Why I support the construction of the ICC

The ICC is an important link in the region's overall transportation plan. Since it's addition to the region's overall transportation plan, many other projects (both public and private) have been planned and built assuming that the ICC will be part of an overall transportation system. If the ICC is not built, many if not most of these completed projects will likely require some form of modification in the near term future rather then at the end of their design life.

These modification projects will tie-up funding resources that might have been used on more worthwhile projects. They will also cause countless small pockets of traffic congestion. Because these modifications projects will generally be smaller and/or private, they won't be subject to the same level of environmental review as the ICC. Their combined environmental impacts will be much harder to assess. And their combined cost in dollars, lost time and environmental damage may well exceed the impacts of the ICC.

While the ICC would not eliminate congestion on the I-95 to I-270 portion of the Capitol Beltway (the Beltway would still likely operate above it's design capacity), the ICC will absorb a large number of trips that now must fight the Beltway congestion. These vehicles would travel along the ICC at higher speeds, for less time, along a safer facility. This will reduce the overall exhaust emissions and storm water pollution (primarily oil that drips from vehicles in stop and go traffic) from these trips. It would also slightly reduce the likelihood of a environmentally catastrophic accident (like a hazmat spill) in the area, not to mention save lives and reduce the amount of property damaged in smaller accidents.

A consistently planned transportation system is much more efficient then a series of fractionally implemented ones. It takes at least twenty years to fully implemented a transportation plan and many of the benefits of a plan won't be realized until most if not all of the plan has been implemented. If a new plan, that changes major goals of the previous plan, is embarked on every few years, a complete and consistent system is never built. The resulting hodgepodge of transportation pieces is inherently less efficient then any one of the plans, if they had been fully implemented. {Almost any plan, fully implemented, is better then no plan at all.)

A planned and efficient transportation system is a key element in the economic prosperity that allows us to protect the environment. Without economic prosperity, individuals will do whatever is necessary to survive, without regard to the environmental consequences.

I still am convinced that transportation planning (even at the present mediocre and highly politicized level) is a very valuable tool for controlling growth. Further more I believe that as long as we have a growing population and an expanding economy, that growth [land development] will occur with or without the corresponding transportation and other infrastructure improvements. [This is why not building the ICC would promote sprawl out the I-70 corridor west of Frederick. Because that's where the transportation system exists.] Infrastructure planning in general and transportation planning in particular have a tremendous impact on where and how developers chose to build and/or rebuild.

By stopping or delaying individual public works projects (like the ICC or the Wilson bridge replacement), environmental groups are often tying the hands of land use planners, who should be some of their biggest allies.

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