Image by thisisbossi licensed under Creative Commons.

After years of controversy surrounding a proposed $371-million highway expansion called M-83, the Montgomery County Council is debating a resolution that would move Montgomery one step closer to blocking the road from being constructed.

This debate comes on the heels of a recent Montgomery Department of Transportation report, which found that bus rapid transit on MD355 could handle a significant amount of future transportation needs. The resolution could be an important step for Montgomery to commit to a transit-first future.

What is M-83?

M-83 is more than just a proto-hipster band, it is also the name of an environmentally-destructive highway planned for Montgomery County. The four-lane, 5.7-mile highway, if built, will connect Gaithersburg to Clarksburg and be part of a 1960’s-era vision for growth in Northern Montgomery

In 2004, Montgomery began studying whether or not the road would pass current environmental standards. The study wrapped up in 2015 and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) recommended that the county move forward with building Alternative 9A, the costliest and most environmentally-destructive option.

After leadership changes at MCDOT and an outcry from community activists, MCDOT began a “transit alternative” study to the M-83 Highway in the summer of 2015. The study evaluated how the recently-approved plans for bus rapid transit on MD355 would affect traffic in the M-83 study corridor. They wanted to know whether a transit alternative could serve as a transportation solution for the area.

This is the area studied in the Montgomery corridor. 

How does M-83 fit into existing county policy?

How do plans for M-83 fit into stated Montgomery policy? Not well.

In fact, the department of transportation has a sustainability policy stating one of its goals is to “plan and implement a transportation system that broadly considers ecosystem and climate impacts, reduces and prevents waste and pollution, uses renewable resources, uses sustainable sources of energy and reduces energy consumption.”

Plans for a more eco-friendly transportation system are nothing new for Montgomery County. The 1993 General Plan Refinement stated, “A key aspect of making the County more accessible by transit and walking is that it can reduce travel by car. Favoring transit can make more efficient use of the existing roadway network and can reduce air pollution.”

The plan would be more expensive than projected as well. Prior cost estimates pegged the fourlane M-83 at $371 million, but that figure does not include environmental mitigation or future interchange connections, which could be substantial.

Change in jobs according to Council of Government analysis. Bus rapid transit would connect workers to jobs, unlike the proposed M-83 highway.   Image by “The Case To Cancel M-83” Kelly Blynn, Coalition for Smarter Growth used with permission.

Council resolution commits to transit-first growth

While the council has not formally killed M-83, progress toward a transit-first solution could be coming.

On September 19, Councilmember Hans Riemer introduced a resolution called “Transportation Solutions for Northwest Montgomery County” which directs the planning board to stop factoring M-83 into future master plans. If the council is committing to a transit-first Montgomery, they shouldn’t be planning communities around a road that is apparently counterproductive to the county’s own growth policies.

The resolution also aligns with the county’s environmental goals of reducing pollution and stormwater runoff and would stop the county from continuing to “dig the hole” of sprawl.

Building bus rapid transit on MD355 could double transit ridership

The recently-released transit alternative report builds the case why transit is the best transportation solution for the area. The study evaluated four scenarios for the M-83 study area which stretches from Gaithersburg to Clarksburg, all looking at traffic impacts in the year 2040. These included a no-build scenario, bus rapid transit on MD355 with modest intersection improvements, twolane reversible M-83 plus 355 bus rapid transit, and the four-lane M-83.

If no transportation improvements were made by 2040, the amount of residents using transit to commute to work would remain low at 10 percent. However, with MD355 bus rapid transit that number would more than double to 22 percent.

This is huge for a transit-deprived part of the county that has been promised major transit investments that have not yet been delivered.

Additionally, both M-83 highway options studied would increase annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 28-34 million miles—and it would have roughly the same number of congested intersection as the transit alternative.

These VMT increases fit with existing research that shows expanding roads only encourages more driving and congestion, which defeats the entire purpose of M-83. For each 1 percent increase in lane miles, VMT keeps pace, going up .6 percent to 1 percent.

Finally, the study showed that the four-lane M-83 actually increases evening peak auto travel on 355. Building the highway options would produce minimal results, especially considering the financial and environmental costs associated with the projects.

A stark choice for a progressive jurisdiction

The study findings show that while the highway options could move slightly more people per hour, it would mean drastically raising the amount of future driving. This transportation choice would come at a high financial and environmental cost that is contradictory to many of Montgomery’s policies and values.

While no environmental analysis was completed as part of this study, we know that our transportation system is the number one contributor to new greenhouse gas emissions. Any transportation project that generates upwards of 25 million new miles being driven annually is not environmentally sustainable.

The county has done a good job of reducing VMT, which decreased 11 percent since 2010. That decline was largely the result of Montgomery’s investment in transit-oriented development—and M-83 flies in the face of that investment.

Finally, the data shows that MD355 bus rapid transit could handle incoming growth while substantially lowering rates of new driving.

The question is: What type of transportation investment is Montgomery County going to make—an investment that achieves its environmental and economic goals, or one that doubles down on regressive sprawl?

Pete Tomao is the Montgomery County Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth.  A former campaign staffer and union organizer, Pete is passionate about creating better transit options for the Washington, DC region. He graduated from American University with a degree in Political Science.