[RP TownTalk] FW: Meeting to Defund the ICC and Promote Sustainable Land-Use and Transportation

[Dwight Holmes]

Passing this along... might it be possible to once again stop the ICC???


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bill Gardiner <bgardiner at hyattsville.org>
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Subject: [HOPE_in_Hyattsville] FW:  Meeting to Defund the ICC and
Promote Sustainable Land-Use and Transportation
To: hope_in_hyattsville at yahoogroups.com



Meeting to Defund the ICC and Promote Sustainable Land-Use and Transportation

September 8th, 7:30pm, College Park City Hall

Co-sponsored by:

Anacostia Watershed Society
Community Research
Sierra Club - Prince George's Group

Please circulate to like-minded groups and friends


Friends,

I hope you have all alerted your lists about the meeting next Monday
in College Park to discuss the
ICC and sustainable transportation.  If not, please do so today.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that Contract B of the ICC is
$100 to $150 million higher than the estimate of January 2008.
Earlier Contract A had a significant cost overrun and yet the ICC
remains on budget!

Community Research and the Coalition for Smarter Growth issued the
following press release in response.  Enough is
enough.  It is time for us to lobby hard to defund the ICC and promote
sustainable transportation.    See you in College Park on Monday.

Thanks.
Suchitra Balachandran


COALITION FOR SMARTER GROWTH and COMMUNITY RESEARCH PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Greg Smith                                      (240) 605-9238
Suchitra Balachandran            (240) 423-0422
Stewart Schwartz                        (202) 244-4408 x 121

Latest Major ICC Cost Overrun Raises Serious Questions About Toll Road's
Fiscal and Environmental Impacts

Washington, DC (September 4, 2008) - Today's Washington Post report
that a major segment of the Intercounty Connector (ICC)  - Contract B
- will cost far more than the Maryland Department of Transportation
estimated earlier this year came as no surprise to critics of the $3
billion-plus toll highway.  The news also raises serious doubts about
the State's future ability to fund other urgently needed transportation
projects.  The ICC's fiscal impacts may hit even deeper at a time when
state and federal transportation revenues are falling short of
projections and Maryland faces a deepening fiscal crisis.

            MDOT recently issued Contract B - a seven-mile segment - to
a consortium of contractors for $559 million.  Now, Contract B will
cost the State $100 million to $150 million more than MDOT's estimate
last January, when MDOT stated that Contract B would cost between $410
million and $460 million.  In just seven months, the actual cost of
that road segment has risen 22 to 36 percent.

            MDOT plans to build the ICC in five segments - labeled
Contracts A through E.  Contract B would run between Georgia Avenue
south
of Olney to Route 29 near Burtonsville.  It would cut through
neighborhoods, parks, and some of region's most sensitive environmental
resources.

            News of this latest major cost overrun on Contract B
follows a significant cost overrun on Contract A
in 2007. That April, MDOT awarded Contract A at a cost of $478.7
million - $70 million to $140 million more than the agency had
estimated less than 10 months earlier (in late June, 2006).  That's an
increase of 14 to 41 percent in less than one year.

            Despite these overruns and sharp increases in highway
constructions costs across the country over the last several years,
MDOT is sticking to a cost figure that it released in 2004.

            "No one building a home today or undertaking just about
any other construction project would rely on a 2004 cost estimate,"
said Greg Smith of Community Research. "Somehow, even though highway
construction costs have skyrocketed nationwide since early 2005, and
even though Contracts A and B for the ICC have cost much more than MDOT
had estimated just months before issuing those huge contracts, MDOT is
sticking to a cost estimate that is four years old."

            The Federal Highway Administration reports
that construction costs for major highway projects like the ICC - roads
costing at least $500 million - rose by roughly 50 percent between
January 2005 and early 2007.  Though construction cost increases
flattened out in 2007, they rose again sharply in 2008, driven by
higher oil prices and worldwide demand for construction materials;
trends that may continue.

            At the same time, state and federal transportation revenues
are down and have fallen short of projections for several years, due
partly to rising oil prices.

            "There's no way that the combined impacts of rising costs
and revenue shortfall won't kill or delay projects across the state."
said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter
Growth. "The ICC's huge and possibly growing price tag jeopardizes
Maryland's ability to invest in urgently needed road and bridge repair,
local road needs, and public transit that would give Marylanders
alternatives to expensive automobile commutes.

            "Name your project.  The Red Line in Baltimore.  The
Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George's counties. Bay Bridge
long-term repair. Local road maintenance throughout the state.  The ICC
will consume increasingly scarce state and federal dollars that could
go to any of these true needs."

            MDOT's failure to hit the mark on Contracts A and B of the
ICC also raises serious questions about the agencies claims about the
project's potential impacts on public health and the environment, say
project and agency critics.

            "The fact that MDOT has been so far off the mark on its ICC
cost estimates calls into question much of what MDOT has said about the
ICC's transportation, economic and environmental impacts," said
Suchitra Balachandran of Community Research. "This massive highway
would cut right through communities, right next to an elementary school
and right through some of the region's most sensitive natural
resources."

            To pay for the ICC, the O'Malley administration plans to
issue nearly $2 billion in debt, commit roughly 20 percent of federal
transportation dollars over 12 years, shift more than $250 million from
Maryland's General Fund, shift another $180 million from the State's
Transportation Trust Fund, and divert perhaps $1 billion or more in
revenues from Maryland's other toll facilities.  MDOT also plans to
raise average toll rates by roughly 70 percent statewide over the next
several years, partly to ease pressure being exerted by the ICC. Tolls
from the ICC are expected to cover less than one-fifth of the project's
construction cost, according to MDOT.

            These fiscal impacts are particularly egregious given that
local, state and federal studies repeatedly have shown that the ICC
would sharply increase driving and would do little or nothing to
relieve congestion or reduce average commuting times.

            "It's time for Maryland to pull the plug on this boondoggle
and invest those billions in projects that better serve the public,"
said Schwartz. "Several taxpayer-funded agency studies in 10 years have
determined that the ICC would not even make a dent in congestion on
most local roads, the Beltway, I-270 or I-95. "In fact, MDOT and Federal Highway
found that ICC would slightly increase congestion on the Beltway and
significantly increase it on parts of other major commuter routes."

            The ICC is projected to cost more than $3 billion, not the
$2.4 billion commonly reported by MDOT. MDOT's figure excludes hundreds
of millions of dollars in interest the State would have to pay on the
$2 billion in debt it is issuing to finance the ICC.