Montgomery County's Draconian sign regulations include a total ban on billboards. Longtime residents may recall some of the locations that once sported them, such as Burton's gas station alongside the Chessie System railroad trestle over Bradley Boulevard near Arlington Road (now the Capital Crescent Trail bridge). As usual, businesspeople have to figure ways to evade all the Marxist totalitarian red tape of Montgomery County's moribund centrally-planned economy. One is now tooling around downtown Bethesda: a mobile billboard. Can one of the few ultra-wealthy residents who remain in Bethesda and Chevy Chase hire this truck and have it loop through statistics like "Zero major new corporate headquarters attracted to Montgomery County in over 25 years," current homicide and violent crime totals, County Council annual salaries and total taxpayer dollars outlaid to fill their cars with free gas (did you know they get free gas at your expense?), "Number of Olive Gardens and Cracker Barrels in Montgomery County: Zero," a list of highways canceled by the County Council, among others? Heckuva job, Brownie!
35 comments:
Marxist; totalitarian; moribund; Draconian; Heckuva job, Brownie! = BINGO!!
Now that just about everyone's walking around with a smartphone (and has a computer at home and/or in the office) is the lack of billboards cluttering up the area really such a problem?
Can't wait for the slip & fall attorney billboards.
When I have to compete in busy traffic (as usual) with these advertisers it results in my boycotting them altogether and usually a nasty phone call and emails, what's next rolling PA systems like other third world countries?
Nothing screams success than an Olive Garden. Many consider this the new Tiffany’s.
Why would “ultra-wealthy residents” whine about the lack of Olive Garden or Cracker Barrel restaurants?
What highways and in which locations were proposed and not approved?
I remember those well. I saw this the other night outside Andy's on E-W Hwy. Very odd and hope they go away and quick.
12:17: Rockville Freeway, I-370 extension to Dulles, Montrose Parkway East, M-83 Upcounty, Northwest Freeway in Bethesda, and North Central Freeway and Northern Parkway in Silver Spring.
Only in the mind of a Marxist Maga like Dyer.
So low-class.
You had me at Marxist 😂
More unnecessary vehicles on the road, just what we need... WTH?
Imagine complaining about NOT seeing massive advertisements along the highway. Thats truly something. If not wanting to look at huge billboards on the highway makes me a Marxist then I guess I’m a Marxist too.
Bro really thinks marxism is when there are no billboards polluting the skyline.
Put down the Meth and stop fantasizing about unnecessary, nonproductive roadways, unless you are prepared to fund them fully from the ad revenue generated by this blog.
It's called free enterprise, if you have the money, advertise how you please. Got a problem with that?
Dyer, you whine about B-town not being urban enough, not being able to compete with other cities, yet a rolling billboard shows up similar to those found in New York, LA, Chicago, and you give birth. What a whiner.
9:15: These were all necessary, master plan highways that were also, in virtually all cases, parts of the never-completed DC freeway system. All the development was allowed, but we never built the roads to support it. And many decades ago, the feds were prepared to cover 90% of the cost of these highways. Communist elected officials in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the region turned down the offer. Heckuva job, Brownie!
9:18: Where did I complain about the rolling billboard? I simply advised how civic-minded residents could use it to help MoCo's notoriously low information voters become better informed before the elections this year.
Do we need to jave a May Day parade? :)
Maybe it should keep a running tally of how many "Heckuva job, Brownie"s you can shoehorn into this blog. Could we start a GoFundMe? I'm in for a dollar.
9:31 - You are so right they were master plan highways and icydk master plans are re-evaluated frequently to meet the changes in development and growth initiatives. But, you not being an expert in any area but whining, are clueless to this practice. Feds stopped financing highway boondoggle projects decades ago Einstein, especially the ancient, dinosaur, DC freeway system. Marxist idea to rob the public seem to be returning like a virus. Maybe you should go work on a ballroom somewhere.
9:16, such regs used to separate us from third world cr@p holes. Not so much anymore. I bet you benefit from such stupidity as zoning and regulations. Idiot.
8:14: No engineer or rational planner ever concluded necessary highway infrastructure was a "boondoggle." The astroturf "freeway fights" were ginned up nationwide by the same cabal of developers, race hustlers, woke synthetic left, Marxists and environmental wackos who are ruling over us now today in Montgomery County. I wouldn't claim to be an "expert," but I did extensively study urban planning in Latin America for my history degree, and am well-versed in the topics of transportation, infrastructure, the interstate highway system, and the rail industry. I am far more qualified to speak to those topics than anyone on the County Council. In fact, when testifying to save the Montrose Parkway East design, it was revealed that I knew more about the history and established laws governing the Rockville Facility than anyone on the Planning Board or planning staff who was present. So maybe they should focus on ballrooms, while I continue to provide intelligent commentary and analysis on infrastructure and our unfinished freeway system.
The woke synthetic left? Without saying goodbye?
Robert Dyer:
You keep describing those roads as “Master Plan”. They were dropped from the Master Plan before you were even born. They were dropped because residents DID NOT AND DO NOT WANT 8-10 lane freeways destroying their neighborhoods.
The money that the Feds had previously earmarked for those roads was transferred to fund the subway. A much better use for all involved.
8:48: There was more than one design of the freeway system. The later versions had comparatively little impact on homes,but opponents have perpetually used the earlier designs to fearmonger. The final proposed freeways into Montgomery County largely followed railroads through Takoma Park and Silver Spring, or facilities that had been set aside before FDR was even in office. Duplicitous politicians now call those freeway rights-of-way "parks," as in Little Falls, Sligo, etc.
