Greater Greater Washington, Oct. 19, 2019

GGWash has covered this proposal before; it’s one that has appeared in one form or another for years. Alex’s organization, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, has fought against such a bridge and a related outer beltway in 1988, 2001, 2004, 2015, 2017, and again on October 10 of this year (see the press release).

Regional transportation studies show that a bridge like this makes little sense from an economic perspective or as a congestion reduction measure. Besides its pure impracticality, the political obstacles are numerous: Maryland ostensibly owns the Potomac, and so has significant say in whatever happens around it; Maryland’s governor, along with the Montgomery County Council, opposes the project; and any road on the Maryland side would pass directly through Montgomery’s well-protected agricultural reserve.

The Potomac Zombie Bridge is a ghost of 20th-century land-use planning that’s still haunting us in 2018. Why won’t it die?

Read more here.