MCDONALD'S JALAPEÑO DOUBLE REVIEW (VIDEO)

After months without a new entree on the menu (since the Bacon Clubhouse), McDonald's finally has a new burger - the Jalapeño Double burger. The Jalapeño Double features 2 of the standard McDonald's all-beef patties, white cheddar cheese, ranch sauce and - surprise! - jalapeños. And lots of jalapeños, it turns out. Some fresh sliced, and others crispy-fried.

Ironically, Baltimore was a test market for this burger last year. Now I finally get a chance to test it out, in this new video review.

PANTS ON FIRE: MONTGOMERY COUNTY BRT FACT CHECK

With no facts or hard data to support the need or justification for a Montgomery County Bus Rapid Transit system, it's no surprise that developer-backed proponents have to resort to fantastical predictions and deceptive tactics, if they hope to ram this "billions and billions" BRT boondoggle through.

On Wednesday, I was interviewed by WUSA9 reporter Debra Alfarone for her follow-up story on BRT. When I arrived, Stewart Schwartz of the Coalition for Smarter Growth - a prominent advocate of BRT - had just finished his interview. He then told her that opponents had made a false claim regarding the $10 billion cost of the original BRT proposal. Schwartz stated that no one had ever given that figure.

Having written extensively about the BRT proposal, I interjected that Schwartz's claim was incorrect. In fact, it was Montgomery County Master Planner Larry Cole himself who made that *official* $10 billion projection in early 2013.

Furthermore, it was Cole's projection that led the county to reduce the size of the system by 50%, the smaller proposal now on the table, I pointed out.

Schwartz responded that he himself had never heard that figure.

Is that believable?

The Stewart Schwartz, guru of transit, "smart" growth, and BRT didn't review the basic documents the county itself released on the BRT system he is the expert on?

Stewart Schwartz, the development-friendly spokesperson quoted as an authority by local media almost daily, didn't know the budget projection given by an official government office?

OK, let's say he somehow missed all that.  Did he also miss the many articles that cited Cole's $10 billion projection?

The $10 billion BRT cost was not only in a banner headline on my blog, but in the bigtime corporate media, as well.

Like this Washington Examiner article. And on NBC Washington's website. And on Silver Spring Patch.

"Nobody ever said $10 billion."

You be the judge.

But you can discern the pattern of deceptive tactics here. Once again, we're hearing BRT proponents claim that 200,000 new residents are coming to Montgomery County.

And, as always, that is complete bunk.  200,000 people can only come here if the Planning Board and County Council approve 200,000 new housing units. One would assume they would ensure our incomplete highway system was finished before allowing an influx of that size.  85% of these newcomers will drive, and our roads are already over capacity.

So, for Schwartz's claim that a $10 billion price tag was never cited for Montgomery County BRT, I have to award "4 Pinnochios" or the "Pants on Fire" rating found on those fact checking websites. Verify it yourself.

Just the facts, Ma'am.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY BRT COST EXPLODES TO $10 BILLION

COUNTY OFFICIALS

OPENLY PLOT TO

MAKE TRAFFIC

33% WORSE FOR

AUTO COMMUTERS

The cost estimate for Montgomery County's unpopular Bus Rapid Transit plan has exploded to $10,000,000,000, according to county Master Planner Larry Cole.  Ironically, it was Cole who humiliated BRT-obsessed county politicians earlier this year, when he announced the county did not have sufficient ridership for a BRT system.  After keeping quiet for a while - and surely receiving a "talking to" behind closed doors (how else to explain his embarrassing about-face from naysayer to "let's do this?") - Cole is now speaking to reporters.

With a BRT vehicle that requires 50 minutes to crawl 15 miles, a $10 billion BRT price tag, not a single penny in financing, and a county slouching towards fiscal disaster with an unresolved structural deficit, surely officials are ready to end the Fantasy Island talk of BRT, right?

Wrong.

"The bus, Boss!  The bus!"

Instead, they are pressing forward.  With developers pulling the strings for BRT behind the scenes (it will allow them to build town centers in suburban and rural areas), politicians beholden to them have little choice.

Now several officials, including Cole, are talking openly about sabotaging the county's already-failing highway network for automobile commuters, to save a few bucks on BRT lanes.

Their plan is to steal lanes from cars on Route 355 and Georgia Avenue, and make them BRT-only lanes.  This would reduce highway capacity on both roads by at least 33%.

Both Rockville Pike and Georgia Avenue are currently jammed full, and move at a crawl from red light to red light, during rush hour.

Amazingly, Cole and other county officials are attempting to claim - with straight faces, no less - that reducing capacity by 33% will have no impact on existing automobile traffic.

Even more amazingly, local media continue to allow them to make these Fantasy Island claims.

What planet are these people living on?

Have they ever driven the roads they're talking about?

I've been on both in rush hour more times than I can count, and can definitively say that taking even one lane away would be absolutely catastrophic.

"Welcome to Fantasy Island"

Blissfully removed from reality, Cole continues his salesman spiel to Kate Jacobson of The Examiner, telling her chopping down capacity 33% on highways will have no impact because "there are more people on the buses and there are less vehicles on the road."

Huh?  I've got Ricardo Montalban on Line 1, and Rod Serling on Line 2 here, man!

Mr. Cole: welcome to reality.  Welcome to the world.  We'll try to get you up to speed here.

Across Montgomery County, 85-90% of residents drive, and only 10-15% use public transit.  No suburban area like Montgomery County has ever been successful in "getting people out of their cars," with the exception of Communist China, who did it by force.

