Washington, D.C. – Across the nation, state transportation departments are completing projects that make us safer, our drives shorter and less stressful, and our communities better and stronger. Now, the top transportation projects across the U.S. are going head to head in a competition that will determine which of those projects earns the title of best in the nation.
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“This year’s projects are marked by innovation and discipline,” said John Horsley, AASHTO executive director. “Whether it was deploying new technology or trying unique contracting methods – these projects show how states can deliver projects that make sense ahead of schedule and under budget.
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Maryland—Intercounty Connector: Maryland State Highway Administration’s $2.4 billion Intercounty Connector, a 19-mile long multi-modal highway connecting the I-270 and I-95 corridors north of Washington, D.C., earned the nickname of “America’s Greenest Highway” after allocating roughly $375 million to ensure the project was done with good environmental stewardship.
https://www.americastransportationaward.org/
Cough, cough. Ah yes “a highway is not an environmental problem, but a bike path is an environmental problem” project, great example of environmental stewardship, NOT!
One candidate is Maryland’s $2.4 billion Intercounty Connector, a “19-mile multimodal highway.” This road was “designed for 20 years of future sprawl,” wrote Greater Greater Washington , and today its wide asphalt expanses are a testament to how little the region needed this project to be built. Here’s an actual headline from a local radio station: “Why does ICC seem so empty? “
But they forgot to mention:
At $2.56 billion, the ICC is the most expensive road ever built in Maryland. Although it will be financed largely by tolls — and hefty ones at that — building this road and the $1 billion worth of express toll lanes on I-95 north of Baltimore means that the Maryland Transportation Authority is on course to nearly reach the limit of its borrowing capacity in fiscal 2017.
https://thedailyrecord.com/2011/12/01/editorial-the-icc-conundrum
And when you take this all together, this is in competition for the best transportation project in America??? Costly, over built, and destroying a master planed bike trail project is the best? With the price of gas going up and the amount of money available for road projects going down this is an exemplary project? May the bicycle saints protect us.
As Streets Blog points out, all our choices are road projects. :/
Dear American Association of State Highway and Transportation, Can we please be allowed to vote for none of the above?