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AUDUBON NATURALIST SOCIETY * COALITION FOR SMARTER GROWTH

PRESS RELEASE
March 22, 2006

Contact:
Laura Olsen, (202) 244-4408 / (202) 320-4578 (cell)
Brian Henry, ANS, (301)652-9188

New Poll Finds Majority of Montgomery Residents Want Officials to Rethink Intercounty Connector, Consider Alternatives

A new poll from Mason-Dixon Polling & Research found that given the Intercounty Connector’s $3 billion price tag, and the State Highway Administration’s study showing its congestion impacts would be negligible, 54 percent of Montgomery residents agree that our leaders should rethink the toll-highway and consider alternatives.

“The state’s study is clear about the fact that the ICC is not about congestion relief—when the major commuter highways do not benefit from a $3 billion investment, residents feel that is unacceptable,” said Brian Henry, with the Audubon Naturalist Society.

The poll found that residents think traffic is the biggest issue facing the County and when residents learned that the state found the ICC would not relieve congestion on the Beltway, I-95, and I-270, 55 percent were less likely to support the road proposal.

“Residents want to spend the money we have providing real choices and relief to current traffic problems,” said Laura Olsen, Assistant Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Nearly two to one, Montgomery County residents agree that the Ehrlich administration has the wrong priority focusing on the ICC.”

60 percent of Montgomery residents agreed that transit, metro, and traffic and safety improvements to existing roadways should be a priority over major new road building like the ICC.

“The more people learn about the ICC, the less they support it. This poll found that only 46 percent of county residents supported the ICC when they learned that not only would the ICC fail to reduce congestion on the Beltway, but they would have to pay $7 in daily tolls to use it,” said Montgomery County Councilmember Phil Andrews.

Montgomery residents were especially intense in their dissatisfaction with the ICC’s high tolls. Over 60 percent said they would be less likely to support the ICC given the state’s estimated $7 round trip rush hour toll—72 percent said they felt the $7 toll was an unreasonable amount for working families to pay, a category many of the County’s teachers, nurses, and childcare workers fall into.

Community groups point to the Smart Mobility, Inc. study of alternatives for concrete examples of how we can do a better job of addressing congestion relief for less money. The study looked at specific transit improvements, improvements to existing roads, and some land use changes in the future. Examples include the Purple Line light rail from Bethesda to College Park and capacity improvements at Route 28 and Viers Mill Road. These upgrades are not currently funded for construction, and are good examples of effective solutions that may never be realities if the proposed-ICC goes forward.

“Our possible alternatives provide what residents are looking for: easier movement and better access. We need to invest first in Metro, and traffic and safety improvements to existing roadways, before spending billions on a toll-highway like the ICC,” said Olsen.

Concerning the ICC’s environmental impacts, 60 percent of residents were concerned about the proposed toll-highway opening farms, forests, parks and wetlands to more aggressive development. “According to State Highway Administration’s final study, the ICC would result in 4,945 acres of additional development that would not otherwise occur. Rapid, unplanned growth could swallow up family farms, forests and wetlands that are vital to clean drinking water and a healthy Chesapeake Bay,” said Lee Epstein, lands program director at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The results of the poll add weight to calls for an extension of the current public review period for the ICC’s Final Environmental Impact Statement. Just a few weeks ago, the SHA released a public letter admitting two major flaws in the study—an extensive new air pollution analysis required by the EPA which was left out of the study, and the replacement of a severely flawed index of responses to extensive and detailed public comments.

“The poll shows that when residents find out the truth about the ICC, support for this $3 billion boondoggle evaporates. That’s all the more reason to give the public time to study the results—especially the 11th hour addition of a new air pollution analysis which may show significant public health dangers from fine particulate air pollution that would be generated by the proposed ICC. The state and federal government should not close comment on this study with this kind of information yet to be released,” said Betsy Johnson, chair of the Sierra Club, Maryland Chapter.

“The state now says this road proposal won’t do the things proponents said it would,” said Henry. “The ICC won’t relieve traffic on major commuter routes and residents want a better plan.”

“Now that it’s clear that there is not overwhelming support for the ICC, we all hope that our elected officials will stop pretending that this expensive highway project would solve our transportation problems,” said Roger Plaut of Longmeade Crossing Homeowners Association.

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Additional Materials:

Highlights of the Poll

Quotes from the ICC Study on traffic

Chart comparing ICC to alternatives

Methodology
Note: The Mason-Dixon Poll was conducted from March 9-14 2006. A total of 500 registered Montgomery County Democratic voters were interviewed countywide by telephone. All indicated that they were likely to vote in the September primary election.

Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the county. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter turn-out by county.

The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if the entire population were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any subgroup, such as a district or racial grouping.