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Interstate
Clear Cut $1.1 billion
Recently chosen by the Bush administration for fast-track review, the Inter County Connector (ICC) is a proposed six to twelve lane, 18-mile highway running from I-270 near Gaithersburg, Maryland to U.S. Route 1 near Laurel, Maryland. It would be part of a sprawling "spider web" of highways around Washington, DC, which would cost at least $20 billion. The ICC alone would cost at least $1.4 billion. The Maryland State Highway Administration and other agencies have spent well over $15 million dollars studying and restudying this boondoggle. The ICC is one of the most destructive projects to be reviewed in the Mid-Atlantic region in decades. It would destroy precious forests and wetlands, damage dozens of communities, degrade Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay tributaries, worsen already poor air quality, encourage sprawl, increase automobile use, and draw jobs and housing from urban core communities that need and want revitalization. After reviewing the State and Federal Highway administrations' 1997 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), local, state and federal agencies rejected or criticized all of the studied routes. Then-Governor Parris Glendening declared he would not pursue the ICC because it would cause tremendous community and environmental damage while providing little or no transportation benefit. The Federal Highway Administration concurred with the state's decision to drop the alignment most favored by the ICC's staunchest supporters. Green
Scissors Proposal Current Status In the fall 2002 local, state and federal elections, developers, road builders and other corporate special interests spent millions to elect pro-ICC, pro-highway politicians. In March 2003, the Bush administration selected the ICC for expedited review under Executive Order 13274 even though the $5 million-plus 1997 DEIS combined and streamlined multiple state and federal studies. The Federal Highway Administration is expected to issue a notice of intent this May, either to reopen the obsolete 1997 DEIS or to start a new DEIS Governor Ehrlich has reportedly secured a pledge of $800 million from President Bush. Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan has made the ICC the cornerstone of his destructive $11 billion "GoMontgomery" plan, which would shave less than two minutes off the average commute in 2015. He is asking the Maryland General Assembly to create a new tax and raise existing taxes to help fund "GoMontgomery." Public
debate has also centered on the "Techway," the westward
extension of the ICC across the Potomac River and into rural
Virginia, and another link in an Outer Beltway around DC. In 1997, the SHA and Federal Highway Administration estimated that building the ICC would cost over $1 billion. In December 2001, regional transportation planners increased that price tag to over $1.4 billion. The 1997 DEIS found that the ICC would provide no real relief to the Capital Beltway, I-270, or I-95, would worsen congestion on critical north-south commuter routes, and would leave many other local roads severely congested. The sprawl encouraged by the ICC would force state taxpayers to pay for expensive new infrastructure and services. Project Hurts the Environment The ICC would slice through dozens of communities, destroying local businesses and scores of homes, devaluing many other homes, and increasing noise, air pollution and traffic. The ICC's direct physical impacts, and the air pollution and toxic runoff generated by its traffic, would undermine local, state and federal efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. To build it, the SHA would clear cut forests, bulldoze stream valleys, and obliterate wetlands in the headwaters of major tributaries to the Anacostia River, Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. The ICC threatens populations of at least 20 plant species that are rare, threatened or endangered in Maryland, and it would destroy mature forests that shelter at least 27 bird species that depend on interior forest habitat. The
Washington and Baltimore regions are "severe non-attainment
areas" for ground-level ozone. From June 1
to early September of 2002, roughly four in ten days were Code
Orange, Red or Purple days in the Washington area. This project
would only further exacerbate the region's air pollution problem.
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