[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Report: Maryland $9B highway plan a ‘boondoggle’ (6/26)

Maryland "Freak State" PING!

[prophetic]

Lol, it’s not about roads or silly highways. It’s just the latest con game for kickback funds for the politicians. I’d estimate a conservative 10-25% going back to them via various means.

[bigred44]

Chump change compared to the $10 billion bullet train between Fresno and Bakersfield. If you work in Fresno you live in Fresno. I doubt there will be more than 20 commuters a day between the two cities.

This is the first leg of the train from LA to San Francisco, which will never get built.

[FreedomPoster]

U.S. PIRG Is a bunch of Leftists from way back, in my experience.

DC is short on roads, period.

That said, the real solution to the problem is shrinking the size of the FedGov.

[sphinx]

Yes, these particular critics are left wing hacks … but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Anyone who thinks adding a lane to I-270 or the Maryland portion of the beltway will solve the problem is living in lala land. Politicians who advocate this are simply pandering to a very big and very frustrated commuter constituency that does not want to confront the fact that with 10 million people now living in the Washington, DC-Baltimore region, the automobile commute is well beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Don't believe me. Drive 270 either way between DC and Frederick during rush hour for a couple of days. Then cut over to 355/Rockville Pike, the alternate non-interstate route, and drive that for a couple of days. Then wander around some nice Saturday and look at all the new development sprawling across the remaining open ground along those corridors. This should cure you of any delusion that expanding 270 or 495 will do anything more than create a wider parking lot.

If you want to live out there, fine … but if you're coming into DC, plan on taking the train and buy a house that is convenient to a MARC or Metro stop. Better yet, take a job out in a fringe city and avoid the commute altogether. If you work in DC, live in DC or an inner ring suburb. We don't need a wider 270; we need people to live closer to their jobs.

[rwa265]

link to U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group report:

https://uspirgedfund.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-4

[fruser1]

“induced demand”

Sure, just because someone added a lane, I’m going to go out of my way to use that road. I live on the east coast, but when LA added lanes to I-5, I started taking that on my daily commute. Many of my neighbors decided to take jobs and move out there for use of that new lane.

This has always been an absurd argument.

In case you haven’t noticed, population has been generally increasing. You need more road to handle more cars. The concept is known as “throughput”.

If their argument were correct, you could reduce demand by reducing all roads to one lane.

[VeniVidiVici]

Good article here. I think anyone that lives in a municipality that espouses “planned gridlock” should be charged a “planned gridlock” fee on top of any shipping fee when receiving a delivery. This would help reimburse the carrier for sitting for hours in traffic due to the municipality diverting road funding for mass transit.

https://www.mcgop.com/planned_gridlock_or_traffic_relief