Board is on the verge of approving a War on Cars draft of the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways at its meeting this Thursday, April 10, 2025. Removal of the M-83 Highway (Midcounty Highway Extended) is the centerpiece of the document. Opponents of the highway have successfully blocked its construction for decades, but anti-highway officials on the Planning Board and County Council are seeking to take matters a deranged step further by removing any possibility of its construction, despite it being the most-essential piece of infrastructure to support the growth upcounty that has already been approved and realized over the last twenty years. Also buried within the document are thousands of speed limit reductions to 20 or 25 MPH, even on major state highways.
Just one of many egregious speed limit cuts proposed is on Josiah Henson Parkway, between the "Western edge of downtown White Flint" and E. Jefferson Street, and from E. Jefferson Street to Towne Road. The change would lower the speed limit from 40 MPH to 25 MPH. In addition, the street classification of Josiah Henson Parkway (a.k.a. Montrose Parkway) would be changed from "parkway" to "Downtown Boulevard."
If this sounds familiar, it's because it has already happened elsewhere in the County. Developers seeking to demolish homes, churches, and country clubs along major state highways, and replace them with urban apartment towers, were successful in politicizing the Maryland State Highway Administration during the Larry Hogan administration. Formerly staunch advocates of sound traffic engineering best practices, MDSHA became a political playtoy amenable to any request from local officials beholden to development interests. This led to major speed limit cuts on highways like Georgia Avenue and River Road.
Josiah Henson Parkway is a County road, and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation was politicized even earlier this century than MDSHA was. The speed limit drop and street reclassification request for the parkway is being made (surprise!) on behalf of developers who are seeking to redevelop the land around it. This is yet another abuse of the system in Montgomery County. Not only was our master plan highway system never completed, but we have a continual effort to further cripple the congested roadways that somehow got built. Taxpayers were charged a fortune to build Josiah Henson Parkway, a mere shadow of the Rockville Freeway that was originally intended to use this right-of-way between Falls Road in Potomac and the InterCounty Connector in Silver Spring. Further impeding the (already-compromised) vehicle throughput function of the road we paid for, to facilitate private developer profits, is an abuse, theft, and misuse of public property.
The revision of the master plan of highways is a massive compendium of many such abuses. Most of the public will be unaware of the changes proposed until the new speed limit signs are installed. The document is fully "woke," to be sure. And while planners are smugly proud of their newfound power to ram things through over any public objection - a.k.a. dictatorship - they are most proud of the document's "Racial Equity and Social Justice Statement," which pretty much tells you how insane and out-of-touch-with-reality planning and governing in Montgomery County have become.
18 comments:
A no-brainer. Those two blocks of Henson have gone from vacant to residential so obviously local government should be responsive to that change in use. If you prefer 40mph in residential areas then gather your neighbors and go ahead and ask the county to change the speed limit on your street.
7:27: Trying to retroactively turn a parkway into a residential street after the fact is a "no-brainer," indeed. It's what happens when corrupt and very-low-!Q people run a county.
Places change over the generations. The neighborhood is now dense and this block is being developed w/residential. Road speeds and configurations change to meet current needs. You think change up-county w/83 = good, but change down-county w/Henson = corrupt. Talk about "very-low-!Q."
8:12: Change that is poorly planned is not good government. Nice whiffs from the County dump for new residents around it.
What "changed" upcounty? M-83 was planned for decades, as was the housing there. There were no plans to build residential along the Outer Beltway/Rockville Freeway/Montrose Parkway.
The distance between E. Jefferson Street to Towne Road is 616 meters.
At 40mph that takes 34.5 seconds to traverse.
At 25mph that takes 55.3 seconds to traverse.
You spent at least 20 minutes writing a blog post complaining about how driving on a road might take an extra 20 seconds.
8:23: You forgot to add the two stoplights, which like the one at MD 355, are intentionally synced to artificially extend travel time on what was meant to be a cross-county freeway.
What is that statement by commies -"The personal is political". They will leave no part of our lives untouched. Time to get over the fear of leftist name-calling.
10:27: There are those who enjoy controlling the lives and impeding the progress of others. Alas, many of them hold power in Montgomery County.
They just arbitrarily lower speed limits to get more ca$h from their ATMs (speed cameras). The legislature set the speed cushion for tickets at 11 mph. The county is going around this by artificially lowering all the speed limits (Conn, Wisc, Georgia, University, etc) by 5. They have just essentially made the cushion 6 mph rather than 11 mph.
Robert, you are correct stoplights mean only rarely would someone actually hit 40mph and the change in speed limit slows travel time even less than 20 seconds. Realistically it probably makes no difference at all in travel time except maybe late at night cars won't be flying by the new townhomes quite as often.
11:11: I can easily go 40 there. The whole Parkway was designed for a higher speed, so you already have to ride the brakes along much of it - a dead giveaway that tells you A) the engineers who designed it screwed up, or B) a low speed limit was later arbitrarily set by a politician. Having talked to some engineers who worked on it, I'm confident going with B.
The elephant in the room is the presumption of guilt with speed cameras. If you fight it, you'll be found guilty in traffic court but appealed to circuit court, it will end up dismissed. If they risk going up the chain to SCOTUS, the fallout will be real and painful for states using these cameras. This is why there are no points and they're moving up to AI cameras which we'll see what happens.
If it's truly about safety, they would access points that influence behavior but that would kill the cow they're getting lots of milk from right now.
Robert Dyer @ 12:47 PM - If you can't stick to a given speed without constantly riding your brakes, then you need to have your driving skills re-evaluated.
The whole "cross-county freeway" thing has been moot for decades now.
6:06: This comment suggests you have never driven a car before, and therefore have zero credibility on the topic.
The Montrose Parkway East was only canceled in 2018, hardly decades ago.
Creative ways to collect much needed revenue.
If caring about pedestrians is "woke", count me in.
Robert really doesn't know how to drive - you know cars don't just stall if you lift your foot off the gas pedal. Guess what - you can very easily maintain a speed by modulating how hard you press the gas pedal. I know super hard concept. I bet you are one of those fools who slam the gas pedal then slam the brake to 'maintain' distance between cars during traffic jams.
5:42: You've clearly never driven a car before. When a road is engineered for XX MPH, and you set a speed limit too far below that, it creates an added distraction for the driver having to make extra effort to control the speed of the car. I imagine it's different on your bicycle or skateboard, but try driving a car on River Road inside the Beltway, or MacArthur Boulevard NW in the Palisades, or Massachusetts Avenue just about anywhere inside the DC line. When you follow the posted speed limit, it feels like you're going 5 MPH. That's how you can instantly tell that the speed limit is incorrect for the road design, and you've created a safety hazard as a result.
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