Maryland “Freak State” PING!
They got a whiff of those $40 dollar tolls on 66 from variable rates and are drooling.
Better to have lanes everyone would use.
Maryland pols will probably pander to the commuter lobby anyhow. The state will spend many billions of dollars. It will not, of course, reform Davis Bacon, so much of this will go to the usual kickback arrangements. Drivers will get years of construction delays. Development pressure will mount, and Montgomery County's limits on sprawl will face every intensifying attack.
And ten years from now, if something is actually built, the traffic situation will be even worse than it is today. But a generation of politicians will have skated through the next couple of election cycles pointing the earthmovers along the road, and they will take credit for "doing something" -- even though what they are doing is wrong.