Mark R. Smith
For Walt Townshend, it could have been any day. But this day also was the dawn of a (very) long-awaited new day, too.
It was that April day when the president of the Baltimore Washington Corridor Chamber (BWCC) had to motor from its Laurel offices to a meeting that had been planned at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, but was rescheduled to the National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) in Germantown, just off of Route 270.
In other words, it presented the opportunity for his maiden voyage on the much-trumpeted east-west highway, the Inter-County Connector (ICC). And off to the ICC’s present eastern end at Georgia Avenue he and three colleagues went.
The result? Time was saved, nerves were soothed, and the facilitation of commerce was noted.
“Route 198 was a little congested,” said Townshend, “but once we got on the ICC, a trip that would have taken well more than an hour if I’d gone via I-95 and the Beltway took less than 45 minutes on the way up in the morning, and 35 minutes on the way back in the middle of the day.”
From left, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Gov. Martin O’Malley, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker III, Sen. Jennie Forehand and Del. Kumar Barve celebrate the opening of the $2.56 billion ICC. An independent study by the University of Maryland projects that the ICC will save Maryland drivers and businesses an estimated $6.7 billion during the next 20 years in time, fuel and wear-and-tear on vehicles.
That’s just what the ICC is supposed to do: save time, and thus create more opportunities for business and time for commuters at home. When the project is completed — hopefully by early 2012 — it will connect the center of Montgomery County to I-95 near Laurel and, hopefully, a world of new opportunities in the BWI Business District and beyond.
A Third Option
For Townshend, a long-time supporter of the road, it was a most satisfying round trip, especially when he considered what he would have had to do to get to NIST just a month earlier.
“I think the whole nexus of the Route 270 Corridor that will connect to the BWI Business District, Fort Meade, Baltimore and Annapolis when the road is completed is going to change for the better,” he said, “and I think that you will see more businesses able to compete more readily as they traverse the region.”
That benefit also was noted by Jean Friedberg, regional transportation coordinator for the Fort Meade Regional Growth Management Committee. “It’s a great highway, beautifully done,” he said.
From Anne Arundel and Howard counties, “we’ve only had two choices to get to key commercial areas in Montgomery County: the Washington Beltway or the country roads. They’re nice drives, but intended for commuting,” said Friedberg. “Now, we have an outstanding third choice.”
The economic benefit isn’t just about the transport of goods and services, of course, but about helping commuters, too.
“Employers want these buses to get their employees to work, which is a crucial part transportation puzzle,” he said.
And commuting is also about mass transit, in this case the specific ICC buses that connect to Fort Meade from mid-Montgomery County.
“That service is already in place and already serving the post,” Freidberg said. “As the ICC is completed, that service will become even more effective. The MTA took the lead on making sure that Fort Meade got great service as a result of the highway opening.”
And that, in turn, creates a much greater opportunity for government and the private sector concerns at and around Fort Meade. “This gives the employers much better access to the outstanding workforce from Montgomery County,” said Freidberg.
A Big Boost
Linda Greene, executive director of the BWI Business Partnership, is another long-time observer and proponent of the highway, dating back to her days when she was the public affairs director for BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.
“Back in the early ’90s, we produced a brochure about how to get to BWI from Montgomery County,” Greene said. “There just was no direct route.”
The not-so-direct routes that Friedberg mentioned often didn’t get the job done very well, either. For instance, catching a late afternoon flight out of BWI Marshall from the Shady Grove Metro Station in Montgomery County, without the ICC, “takes a traveler more than 70 minutes using the old local roadway network,” said Erin Henson, spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Transportation.
“Once the ICC is open all the way to I-95, a traveler will be able to almost cut their trip in half,” said Henson.
Greene echoed Friedberg’s observations about the big boost ICC will provide within the BWI Business District.
“The ICC serves several purposes,” she said. “It will help get travelers to BWI Marshall, but it will also allow workers from Montgomery County to work here, and get [them home] in a more expedient manner.”
As for the buses, Greene also cited the importance of the crucial new linkage.
“I know, just from talking to the people at DISA [the Defense Information Systems Agency], that they like using the buses that go to Fort Meade,” she said. “We met with employers to discuss their needs, and we worked with the MTA and their consultant to decide what times the buses were most needed.”
Finishing Touches
Those estimates of predictable travel times are something area commuters can finally depend on, said Rich Parsons, former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.
“I live in Rockville and the eastern end of the highway is not yet complete, so it still takes me 45 minutes to get to BWI Marshall on a good day — but two-and-a-half hours on a bad day,” said Parsons. “Plus, I have to deal with at least 10 traffic lights en route and sometimes major delays at each one.”
He also pointed out that the ICC will always be a free-flowing highway “since the prices are variable. If it becomes congested, the state will raise the tolls to make sure that even during the peak rush hours, traffic will move at highway speeds,” he said, “and no more traffic lights.”
The increased road access also means that Konterra, the major mixed-used project in Prince George’s County, can finally move forward, as the developer had not been able to start the project due to traffic capacity and (more recently) market issues.
“Montgomery County and the BWI Business District will both benefit” from the opening and coming completion of the ICC, said Parsons. “The ICC is the only project in recent history that really ties the state together economically. In addition there will be a much lower accident rate, which is typical for interstate-type (the ICC is built to interstate standards) highways.”
Freeing Gridlock
For many people, including John Kane, president and CEO of The Kane Company and former chair of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the opening of the ICC is the “culmination of 40 long years of effort and political will that finally overtook the obstructionism of those who would rather build nothing than provide alternative solutions for travel across Maryland.”
Interestingly, for Kane, the issue is more about “the quality of the lives for our employees, first and foremost,” he said. “Secondly, it gives the public options concerning whether they want to make it to their child’s soccer game or get home to relieve a daycare provider earlier, or if they would rather sit in traffic.”
In Kane’s view, time is money, but it’s also better spent doing just about anything else aside from sitting in gridlock.
“I’ve had people tell me for 15 years that they don’t want to move to Maryland from Virginia — which has had its own significant congestion issues for decades due to its growth — due to the congestion in Maryland,” said Kane. “The difference is that Virginia’s leadership responded to its issues with the reconstruction of the [Woodrow] Wilson Bridge and the ‘Mixing Bowl,’ and added HOV lanes.”
As for Townshend, he, like millions of other citizens, has enjoyed the new feeling of freedom.
“When creating competitive pricing against another company,” he said, “it’s hard figure what you are paying workers when they sit in traffic part of the day.”
