Inside the debates over Maryland Gov. Moore’s modified Beltway widening plan

After years of backlash against former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s Beltway widening plan, in August the Moore administration introduced a modified proposal to address congestion. The new plan nixes the controversial public-private partnership, which would allow a private company to profit from tolls decades into the future. Nonetheless, it still entails road-widening, which critics point out induces more traffic demand. They argue the state should improve transit instead.

In 2017, Hogan announced a $9 billion plan for a massive widening of the Capital Beltway, I-270, and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, to be financed largely by a private company. Civic and environmental groups and officials, especially in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, feared destruction of homes and parkland and increased traffic. The plan was eventually scaled back, and that version was approved in a 2022 Federal Highway Administration Record of Decision.

In 2023, Gov. Wes Moore’s new administration announced it was moving ahead with another modified version. It would rebuild the American Legion Bridge and add two lanes in each direction from the bridge along the Beltway to the I-270 spur in the first two phases, with a third phase to follow.

Under the new $4 billion plan, the State of Maryland has applied for a $2.4 billion federal grant to move forward.

Wider highways equal…environmental benefits?

Moore’s decision has spurred opposition from environmental and citizens’ groups.

“We’re in a climate crisis, and the number one source of climate pollution is the transportation sector. And we will not convert to electric vehicles fast enough,” said Brian O’Malley, president and CEO of the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance. “This still is primarily a plan to bring federal funding and state funding to widen highways.”

Opponents call instead for a mixture of better transit, more walkability and bikeability, and high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, pointing out that widening roads almost always leads to more traffic and a return to congestion within a few years.

The Record of Decision does show a positive climate outcome from adding lanes, stating that “Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions with the Selected Alternative are expected to decline in the Opening (2025) and Design (2045) years for all GHG pollutants.” However, a host of studies, along with real-world experience, show that road-widening almost always induces additional traffic and increases vehicle miles traveled, ultimately worsening the climate crisis.

The Maryland Sierra Club, in explaining its joint lawsuit to stop the project, argues that, “MDOT is not disclosing details about its claim that the toll lanes will reduce traffic, while the US Department of Transportation said it could not confirm the ‘plausibility’ or ‘validity’ of MDOT’s traffic findings.” The lawsuit also claims that the project threatens historic and environmentally sensitive sites.

Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld described the Moore plan as friendly to transit and shared vehicles.

“The biggest difference is our focus is on transit and other opportunities, particularly demand management,” Wiedefeld said. “We are focusing on that as the starting point … how do we promote people to not use single-occupancy cars?”

Under the new plan, added lanes will be free for car- and van pools. Bus service will be greatly improved, partly through greater cooperation with Virginia in connecting lines across the bridge. Near-term options include express buses or bus rapid transit (BRT) to run on the new lanes, and Wiedefeld also pointed to “eventually looking at higher use alternatives. The bridge would be designed to support heavier vehicles” such as rail. Wiedefeld also said demand management — charging different amounts depending on usage — would keep traffic flowing.

At least one fierce opponent of the original plan supports the Moore version.

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich argued that, by starting work at the American Legion Bridge, the Moore plan is tackling the biggest choke point first, positioning it to avoid “terrible bottlenecks in Hogan’s plan,” for instance where the lanes narrow on I-270. Elrich also lauds the decision to ask for federal money rather than relying on a private company.

Moore’s plan leaves the door open to more widening

The future scope of the Moore plan is uncertain. That’s because the modified plan retains the 2022 Record of Decision, which allows all the capacity of Hogan’s version. Elrich emphasized that this is a maximum and the road widening won’t necessarily be anywhere near that capacity.

The first two phases will widen a section of Beltway lanes, and this could be followed by modest expansion on I-270 using public money, or a large expansion which could entail a return to controversial private financing.

“We don’t ever want to negate the possibility for other funding mechanisms, but the reality is right now we are focusing on the public financing option,” Wiedefeld said. Wiedefeld and Elrich both stressed that the plan could change based on community input and other factors.

