There is much concern about the cost overruns of the Silver Line and the H Street streetcar in the Washington Post and other local media but there isn't any similar amount of hand-wringing about how the ICC threatens to bankrupt Maryland's transportation budget.
Instead of spending $2.5B on the sprawl-generating Intercounty Connector, Maryland could have built the entire Purple Line and financed a good part of Baltimore's Red Line, especially if Maryland used value capture/tax-increment financing for the Purple Line. As one of my friends pointed out, assuming an 80% federal match for the 18-mile ICC is twice as much as all federal money spent on bicycle/pedestrian projects in one year for the entire country.
ICC puts strain on Maryland’s transportation funds
Mark Gail/The Post - The flyover ramps of the Intercounty Connector at Route 29.
By Katherine Shaver
November 21, 2011
Washington Post
"The 18.8-mile Intercounty Connector, which opened in full Tuesday, could be the last publicly funded highway built in Maryland for a generation, as the state’s tolling agency, which financed its $2.56 billion construction, reaches its debt limit, local transportation experts said.
Financing for the six-lane toll road linking Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George’s County leveraged the Maryland Transportation Authority’s statewide toll collections..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...7iN_story.html