The Maryland Department of Transportation has selected a Transurban-led consortium to advance its Capital Beltway road expansion project. Opponents of the project have expressed cynicism.

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Proponents of transportation and business interests in the capital area have long dreamed of extending the toll lanes of the Beltway in Northern Virginia across the Potomac River to Montgomery County – preferably using the Commonwealth’s established provider, Transurban.

That dream has come a big step closer to a reality after the Maryland Department of Transportation last week selected Accelerate Maryland Partners, a Transurban-led consortium, to carry out pre-development work on its Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) / I-270 road widening project.

It also expressed cynicism from opponents of the MDOT plans.

Virginia officials advocated the concept of “express lanes” with variable prices, where motorists willing to pay for the privilege can buy their way out of congestion more than a decade ago.

Transurban, an Australian giant with North American headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, has built a 63-mile network of such roads, mostly in Fairfax, Virginia’s largest and wealthiest county.

But Maryland has largely defied the lure of expressways. According to some observers, this is one of the reasons Northern Virginia, which recently attracted the coveted development of Amazon’s “Second Headquarters”, appears more robust.

Without the buy-in from Maryland power brokers, politicians and business leaders long argued, the capital region’s ability to reduce congestion on some of the country’s worst roads would be limited, especially given Montgomery County’s longstanding opposition to a new bridge upstream from the American Legion Bridge.

“With many transportation issues – where people begin and end their journeys – and Maryland’s location at a west intersection, staff recommend that the Commonwealth Transportation Board focus on expansion at this point [high-occupancy toll] Footprints across the American Legion and onto the Maryland side of the Beltway, ”said Virginia then Deputy Secretary of Transportation Nick Donohue. said WAMU radio in 2015.

Two years later, in 2017, Maryland Governor, Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R), who topped the polls, and then-Secretary of Transportation Pete K. Rahn came up with their plan to keep the two highways on unsuspecting local Add four lanes to guides.

At the time, there was little or no talk of allowing commuter buses to use the new lanes for free or expanding transit – just the benefits of wider freeways, which Hogan (R) said was a “game changer for Maryland.” “Would represent tired commuters.

Canaan Merchant, a transportation and land-use reporter for Greater Greater Washington, looked to the future in 2015, just as Donohue began increasing pressure on Maryland to follow his state’s lead.

HOT high occupancy (HOT) lanes, which allow car pools, van pools and buses to use privately funded express lanes free of charge, are “a compromise,” he said.

“It’s not the mere transit plan that smart growth advocates pushed for, but neither is it the outer bypass that the freeway advocates wanted.” Dealer wrote.

“HOT Lanes Provide A Big Road Project To Highways Proponents, And Transit Proponents To Throw A Bone With The Potential For Express Buses (Montgomery County) [bus rapid transit] Plan talks about the transit over the Legion Bridge). Nobody gets exactly what they want, but even the worst nightmares don’t happen to anyone, ”he added.

“Virginia’s proposal to bring HOT Lanes onto I-66 is moving very quickly,” concluded Merchant. “If Maryland chooses to play, it could develop quickly too.”

Transport advocates argue with the term “very fast”. However, they are thrilled with Hogan’s selection of the Transurban Macquarie Group, which offers commuters the ability to travel across state lines with a single payment system.

“Now the Express Lanes in the National Capital Area will be seamless,” crowed John B. Townsend II, director of government and public affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic, in a text message.

“The private sector partner is rebuilding the 50-year-old American Legion Bridge for taxpayers at no cost,” he added.

“The update is in”

Of course, the selection of the Transurban-led consortium also resulted in considerable eye candy and ridicule from opponents of Hogan’s plan.

After Hogan’s trade mission to Australia with the then head of the US branch of Transurban in 2019 and the subsequent transfer of one of his top employees to the company just a few months later, many observers viewed the state’s procurement process as a mere formality.

“My reaction was, the problem is fixed,” said Ben Ross, chairman of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition. “The update was in from the start.”

Ross cited “all the business, the lobbying, the connections and then this two-state deal,” a reference to the Capital Beltway Accord announced by Hogan and Virginia Governor Ralph S. Northam (D) in 2019. Agreement ”has yet to be published. State officials say negotiations are still in progress.)

Ross and other critics of the project have also marveled at the company’s tendency in recent months (in their eyes) to present the Maryland contract as if it already belonged to them. CEO Scott Charlton, they complained, often promoted the project in comments on investor interests in advance of the official announcement by the state.

When they announced their decision last week, the MDOT officials, aware of the suspicion and the awkward appearance, went out of their way to explain their procurement valuation system, which put Transurban’s offer well ahead of its competitors.

In an interview, Secretary of Transportation Greg Slater, who had inherited the project when Rahn abruptly left MDOT in 2019, said the Transurban-Macquarie deal was noticed in part because of the consortium’s willingness to take a financial risk upfront.

“They take the risk on the front end of these construction problems and expect their return on investment in the back end over a 50 year concession,” he told Maryland Matters. “That showed us that you don’t have to make any money on the construction side.”

According to Slater, the structure of Accelerate Maryland’s proposal reduces the likelihood that Maryland will encounter a repeat of its experience with the Purple Line, another public-private partnership project that was in the crater when the prime contractor withdrew in the middle of construction last fall and an epic quoted cost dispute.

“We felt that way [the Transurban bid] was a scenario that gives us greater predictability and value to the state, ”said the secretary.

The Hogan administration has touted a laundry list of other benefits to the state.

The state’s selection of Accelerate Maryland for pre-development activities – planning, approval, and preliminary planning – precedes the negotiation of a formal contract to build the first phase of the project. (It also comes when the state does a mandatory environmental review that critics said should have been completed before any contract was awarded.)

The first phase of the project, valued at $ 3.7 billion, includes the American Legion Bridge, the portion of the Beltway that runs between the bridge and I-270, and the southern section of I-270 from the I-370 to I-495.

Transurban-Macquarie agreed to a $ 54.3 million cap on the cost of their work that they can receive even if the project is eventually rejected by the Board of Public Works or stalled for other reasons.

The Sierra Club sees this as a broken promise.

On June 5, 2019, he became Comptroller [Peter V.R.] Franchot pledged that taxpayers would not be asked to make a financial commitment on this project and that no contract would be signed before the required federal environmental review for Governor Hogan’s proposed $ 11 billion high toll road expansion Risk has been completed, ”the group said in a statement.

“We still have fundamental problems”

Franchot (D), an announced candidate for governor next year, sits next to Hogan and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D), a project skeptic, on the three-person public works panel. He’s the likely swing vote, and aides said he won’t publicly discuss the deal until there is a vote.

Top Maryland National Capital Park officials and the Planning Commission, who have repeatedly argued with the State Highway Administration over information sharing and other concerns, had mixed views on MDOT’s selection of Accelerate Maryland Partners.

“We welcome the inclusion of transit finance, but we still have fundamental problems with the lack of phasing for this project,” said Casey Anderson, vice chairman of M-NCPPC.

“It is important for the residents of Counties Montgomery and Prince George that we ensure that our parkland and cultural resources are protected,” he added. “As things stand now, we would have to consider unknown effects on the entire 70-mile system of the project – and we still have major concerns.”

In a press release, MNCPPC stated that the State Highway Administration “is advancing the environmental impact assessment for the entire 70-mile stretch of the study, including areas along I-495 that are not approved under this P3 agreement.”