The Gov. Harry W. Good Memorial Bridge crosses the Potomac River from Charles County to Virginia. With a brand new span underneath development, advocates need Maryland need the state to protect a few of the outdated span’s infrastructure for future initiatives. Inventive Commons photograph.
By John D. Porcari and Harriet Tregoning
John D. Porcari served as deputy secretary of transportation within the Obama administration and twice served as secretary of the Maryland Division of Transportation.
Harriett Tregoning served in a senior management place on the Division of Housing and City Improvement within the Obama administration, because the District of Columbia’s Planning Director underneath two mayors, and as secretary of the Maryland Division of Planning.
As we share the joy of the Inflation Discount Act’s coverage path to construct a extra climate-sustainable future, one important level is neglected: our future environmental trajectory is definitely decided by hundreds of seemingly small native selections that, collectively, operationalize the implementation of nationwide coverage.
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One such resolution with profound long-term implications is at the moment on the discretion of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and his transportation management, and it cries out for a direct course correction. We all know. We’ve been down this street earlier than.
The functionally obsolescent Route 301 Governor Harry Good bridge, which spans the Potomac River and connects Charles County with King George County, Virginia, is at the moment being changed by a bigger, safer Governor Good/Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton bridge, a design that accommodates automobile wants effectively into the long run. And the design of this new bridge initially included, the governor promised, protected bike/pedestrian lanes over the Potomac.
With out warning, dialogue, or citizen enter, the bicycle/pedestrian component — the one potential bike/ped connection between Maryland and Virginia over the Potomac River south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge — was dropped. As the brand new bridge edges nearer to completion of development, the window of alternative is closing.
There’s a strategy to repair this.
When our area confronted the same dilemma 19 years in the past, leaders caught to their dedication to a multi-modal and related area. The development bid for the $2.4 billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge substitute, at the time the area’s largest transportation venture, got here in over price range, and federal transportation officers proposed deleting the pedestrian/bicycle connection element of the bridge design as a part of a “worth engineering” train.
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Fast and decided work on the time by Maryland’s governor and congressional delegation restored the bike/pedestrian component (and preserved the design’s capability to accommodate Metrorail sooner or later). The bridge substitute was finally delivered underneath price range, and in the present day boasts one of many most closely used path connections within the DMV.
Innovation and a relentless concentrate on lively transportation alternate options in our area’s infrastructure is vital, even when the situation of the bridge span itself makes reuse of the outdated bridge not possible. When the outdated eleventh Avenue bridge over the Anacostia River within the District of Columbia was about to be demolished after a substitute span was accomplished north of the unique construction (with added bike and pedestrian amenities, by the way in which), District officers intervened to protect the concrete piers of the outdated bridge within the Anacostia, making attainable the proposed eleventh Avenue bridge park, which is able to supply magnificent views of the Anacostia River and leisure alternatives to Anacostia residents and guests alike.
The identical logic should be utilized to the Route 301 bridge substitute. If the governor fails to honor his public dedication to bike and pedestrian amenities on the brand new bridge, and is unwilling to protect the decking of the outdated bridge for a devoted bike/pedestrian/fishing facility, he should at a minimal protect the outdated concrete piers, saving cash and avoiding the environmental affect of eradicating them from the Potomac through explosive demolition. This can allow future generations to assemble the one non-auto connection between Maryland and Virginia for the 60-plus miles of the Potomac River south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. If we gained’t do the best factor now, at the least protect choices for the future.
The selection for the governor and his transportation staff on this problem is binary: both future-proof his venture by preserving the outdated bridge’s concrete piers and be remembered as last-minute Hogan’s Heroes, or stiff-arm generations to come back by locking them out of transportation alternate options.
From seemingly small selections, bigger local weather and financial growth futures are decided.
Proud Montgomery County, MD resident Gavriella Kaufmann (Potomac) won her episode of FOX’s game show “Name that Tune”, which aired last week.
Kaufmann, who was born and raised in Potomac and graduated from Churchill High School in 2015, stated in an interview with FOX 5, that she has always been into music and referred to herself as a music and game show savant. When she saw an ad on LinkedIn about being on season 4 of the game show, she immediately knew she had to do it.
“I’ve loved game shows for as long as I can remember, and music has always been a huge part of my life. Being on Name That Tune was the perfect combination of both passions—it was like a dream come true.” Kaufmann told us.
The episode had a happy ending, with Kaufmann winning a whopping $85,000! She added, “When I was on Name That Tune, I was so focused on doing my best and naming as many songs as possible that I completely lost track of the score. It wasn’t until Jane, the host, told me my total. I was in complete shock, but it was such an incredible moment!”
Who’s ready for Big Ten play to begin? In all honesty, I am not. I really wish Michigan State football had more tune-up games after seeing them struggle against Florida Atlantic and only win 16-10. But unfortunately, that is not how the schedule unfolds for Michigan State this season.
