The Eyes of Paint Branch - Fall 2002 Newsletter
Volume: 8 Issue: 2

Would the Inter-County Connector Really Relieve Traffic Congestion?



"None of the ICC alternatives will have a substantial impact on the levels of service [congestion] experienced by motorists on the Capital Beltway, I-270 or I-95 within the Study Area."
ICC Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), Vol. III, 1997, prepared by the Maryland State Highway Administration and the Federal Highway Administration

The real story of this year's election season ballyhoo about the ICC is that with or without this highway and with or without the "Go Montgomery Plan," traffic congestion will be worse in the future. Traffic on the Beltway is projected to increase by about 40 percent by the year 2020 with or without the ICC. Every ICC alternative would increase traffic on one or more stretches of I-95 in the ICC Study Area.

Proponents of this billion-dollar road often claim that it will reduce travel time countywide by 24 percent. What do the official studies say? In 1997, the ICC Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) modeled 529 countywide trips, which showed savings of only 2 percent of travel time with the ICC. However, the proponents picked only 11 of these trips to come up with their statement. And of these 11 trips, only one of the very few that go the full length of the ICC showed significant time savings, while the time savings realized in the other trips were miniscule. For example, the ICC saved only 3 minutes in a trip from West Gaithersburg to Wheaton.

The Good Hope tributary, the primary wild trout spawning and nursery area for the entire Paint Branch fishery, near the Master Plan Alignment.


The ICC would not significantly relieve traffic through local intersections. The DEIS modeled evening rush hour traffic volumes at 54 intersections within the Study Area, and of these only 15 would improve, while more than half of the 39 remaining intersections would be operating at the worst congestion levels. Moreover, the DEIS found that between 70 and 80 percent of all the travel for each of the ICC alignments studied (Northern, Master, and Midcounty) would be made at very congested conditions during the rush hours. The DEIS even recognized that traffic flow through the intersections modeled could actually improve without the ICC, if, among other measures, strategic improvements are made at the intersections to increase the capacity, and if local land use policies change the development patterns from those that were assumed in the ICC study.

More recently, the Montgomery County Transportation Policy Task Force found that making changes in development patterns to balance the location of jobs and housing would significantly improve countywide travel time. The Task Force tested two scenarios for the years 2025 and 2050: a Transit and Balanced Land Use Scenario without the ICC, and a Roads Scenario with the ICC and no land use changes. Countywide travel time was better in the scenario without the ICC.

A favorite myth of the ICC proponents is that the ICC would dramatically improve access to the airports. The Task Force tested various highway networks with and without the ICC and found that the ICC would do very little to improve auto travel to the airports. For example, the ICC would not change the auto travel time for trips from Wheaton to BWI or from Silver Spring to Dulles. And a trip from Dulles to Rockville would actually take more time if the ICC were built.

The source of our region's problem with traffic congestion is not a lack of roads like the ICC or the Techway. Rather, it is the abundance of poor land use policies, subsidies, and prejudices that have worked to the advantage of the automobile and the disadvantage of transit, as well as a lack of visionary planning for development that sustains instead of degrades our natural resources. How bad will our traffic have to become before we realize that we need to seriously invest in other forms of transportation and implement land use policies that promote sustainable development to preserve our environment and strengthen rather than destroy our communities?