An online presentation is open for you to learn about Governor Hogan's proposed expansion of 270 and 495, two highways in the Washington Metropolitan area. The planned expansion is intended to reduce congestion by adding toll lanes, like what has been done on parts of 95 north of Baltimore and in Northern Virginia. The Maryland Department is hailing this as a "state-of-the-art" transportation solution that will return your quality life. It's not. Building more roads is not state-of-the-art and will not return quality of life.
After years and countless examples, we know that highway expansion is not the silver bullet for long commute times. Time and time again, we see highways expanded only to soon return to persistent rush hour congestion. The benefits of new road capacity are short-lived. Commuters shift their commute departures back to peak hours and residents settle in sprawl developments, leading to more people trying to drive at the same time.
Building highways for peak hour capacity leads us to have overbuilt roads that are not an efficient use of our resources - land and money - and have serious, detrimental impacts on our environment and resilience, including increasing greenhouse gases, destroying habitats, displacing people, and removing pervious land.
During the original scoping, the major themes Marylanders identified includedtheir concerns with effects to the environment and support for improvements to transit. It is important for people to continue to raise these concerns and hold Maryland accountable for how it spends its transportation dollars. Please, take the time and look at the proposed plan, and make comments.
