Greenwashing Maryland's Highway History
by Mark Robinowitz
participant in the campaign to stop the Inter County Connector between 1993 and 1998

Glendening was County Executive in Prince George's County (next to Washington, DC) for twelve years and Maryland Governor for eight. The areas under his dominion for these terms received vast amounts of subsidies for extremely ugly sprawl, more highways, road widenings and other uglinesses that makes his recent claims of being "green" seem Orwellian to those with a good memory.

The most important transit project in the County was the Washington Metro "Green Line," which bypasses the University of Maryland about two miles east of the campus, making it difficult for students, professors and staff to use the system. Glendening, however, used the Green Line construction to boost real estate development in forested floodplains and built new roads to access the "office park" (where most of the new workers drove to work and did not take the poorly sited Metro rail).

Glendening's top transportation priority as Prince George's County Executive and Governor of Maryland was the Inter County Connector, part of the old Outer Beltway proposed around Washington, D.C. (Interstate 370). One of his big donors was Kingdon Gould, owner of a giant sand and gravel mine near the ICC / I-95 interchange that is planned to be converted into "Konterra," a large edge city of shopping mauls and townhouses. The project manager for the ICC admitted in 1997 to this writer that the highway was the "spine of Konterra" since this mega project could not be built without massive highway construction of the ICC and a new Konterra interchange on I-95.

Glendening's "Smart Growth" law restricted state subsidies for development to incorporated cities and areas inside the Washington and Baltimore Beltways. New highways could only be funded if they were inside a designated smart growth area or connected smart growth areas -- this was a loophole large enough for an Outer Beltway (which connects the cities of Gaithersburg and Laurel, among others).

In 1997, Glendening was forced to withdraw support for the ICC by the Federal Highway administration, which privately concluded the project was too illegal and therefore would be blocked in federal court. However, the Governor merely withdrew support for a particular option in the Environmental Impact Statement, and spent much more time and money trying to craft numerous new versions of the highway. Highway opponents learned that canceling an option in a study and permanent cancellation of the project were very different things. Glendening's administration claimed they had canceled the ICC in public but in private continued to buy land for the road, especially on the "new route" that they pretended was a viable alternative to part of the alignment that the federal resource agencies objected to.

In 1999, after it became clear that his highway proposals for the ICC could not be approved, Glendening had a pseudo collaboration with the faux environmentalists who recommended a slightly narrower highway plus transit (buses would use the highway). Building a four lane freeway in a 300 foot wrong-of-way could quickly become a six or more lanes freeway just by adding more concrete and asphalt if the overpasses are built to accommodate these "ultimate lanes."

When the Bush Team came in (and Glendening was out of office) they prepared a new EIS in 2004 and made a few tweaks to the route. This time, the Federal agencies were too intimidated to do their jobs, and chose not to fight the ICC (keeping their personal retirements intact was a bigger priority for federal "resource" agency staff). The corporate funded pseudo environmentalists who wanted the publicity of fighting the ICC more than worrying about the technical details of the project kept the grassroots out of their meetings, filed a flawed lawsuit in 2006, chose not to appeal when they lost (despite having a very strong case on some points), and construction started in November 2007. Now, in June 2008, miles of forests are now clearcut to make way for the Inter County Connector. In the 2008 Maryland State legislature, there was an effort to defund the ICC, but strangely, some alleged "climate activists" in Maryland waged a campaign to persuade environmentalists not to fight highway construction. Hopefully, the funding for these climate activists can be sourced to polluters and it is not merely "turf" battles that encouraged these greenwashers to oppose efforts to stop the ICC.

 

Lots of background information on the "limits to growth" is linked at

www.permatopia.com/growth.html

Exponential growth cannot continue forever on a finite planet.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell (ICC).

 

"no matter how cynical you get, it's hard to keep up"
-- Lily Tomlin

 

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GOV. GLENDENING'S SMART GROWTH LAW (key excerpt)

39 (3) THE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS MAY APPROVE A TRANSPORTATION
40 PROJECT UNDER PARAGRAPH (1)(II) OF THIS SUBSECTION IF THE TRANSPORTATION
41 PROJECT:

[note: The Board of Public Works consists of the Governor, the Treasurer and the Comptroller.]

 

1 (I) MAINTAINS THE EXISTING TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM,\
2 PROVIDED IF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND THE OFFICE OF
3 PLANNING DETERMINE THE PROJECT DOES NOT SERVE TO SIGNIFICANTLY
4 INCREASE HIGHWAY CAPACITY;

5 (II) SERVES TO CONNECT PRIORITY FUNDING AREAS,

The ICC connects "priority funding areas" (the cities of Gaithersburg and Laurel).

6 PROVIDED THAT IF:
7 1. THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND THE
8 OFFICE OF PLANNING DETERMINE THAT ADEQUATE ACCESS CONTROL OR OTHER
9 MEASURES ARE IN PLACE TO:
10 A. PREVENT DEVELOPMENT THAT IS INCONSISTENT WITH §
11 5-7A-01(1), (2), AND (3) OF THIS TITLE; AND
12 B. MAINTAIN THE VIABILITY OF THE PROJECT WHILE
13 CONCOMITANTLY CONSTRAINING DEVELOPMENT WHICH POTENTIALLY DETRACTS
14 FROM MAIN STREET BUSINESS AREAS; AND
15 2. THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND THE
16 OFFICE OF PLANNING HAVE FIRST DETERMINED WHETHER ALTERNATIVE
17 TRANSPORTATION MODES, SUCH AS MASS TRANSIT AND TRANSPORTATION
18 DEMAND MANAGEMENT, PROVIDE A REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE TO THE PROJECT
19 AND DETERMINED THAT NO REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE EXISTS;

in other words, if the highway is built in the outer suburbs and it doesn't have traffic lights or driveways it is acceptable.

20 (III) HAS THE SOLE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING CONTROL OF ACCESS
21 BY THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION ALONG AN EXISTING HIGHWAY

[this exempts the Route 29 "upgrade" from Howard/Montgomery border to MD Route 32, the Outer Outer Beltway, and to the planned "upgrades" of Route 301 -- part of Eastern Bypass -- Route 5, Route 210, Route 50 on the Eastern Shore and several others]

22 CORRIDOR; OR
23 (IV) DUE TO ITS OPERATIONAL OR PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS,
24 MUST BE LOCATED AWAY FROM OTHER DEVELOPMENT.

 

my definitions:

Smart Growth:
1. An effort to cloak further sprawl development in a green mantle.
2. A Maryland campaign to target public dollars toward Democratic Party constituencies.
3. The mantra of Glendening's re-election campaign (in 1998)
4. Brain tumors induced listening to re-election campaign speeches disguised as public policy pronouncements.
5. Legislation enacted by the Maryland General Assembly in 1997 that contains a loophole big enough for an Outer Beltway -- it permits State funding of connector highways between designated growth areas and conversion of major roads into limited-access interstate highways.
6. Having a good seat on the Titanic.

Designated growth areas include all incorporated cities -- such as Rockville, Gaithersburg, Laurel, Greenbelt and Bowie -- and all areas inside the Baltimore and Capital Beltways, which means that the Inter County Connector, the 301 Limited Access Upgrade, the Waldorf Bypass, the Raven Haven football stadium and Jack Kent Crooke football stadium are all "Smart Growth."