ICC Clears Final Legal Hurdle
Nov 8, 2007 18:28 - 10 Comments
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It appears, according to the Washington Post, that the Intercounty Connector is set to move ahead after all:
A federal judge today upheld the Maryland State Highway Administration’s environmental study of an 18.8-mile intercounty connector through Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, clearing the way for the road’s construction after 50 years of controversy. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. against environmental groups that had tried to stop the toll road via two lawsuits means the project has overcome its final legal hurdle.
So now, the Intercounty Constructors can seriously get down to the business of constructing.
People wishing to get from the Rio to Norbeck will be pleased. Those in the way, perhaps less so.
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It is uncanny how RC is on top of what is on my mind! Tonight as I was driving from Rockville to Fort Meade “the back way” I was wondering what the heck was up with that decision due in October about the ICC. Thank goodness is all I can say as I get home, check my email and find out!>
It took me nearly 90 minutes via Rt 28/Norbeck Rd.and Rt 98 through all those lights and twisting two lane roads and congested intersections. Of course, I chose that way rolling the dice that the Beltway at 5:30 surely would be worse.
Shortly after being married in 1980, we looked at a tiny, funky, house on a cool private wooded 2 acres. Way back in the back of the lot, a brown official sign stood among the trees and brush warning that the ICC was coming through. The realtor said, “Don’t worry, they’ll never build it.” That was 27 years ago. I hope it won’t be another 27 years before we can drive on it!
They have been planning the ICC for 50 years. The plans will be eligible for retirement in another 6 years. >
There are those who say that the ICC made sense 50 years ago when it was first proposed. Not so. It never made sense.
50 years ago brings us to 1957. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that oil production from the lower 48 states would peak in 1970.
Fast forward to 1970, and sure enough America’s oil production peaks.
Not so fast though – we’ve past over 1964, the year that global oil discoveries peaked. Moving on to another important mile marker, in 1980 we began to burn more oil than we discover.
In 1999, Britain’s oil production peaked. In 2006, Britain’s oil exports dried up. And while we still get to argue about this, T. Boone Pickens says that global oil production also peaked in 2006.
So now, one year after global oil production peaked, we start construction on the ICC. Its cost has sucked away all the funding needed for the Purple Line and you can forget about the Corridor City Transitway.
Its a sad situation. We are draining our budget in order to build a highway that we shouldn’t take even if it were free. I used to fear that the ICC would sponsor one more round of sprawl, but I now suspect that by the time we crawl out of the credit crisis, falling oil production will have choked sprawl housing to death. So the ICC won’t even work for its true purpose: as a subsidy to sprawl developers.
The ICC is an idea that never made sense and now is so colossally wrong that (insert colorful metaphor here. Maybe we should have a contest.)
Carl Henn
Carl, Do you think there a silver lining? Once oil prices >really spike and traffic density begin to evaporate as we shift to electric busses fueld from coal fired plants, many of the lanes could be designated for non-motorized vehicles. Large corridors like the ICC are also ready made right of ways for future transit needs, a light rail system could be built right on top of the roads.
Perhaps, I’m overlooking something…
ER!K RE@D
Waddington Place
ICC becomes another lesson in resource depletion.>
At least we’ll get the segment from GA avenue to I-370. Then the rest will stop.
The more I have thought about it, the more obvious it is. No matter how much people want to be proactive, to “do the right thing” — people ultimately respond to only one thing …”Price.” That is one thing that will never change.
I have no doubt the future will be bumpy. I have no problem doing with “less,” in fact I strive to do so simply because I hate to waste anything. But many Americans consider it their entitlement to use whatever they want carelessly.
I’m probably one of the few Conservatives who actually likes to “conserve.”
Erik – >
Nope. I see no silver lining. The roads we have will be more than adequate after 4 or 5 years of declining oil production, and the ICC will take 4 or 5 years to complete. Useless the day it opens.
The Purple Line and CCT are far higher priority as transit links than the ICC right of way, and the ICC sucks up the money needed to build them.
Sure we may want to put solar panels on the ICC one day, taking advantage of the deforestation – No shade on these solar panels! But we haven’t chosen to put solar panels on warehouse roofs yet, so I see little value in destroying a forest for this purpose.
Its indefensable.
