Porcari and Tregoning: Small decisions drive big futures – Maryland Matters

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.

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.

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.