However, critics such as Kyle Hart, Mid-Atlantic Field Representative at the National Parks Conservation Association, argued that maintaining the current Record of Decision invites an environmentally and socially disastrous future. Hart said the process was flawed from the beginning of the Hogan administration, when transit-based solutions were scrapped without real consideration, and this has continued in the Moore version.

“If you followed the whole [environmental impact statement] project from the beginning, there was never any serious consideration of anything other than toll lanes in either direction. They never did a comprehensive study on reversible lanes, on HOV lanes, on transit alternatives … they always had this eye toward adding toll lanes,” Hart said.

Hart argues it would be better to start from scratch. However, that would necessitate “another two to three year process,” said Elrich.

Opponents of the project argue lane widening in one area invariably leads to choke points elsewhere, which leads to calls for further widening upstream or downstream.

“When you widen to solve a bottleneck, say where 495 and 270 intersect, then that induces more travel, and then you have bottlenecks in other places that require road widening at major arterials up and down 270 and at other pinch points around 494,” O’Malley said. “That’s been the experience since ‘60s, there’s always more bottlenecks, and the net result is far more traffic.”

The inevitable result, in this analysis, is future calls for more lanes in a cycle of unending widening.

Hart also pointed out that forests improve air quality and the plan would remove three acres of parkland permanently, with over 15 acres gone or damaged for the next 50 or 60 years. This includes old-growth forest that will never fully recover, habitat crucial to many species like the endangered long-eared bat, said Hart.

Elrich, however, argued that the Moore plan provides necessary relief for an untenable traffic situation.

“It is a mess today, and it is absurd for people to have to exist in these conditions. And there’s no transit that’s viable to replace this right now,” Elrich said.

Alternatives for the future

If new lanes are built, a primary issue is how to keep them flowing.

Opponents of more widening, such as Brian Ditzler writing in Maryland Matters, argue that adding toll lanes undercuts equity, since “any form of the toll lane plan divides the wealthy from the rest,” allowing free flowing traffic only for those who pay.

Wiedefeld, however, said that such schemes have, in fact, improved traffic flow in free lanes.

“I don’t quite agree that there’ll be gridlock. We’ve seen in other areas where the non-toll lanes move as well. They move slower than the toll lanes, but they’re moving,” for instance on the I-95 corridor.

Wiedefeld also defended the equity of the Moore plan, arguing that increased public transit will help those without cars. Elrich suggested setting tolls by income as a possible remedy to lane inequity, which he says is now technologically possible.

A low-impact way to increase capacity would be reversible lanes which enable traffic flows in the direction of commuters, notably on I-270 north of the Beltway, Elrich said. He also advocated for express buses on the new Beltway lanes that connect seamlessly with the BRT network Montgomery County is building.

Widening opponents argue that a mix of other policies will best fight traffic congestion.

“There are so many powerful incentives in the US and in Maryland to drive that an all-of-the-above approach will lead to more driving,” said O’Malley. He argued that car dependence is inherently inequitable, in part because, “Black people, people of color, are more likely to suffer the health impacts from particulate matter … which is a major cause of a lot of cardiovascular health problems, ground level ozone, etc.”

Hart said a mix of better public transportation, more telecommuting, off-hours commuting, and HOV lanes would be a more tenable plan to get to a 15% reduction in peak hour driving that would counter congestion. Boosting transit would be a better use of local resources, said O’Malley.

“Why are we prioritizing this project, and not investing in the MARC growth and investment plan, to expand and improve commuter trains, the locally operated transit systems in Montgomery County and Prince George’s County?” O’Malley said.

Disclosure: Ethan Goffman is an occasional volunteer for the Maryland Sierra Club and, in 2018, wrote in opposition to the original Hogan administration plans to widen the Beltway and I270.

The Sierra Club is involved in active litigation and therefore declined to comment for this article.