Ironically, as we found out a few weeks ago, Communist Chinese officials are advising the county on their BRT plan.  Nice PR move, guys.

But the bottom line is that Mr. Cole's statement is false.

One motive behind the plot to steal lanes from drivers, and make their commutes even worse?  A misguided belief that they can use pain to force you to stop selfishly driving, and board their $10B bus for a two hour commute.  In other words, artificially gin up ridership for a bus that Mr. Cole himself declared there is insufficient ridership for.

Cole was against BRT before he was for it!

He's not alone, though.  Two other county officials have endorsed the "punish drivers" plan.  And, get this:  they're going to punish you, the citizen, who pays their salaries!

Senior BRT planner David Anspacher told the Washington Post this:

"When folks see buses running down Rockville Pike while traffic is stopped, that will be our best marketing."

Thumbing your nose at 90% of county taxpayers is a popular pasttime among officials, apparently.

Kate Alexander of The Gazette reported last week that Planning Commissioner Casey Anderson declared "the county was no longer going to be in the business of trying to accomodate the demand for single-occupancy vehicles, and that transit was preferred."

Wow.  I'm afraid "radical" may be too weak of a term to describe Mr. Anderson's statement.

Let me get this straight:  the county is shirking its primary transportation responsibility we pay it to execute - maintaining a functioning highway system for 85-90% of residents?

Can we see the data that proves the fantasy assertions of no impact on auto traffic?  Of course not.

To top it off, three "public meetings" are being held this week.  But if you live in Bethesda or Clarksburg or Potomac or Burtonsville, ah, well, you're not really invited.

That's because the meetings are only at Montgomery Blair HS, Shady Grove Training Center (the Shady Grove what?!  Where's that?!), and Wheaton Library.  All super-convenient for residents of the remaining 80% of the county, right?

Get the sense that they don't really care what your opinion is?

But they do care about you paying for BRT.  With no financing in place, BRT taxes will cost many Bethesda residents $1000+ annually in new taxes.  And they won't even get to ride it, because it doesn't even go south into DC!

All this for a bus that goes 15 miles in 50 minutes, and will still take longer than your car, even if they artificially make traffic jams even worse.

All aboard the Emperor's New Bus.  Next stop:  The Twilight Zone.

TIME TO TACKLE INFLATED INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS

COZY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN 

POLITICIANS, UNIONS, CONSTRUCTION FIRMS 

DRIVING TAXPAYERS INTO POORHOUSE, 

STIFLING VITAL PROJECTS

One of the biggest arguments for substandard transit projects like Montgomery County's proposed BRT system, and not building needed highways is, "We just don't have the money."

That's partly true, because politicians keep spending transportation funds on the folks who donate to their campaigns.

But there's a fundamental flaw to that argument, and it came to my attention recently.

Reading about a new interstate highway in the deep South, that will extend several hundred miles through three states, I was flabbergasted to find that the ambitious project's total cost was going to be less than what Maryland taxpayers are paying for the few miles of the InterCounty Connector.

As a fan of underground subways, I wonder why areas like ours have stopped building them.  We're told that light rail (which I also like, by the way) is a cheaper alternative.

Initially, you might think so.  New York City is building a subway extension of 8 miles for $17 billion.  In contrast, Maryland has estimated the much longer Purple Line to cost around $2.2 billion as a surface light rail line.

But wait a minute, Toronto is building the 15.5 mile Englinton-Scarborough Crosstown subway line for about $8 billion.

Ironically, the ESC subway was meant to be a light rail line.  But Toronto Mayor Tom Ford wisely scrapped that plan.

Subways are a far more civilized form of urban transit, particularly in dense areas.  They help create world-class transit systems when stops are placed in the right spots.  Subways can arrive beneath destinations, whereas light rail can be blockaded by surface obstacles around buildings.  Consider the experience of arriving within the Verizon Center complex or Prince Georges Plaza, compared with remote outposts like the White Flint and Shady Grove stations.

And subways do not require all of the surface clutter and debris needed to operate light rail systems.  Not to mention that subway speeds blow away bus or light rail rapid transit.

We're unlikely to match the transit ridership rates of New York City until we have a system that covers the same amount of territory the Big Apple's does.

And we won't reduce gridlock until we build our master plan highways like the Rockville Freeway, M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended, the Outer Beltway, and the Northern Parkway.

Opponents say we can't afford to do it.

It turns out that's hogwash.

Why does it cost so much to build infrastructure here?  Besides nuisance lawsuits permitted by federal law, the driving force behind costs is our politicians' cozy and unethical relationships with all of the players needed to build anything.  Requiring not only union labor, but with an inflated wage, causes costs to skyrocket.  Design and build firms, like union leaders, give generously to politicians' campaigns.  And those politicians are equally generous with the taxpayers' money, approving design and construction projects with overinflated budgets.  And as we've witnessed with projects like Strathmore and the Silver Spring Transit Center, those same tight relationships seem to prevent elected officials from taking any serious, punitive measures to avoid cost overruns when projects go wrong.

While a project like the Rockville Freeway could be built for well under $1 billion under the current cost structure, it is well past time to tackle the outrageous infrastructure prices that are keeping our region from moving forward.  That includes sewer and utility improvements, too!  Even FDR believed that unions hold no right to bankrupt the public.

For Montgomery County in particular, it has been devastating.  It doesn't have to be.  We have the power to take action now to reduce the cost of building infrastructure.  What we need is the leadership that can actually take on this challenge.