By Adam Pagnucco.
No one has been a more committed opponent of former Governor Larry Hogan’s I-270 toll lanes project than County Executive Marc Elrich. Sure, there are plenty of other opponents, like former Council Member Tom Hucker, the Rockville municipal leaders, many of the county’s state legislators, the Sierra Club and Citizens Against Beltway Expansion, a grassroots group founded to stop the project. But none of them matches Elrich in fervor, sheer stubbornness and – critically – control over the county government.
All of that said, Elrich needs the project he hates the most to fund the project that may be his greatest legacy.
Let’s go back to 2008. Back then, Elrich was a freshman county council member with a great idea – he wanted to build a bus rapid transit (BRT) network across the county. I wrote a five part series about it. BRT was not a new concept for the county – indeed, the county had been requesting that the state build BRT routes on Veirs Mill Road and Georgia Avenue for years. But Elrich’s proposal was to build BRT routes on many of the county’s main arteries, multiplying its ridership and building transportation capacity without more auto use. County Executive Ike Leggett and the business community jumped all over it and Leggett convened a transit task force to study it.
But a problem soon emerged: the county estimated that the network would cost $2.5 billion to build. (That estimate is now more than a decade old.) Leggett proposed that the county establish an independent transit authority to levy taxes to fund it, but he withdrew that idea due to a squeamish reaction from the county’s state legislators. The county later built the Flash line on Route 29, which incorporates some but not all features of BRT, but the rest of the network is still unbuilt. As I write this, almost 15 years have passed since Elrich first proposed the network concept.
Now we come to Hogan’s I-270 project. Elrich built his early political career on opposing the Intercounty Connector, so Hogan’s toll lanes project was a natural target for him. Here’s the thing – Elrich does not oppose things, he OPPOSES them. In June 2021, Elrich threw a big road block in front of the toll lanes by persuading a regional transportation board to remove the project from a list of projects requested for federal air quality study. That could have frozen the toll lanes and Hogan scrambled to reverse the vote. One tool he used to do so was to propose giving spinoff money from the tolls to county government to enable construction of multimodal projects to supplement the toll lanes. One of the county leaders involved in the deal was Council Member Hans Riemer, Elrich’s mortal enemy who was running against him in the county executive primary. Elrich held nothing back, saying Riemer and his allies “sold the whole community out.” But Hogan won the fight and the toll lanes were back on track.
Months later, the toll lane spinoff money resurfaced in a surprising place: Elrich’s own recommended capital budget. His budget explained:
The County Executive’s Recommended CIP assumes $169.7 million in Op Lanes Maryland Transit funding to support Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects on MD355 and Viers Mill/Randolph Road. The Op Lanes Maryland transit funding is the portion of the State’s planned I-495 and I-270 Phase I toll lane proceeds which the Maryland Department of Transportation pledged to fund high priority public transit projects in Montgomery County.
The toll lane money now appears in two projects: $160 million for BRT on MD-355 in Gaithersburg and Rockville and $9.7 million for BRT in Rockville, North Bethesda and Bethesda.
So Elrich tried to kill the toll lane project and slammed Riemer for selling out the community to get money from it. But then he is happy to cash in the money for his own capital budget. Sometimes you just have to love politics!
There is more than entertainment here, folks. Hogan is gone and no one really knows what the new Governor, Wes Moore, has in mind for the toll lane project. According to a December article in Maryland Matters, Elrich “said Maryland has the ability to ease traffic in the county without resorting to a 50-year contract with a private developer, particularly if the state wins federal infrastructure dollars to replace the American Legion Bridge.” That sounds like Elrich still wants to kill the project, at least in its current form.
Here’s the problem. The county’s proposed BRT network is to date Elrich’s greatest initiative along with his two bills to raise the minimum wage. If it were built out, it would be a grand legacy to leave the county he unquestionably loves. But without the toll lane money, there appears to be no other way to fund more BRT, especially given that Elrich is now proposing to slash transportation capital funding to boost school construction.
Elrich has a choice. He can compromise and fund something that’s good. Or he can help kill something he thinks is bad at the cost of the best idea he has ever had.