Carl
But if no one else is on it, just think how quickly I will be able to get over to 95 to go north (which I do a lot – today up and back to Philly, and coming home it was over an hour from about Rt 32 down to the beltway, and around it, and back up 270 to rockville). >
I promise not to run into you, Carl, or any other bikers who I will be sharing the roadway with!
It is way past time to build the ICC. Cars sitting in traffic use more oil and pollute more than cars that are traveling at the speed limit. Driving around the Beltway to get to 95 North pollutes more and wastes more oil than driving straight to 95 on the ICC.>
The Purple Line doesn’t go to Baltimore or Philly. I admire those people who can ride their bike or take Metro to work but like Frank, many of us travel and have to use highways.
We are a mobile society. Kids play sports and take lessons that require more travel than ever. Travel continues to increase despite the price of oil.
Once the ICC is done, we need to look at the 2nd bridge over the Potomac. We could reduce a lot of pollution and save a lot of oil by having cars moving rather than sitting in traffic from Tysons past the 270 split and back twice a day, five days a week.
Several weeks ago, I drove my parents to Dulles at 5 pm on a Friday evening. We passed a multi car accident on the inner loop at the 495/270 split that had traffic backed up onto the Dulles access road. I had few choices in returning home. I thought about going to Whites Ferry but instead drove all the way to Georgetown and took Canal Rd home. Talk about wasting oil and sitting in traffic idleing my engine!
We may be at Peak Oil but we are also at Peak Traffic. If one day we are forced to drive less because of oil, these new roads will make great bike paths. We’ll need them because there will be so many more bikes on the road that the bikers will start to complain.
We are at peak traffic because we are at peak oil. When oil goes into decline, so will traffic. Yes we are a mobile society. If we wish to remain a mobile society after oil goes into decline, we will need to begin planning for it now. The ICC isn’t part of that plan – it is a huge diversion of crucial resources. >
So there was traffic on Dulles Access Road? A decade of declining oil production will leave air travel as the province of the rich, and the long term viability of flight is very much in question.
Think ahead to the conditions that will apply when oil has been declining for a while and it becomes abundantly clear that the ICC is a waste, not a solution.
Given the many ways that oil underpins our food production system, we should be far more concerned about food security than traffic on the way to the airport.
Carl, Let me first say that I agree with your peak oil prognosis even if I choose to play the devil’s advocate from time to time.>
The challenge that I face in deciding how to factor in the threat of peak oil into my decision making process is guessimating when and how quickly will things change for the worse.
Currently, my demand for fossil fuels is pretty inflexible yet not paricularly costly relative to my income. I can withstand quite a bit of price shock before I am forced to pay the buy in premium for things that address the issue of wasted energy. When it is time to replace things that can’t be repaired, I choose efficient substitutes, from light bulbs to cars, but it takes time to turn-over my personal stock. Then there is the cost in time lost biking or taking the Metro, even though for both I made a sensible choice in housing location.
My point is that even for an idealogically aligned individual such as myself, it takes time and money to make such a transition. Without a sense of timing and cost of the risk associated with the predicted peak oil disruptions it is difficult to venture the large opportunity cost.
I think the above reasonig holds true for the ICC, the city, the county, the state, the world, except that they assess the risk of peak oil chaos to be substantially lower
Enterik ->
You describe the problem well. Investments that make sense after oil enters decline don’t necessarilly make sense before it enters decline.
Some do. Biking to work saves time if you consider the time you don’t need to spend at the gym.
As to the timing of peak, it doesn’t help that various experts disagree. But here is my best guess. We are at peak now, based on the fact that production hasn’t gone up since 2004 in spite of the huge oil price increase. We will enter decline no later than 2010 based on Chris Skrebowski’s major projects analysis. And oil availability in the U.S. will fall quickly based on Jeffrey Brown’s Export Land Model analysis. Based on the relatively inelastic demand over the short term we can expect the price of oil to rise markedly after oil goes into decline.
The price of everything will go up after oil goes into decline, so buy your solar panels now. Don’t buy a gas guzzler or any new highways.
There will be a special on the History Channel tonight at 11:00 on oil depletion (11/13/07, 11:00pm EST – Mega Disasters: Oil Apocalypse)
Carl