The Spartans will hit the road for an early Big Ten game as they face Maryland on Saturday at 3:30 pm. Going into the season I thought Michigan State and the Terps were on a pretty level playing field, but after seeing both teams play week one that doesn’t appear to be the case.
And Vegas agrees.
Michigan State opens as a 7.5-point underdog next week at Maryland. My guess is that grows to 8, 8.5.
As you all know, Michigan State only beat Florida Atlantic by six and did not look very impressive, especially on the offensive side of the ball. So it’s no surprise that MSU will be the underdog next week. But 7.5 points feels like a lot, and according to the Lansing State Journal’s Graham Couch, it likely will only go up from there.
So does Vegas have it right or are they underrating Michigan State?
Looking at Maryland’s week one game against UConn it appears Vegas has this line right. The Terps were up 23-0 at halftime and never looked back and went on to win in dominant fashion 50-7. UConn and FAU are very similar in terms of what level they’re at in college football, so that drastic of a difference in the final score is very scary.
So Vegas probably could’ve gotten away with Maryland being even bigger favorites in this one.
But maybe Vegas saw what I did and thinks a lot of Michigan State’s mistakes on Friday are easy to fix. Maybe they think Aidan Chiles will be much better next week. The Spartan’s defense was also fairly dominant so there isn’t much of a chance Maryland scores 50 points next week either.
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I tend to not bet on Michigan State games, but even if I did this would be a line that I would avoid because who knows how much Jonathan Smith’s squad will improve by next week, and who knows how much Maryland might struggle against a Power Four opponent.
The University of Maryland on Sunday reversed its decision to allow an anti-Israel protest on the first anniversary of the October 7 Massacre, following backlash from local Jewish groups.
UMD Students for Justice in Palestine and UMD Jewish Voice for Peace had been set to hold their October 7 vigil for Gazans killed in the Israel-Hamas War at the campus’s Mckeldin Mall, but the University System of Maryland (USM) said in a statement that on the day of the Hamas-led pogrom it would limit campus events requiring permits or approval to those supporting “a university-sponsored Day of Dialogue.”
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“From the beginning of the war, we have come together as a University System to urge that we use this moment to encourage conversation, compassion, and civility; to engage with one another across our differences and draw on our shared humanity and our shared values to bridge what divides us,” said USM. “These dialogues aren’t new. Many of our universities have been hosting this kind of programming for several months. Reserving Oct. 7 gives us a chance to continue these urgent conversations and to mark this solemn anniversary in a way that gives students—all students—the time and space to share and to be heard.”
USM said that its intent was not to infringe of the free expression and speech of students, but to be sensitive to the needs of students as October 7 was a “day of enormous suffering and grief for many in our campus communities.”
UMD Jewish Student Union, Maryland Hillel, Terps for Israel, and Israeli American Council Mishelanu at Maryland welcomed the USM decision and thanked UMD leadership in a joint social media statement on Sunday.
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The campus of the University of Maryland in College Park. (credit: Courtesy)
“October 7, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, is a day of mourning for the Jewish and Israeli community,” said the UMD JSU. “We are relieved that SJP will no longer to be able to appropriate the suffering of our family and friends to fit their false and dangerous narrative.”
The Jewish groups said that it was distraught that the decision to only hold university-sponsored event had to be made at all, and wished to used the campus space to “grieve together as a community” to promote unity at the university. The unideal situation was necessary, according to the Jewish groups, to ensure the physical and psychological safety of students on the day of mourning.
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UMD JVP and SJP attacked the decision to cancel the event, claiming that the vigil for Palestinians killed since the October 7 Massacre was attacked without familiarity of the content. The anti-Israel groups said that the discourse was “the continuation inherently racist, Islamophobic, and dehumanizing rhetoric surrounding Palestinians.” JVP and SJP said that the actions against their event were an attempt to paint “Muslim, Arab, and anti-Zionist Jewish students as barbaric.”
The anti-Israel groups asserted that their vigil for Palestinians who died in the war was no threat to the campus’s Jewish community, but conflation of Zionism and Judaism did threaten UMD and the Jewish community.
“To claim that Palestinians cannot hold a day of remembrance in mourning one year of genocide, or lay claim to that date is an insult to every life lost in the Zionist entity’s genocidal campaign,” UMD SJP and JVP said on Instagram on Sunday. “The disproportionate scale of suffering experienced by the Palestinians over the past year necessitates their remembrance and our solidarity on this day. The suffering of all innocents killed must not be monopolized and necessitates a fair and just representation.”
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SJP and JVP demanded the right to organize and exercise their right to free speech, accusing Zionists of attempting to stifle Palestinian voices.
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The organizations indicated on their Sunday Instagram post that they still planned to hold their all-day event at Mckeldin Mall, and on Monday a link to register still active and listing the campus building as the rally location.
UMD Jewish groups said that they would be holding their own event to memorialize the victims of the October 7 pogrom at the Maryland Hillel.
