While it may be correct that "the council has little if any affect on the road project", I see this article as indicative of a more open reporting stance by WaPo. Not long ago, there was almost no coverage of the proposed $2,400,000,000 ICC toll road - like it was a dirty little secret. That was followed by a significant period of pro-ICC coverage. Most recently, I've noticed actual coverage of both side of the ICC debate. More and more MD tax payers are speaking up on this issue - at a time when we are expecting a raise in taxes. We are watching this closely.

Stop the chit chat on building the ICC and start some skit skat on building it. Then continue it on across the Potomac so that hundreds of thousands of people every day are not held up. When the
American Legion Bridge was built there were 350,000 people in Montgomery County. If you think these roads don't relieve traffic, than try closing down the Beltway or I-270 for one day and see what happens.

Well, I understand the logic in "if you build it, they will come", but how do you suggest it get funded? And I doubt "they will come" when you remember that the ICC will cost drivers $7 each way each trip ($14 round trip). I don't even want to speculate what the toll will be if they extend it across the Potomac...$100 round trip? Conservatively speaking, expect a tax increase two to three times as large to pay for the construction of the $2,400,000,000 ICC. Good luck.

The MD Luddites have gotten more effective and VA reaps the economic benefits.

was this item written by Miranda Spivack or by Anne Bartlett? Ms. Bartlett's byline is at the end but Ms. Spivack's photograph is at the top.

Hi, Just Curious: The item was written by Miranda Spivack, then posted by me. Miranda's picture is there because she's the author.
-- Anne Bartlett, Deputy Maryland Editor

Ervin really is "Astroturf Val" and it shows on this issue. There is no way we get a Purple Line if we build the ICC. There is not enough money to build both. She either knows it and is trying to hide that key fact or she is in over her head.

She thinks, along with other pro-ICC folks, that if we mention the Purple Line enough times it will become "fact".

Speaking of saying things enough time and it will become a "fact", I think the blogger here is incorrect in claiming the ICC has been on the drawing board for 50 years.

What is a fact is that several roadways have been proposed for MoCo since 1953 but not one of them was the ICC.

The plans that have been on the drawing board for fifty years have been a Parkway up Sligo Creek Parkway, a parkway along Wisconsin Avenue, a parkway south of Rockville city limits and the earliest version a parkway up 16th Street.

Please dear blogger don't repeat the Chamber of Commerce (CoC) line that the ICC has been on the books for 50 years when it simple is not true.

For a reference go this well researched article from the MoCo Sentinel of April 26, 2007 written by Wayne Goldstein.

He at least did some hard investigating and not just parrot the CoC line as you have so sadly done.

Here is the link:

http://www.montgomerycivic.org/documents/sentinel/20070426.asp

I see some excellent points, especially "there is not enough money to build the Purple Line and the ICC". I'd like to point out to my fellow MD tax payers that its beginning to look like we don't have enough money to build either one!

Dear "Was" -- I suspect that you would not speculate that Councilmember Ervin is "in over her head" if she were male. I detect a strong whiff of sexism in your post.

What is most curious to me, a lifelong citizen of MoCo, is that the toll feature of this road was kept very quiet until recently. This feels very similar to the public private partnership quietly forged with the installation of the revenue enhancing red light and speed cameras throughout our county. The citizens did not clamor for these anti-American systems. It seems we are treated as serfs to be controlled by our feudal overlords. Finally the serfs are finally getting restive.

Does $14 round trip to use the ICC sound like "highway robbery" to anyone else?

Thats $7 per use above and beyond the taxes we pay to build the toll road. At $2,400,000,000 at rising, can this decision be discussed further?

Donny - you continue confuse (deliberately or ignorantly) the issue of funding for the ICC by suggesting that it is linked to the $1.5 billion general funds deficit. Funds for road projects like the ICC come from an entirely seperate pot of state funds, and eliminating the ICC won't have one bit of impact on the general fund deficit. Stopping the ICC won't stop Gov O'Malley's tax increase, but it will leave many of us stuck in traffic for years to come.