The "freeway fights" of the 60s and 70s were totally astroturfed. There was no organic widespread opposition to highways providing a means to quickly navigate the DC region.
The Northwest Freeway through Tenleytown and Bethesda's right of way can be seen today as what it would have "taken" - a bunch of rear parking lots and undeveloped land. Moreover, it would have been depressed in a trench, with decking and air rights development expected to be built over it.
As we see through our insane foreign wars and DOGE revelations, there was always plenty of money to build freeways and transit. What the War on Cars people knew, though, is that there would be little demand for extensive transit once the public were to experience the convenience of a fully-constructed, complete freeway system.
You are suggesting that the 800,000 people that ride the Metro every weekday is considered “little” demand? I believe WMATA now predicts 1M riders a day in 2040. Freeways destroy cities. Freeways flood the city with cars and require extensive surface and structured parking. Induced demand means that freeways constantly need to be widened because that “so called” freedom of driving on that new or expanded freeway, clogs it up very quickly, inducing demand for even more lanes. Transit is much more easily expanded by simply adding more frequent service, all eight car trains, new and improved stations with enhanced entrances and auxiliary systems that support the Metro, like the Purple Line, and existing and future BRT.
3:42: I've never seen any convincing evidence of induced demand, just congestion increasing organically as jurisdictions allow enormous growth while failing to complete their full freeway network. For example, widening the Beltway and 270, but not building the Rockville Freeway or I-370 Potomac River crossing.
Freeways don't destroy cities; crime,taxes, and economic decline do. Metro divides neighborhoods in Rockville more than any freeway.
What I said about demand is that a completed freeway system and the elimination of subsidized transit fares would have tanked demand for transit. No one wants to spend 2 hours on a bus if the same trip by car is 20 minutes.
Extensive parking is a necessity. I rarely patronize businesses and areas that make parking difficult. Free parking? All the better. Which is partly why Rio is more energetic on the weekends than downtown Bethesda or Rockville Town Center. Thank the Monopoly Guy for free parking!
It’s ridiculous to compare the failure to replace the at-grade crossing on the railroad tracks in Lincoln Park, with the wholesale destruction the urban fabric by the Southwest-Southeast Freeway.
5:35: The Metro tracks division cuts the whole City of Rockville in half. A historic Black neighborhood was boxed in!
Personally, I think the Southwest and Southeast Freeways are fantastic. It's a miracle they even got built amidst the fifth column's sabotage efforts.
Robert Dyer @ 9:12 AM:
"The final proposed freeways into Montgomery County largely followed railroads through Takoma Park and Silver Spring."
Robert Dyer @ 6:19 AM:
"The Metro tracks division cuts the whole City of Rockville in half. A historic Black neighborhood was boxed in!"
It's very strange that, in your comment about Rockville, that you completely omit mention of the B&O railroad tracks that the western Red Line followed, that had been there for nearly a century previously. The same tracks that you wanted the freeways to follow in Silver Spring and Takoma Park.
There was no new "division" of Rockville created by the construction of the western Red Line apart from the failure to provide a new road crossing at Frederick Avenue in Lincoln Park. A pedestrian bridge was built at Lincoln Avenue.
All other at-grade crossings were replaced by new bridges or underpasses within a block of their original locations - e.g. Halpine Road replaced by the Twinbrook Parkway and Redland Road relocated a block north and Derwood Road replaced by Indianola Drive and Gude Drive nearby.
Bridges and underpasses built in in 1930s - Veirs Mill Road and Middle Lane/Park Road were upgraded.
Robert Dyer @ 6:19 AM:
"Personally, I think the Southwest and Southeast Freeways are fantastic."
If you actually believe this, you are someone who drives strictly for leisure and has never actually commuted to a job.
Robert Dyer @ 9:12 AM:
“As we see through our insane wars…”
The three most recent of were caused by our dependence on oil, which in turn is caused by our dependence on the automobile.
And the only thing that DOGE revealed is Elon Musk’s never-ending grift.
6:51: The Gulf War of 1991 was arguably about oil. Starting with Yugoslavia in the 90s, oil was probably lower on the list of priorities. Remember Trump asking why we didn't take the oil after losing the Iraq War under Bush? Apparently it wasn't the oil we wanted.
Secondly, The Washington Post, CNN and others informed us during the 2024 presidential campaign that Trump was a fool to call for more drilling, as the United States was already energy independent under the leadership of Barack Obama.
Third, automobiles are reliant on oil because Joe Biden released the strategic oil reserves to artificially lower gas prices, and blocked the import of $8000 Chinese EVs, a bonehead decision that Trump has perpetuated to protect the crooks in Detroit gouging the American autobuyer to death.
Finally, DOGE blew the lid off the global NGO grift. Billions and billions of dollars being spent to fund luxury lifestyles of well-connected "non-profit" leaders, some of whom live right here in Bethesda. Turns out, we've got plenty of money to solve our problems here in America, but its all being funneled to NGOs and the military industrial complex. Trump didn't have the guts to back up Elon Musk, and kicked him out of the White House, and folded up like a card table as federal judges forced the rehire and spending for the global NGO grift. Treasonous.
Musk is the world's richest man - he hardly needs to steal from the government.
11:17: You can cross railroad tracks on foot. Not so with Metro, which is totally fenced off for obvious reasons.
How does appreciating well designed infrastructure projects translate into "never actually commuted to a job?" That is a Tim Walz level of weird. The fact that those freeways don't work the way they were originally planned is due to the moronic Fifth Column fellow travelers who blocked the rest of the highway segments they were going to attach to.
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