No misunderstanding here MoCoVoter, I agree that the current $1.5 billion deficit is just a result of an underfunded FY2007 budget prepared by the departing Erlich administration. Do you really believe that the $2,400,000,000 ICC (as it is planned) will not affect future MD budgets? I have just become very skeptical about this toll road, because several pro-ICC posts have tried to claim that the project pays for itself...which is a lie. Taxpayers will be slapped with the costs - no doubt about it...and that is before even one toll is collected beginning in 2012. I'm sure I'm not the only one who questions the basic feasibility of this project.

The biggest problem with the ICC is that it will likely create more traffic congestion in east county... Ervin's district. Traffic W to E on the beltway will increase, but the N to S on all the roads down to the beltway will likely increase as people from NW travel the ICC and exit in east county... especially if there are traffic problems on 95 or they need to go to NW. Rt 29/Columbia Pike is already a disaster and the construction in downtown Silver Spring will just make things worse.

The only way to alleviate this is not the purple line (since the idiots in Annapolis and Baltimore want it inside the beltway) but to build a new red line extension that goes up to at least Briggs-Chaney at the 29 intersection... ideally it would keep going and connect specifically with the ICC assuming it's built

Donny-basic MD budget facts - the $1.5 billion deficit is in the general fund budget; construction projects (including the ICC) are funded from the *capital* budget or the transportation trust fund - an entirely seperate sources of funding, which are not directly related to or impacted by the general fund. Therefore expenditures on capital/transportation projects (like the ICC) don't impact the general fund budget.

Of course, Gov O'Malley's choice to shift a hugh chunk of general funds to cover school construction costs last year did contribute to the current shortfall, because it depleated the substantial surplus ($1 + billion) that Gov Ehrlich (and yeah, that's how you spell it, *not* "Erlich") kindly left behind (in the FY 07 budget, which was clearly not underfunded). And contrary to your claim, this mess was created and made worse by the Democrats (who passed the funding mandate of Thornton w/o a funding source) and Gov O'Malley, who substantially *increased* general fund spending in the FY 08 budget, despite the looming budget shortfall.

Unlike Gov Ehrlich, who (after inheriting a $2 billion deficit from Gov Glendening) took serious steps to immediately control and reduce spending from the moment he took office, Gov O'Malley decided to step on the gas, squander the Ehrlich surplus, and made the deficit worse.

As for the ICC paying for itself, well, perhaps you don't understand the entire concept of toll roads. A toll road never pays for itself before it's built. The state will issue bonds and put some transportation (not general fund) dollars into the project. The toll revenues will, over the course of several years, pay off the bonds, pay for the maintenance of the road, and replenish the transportation trust fund. All the projects work like this, and the ICC will be no different. What's not feasible?

MoCoVoter...this is just more of the same we've all been hearing from ICC advocates all along. You really believe the $2,400,000,000 will pay for itself...but I compliment you for not actually saying it. True, one of Erlich's selling points of this toll road was that bonds would finance PART of the cost. However, MD tax payers have already forked out many millions for the land-grabs and "survey work" already committed. That money is GONE right out of our pockets. The first toll will not be collected until 2012...Zero bonds have been sold thus far. These Pro-ICC folks really sound like high-pressure used-car salesman at times. All the creative financing in the world cannot smoke-screen the facts: (1)The ICC will not relieve any beltway traffic; (2) The estimated $2,400,000,000 construction cost (2006 dollars) is already rising; (3) The $14 per round-trip toll (if it stays that "low") will be a significant deterrent and those bonds may end up costing the state hundreds of millions more dollars than they planned. With all due respect, this road will NOT pay for itself. We will pay for it, we are already paying for it.

Did not intend to come across as a preacher, but when something like the ICC is sold so hard, we taxpayers should really be cautious. Though the sales job on this thing is very professional, I fear we'll be financing an "Edsel". The whole pyramid scheme of those bonds...is that motorists will be lined up to pay $14 per round-trip on opening day and never get tired of paying it at increasing rates. This type of pie-in-the-sky financing needs a reality check. We're already staring a tax hike in the face. That is all. Thanks.

Does anyone still think the ICC is a good idea...or even fiscally sane? Just curious.

MoCo Voter is wrong. $264.9 million for the ICC will come from the Maryland General Fund. See MDOT's Initial ICC Financial Plan (6/06). "It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so."

Interesting. The more I learn, the more I am disgusted by how dishonestly this ICC was sold to MD taxpayers. Us.