Testimony of Dan Wallace, Cochair of Montgomery Intercounty Connector Coalition at the Hearing of the State Highway Administration on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, January 10, 2005

I'm Dan Wallace, cochair of the Montgomery Intercounty Connector Coalition (MICC), which numbers 4,000 members who have opposed an ICC since 1989. I appreciate the opportunity to testify, even this late in the day. I hope you are not too tired at this point to attend carefully; I'll only be taking three minutes of your time.

Three minutes: that's part of the problem with this entire process, starting with the Purpose and Need Statement, which says in essence, there's a need to build this highway, only this highway. And now we're at public hearings on "Location/Design,"another semantic trick that intimates that we're at the point of choosing where an ICC should be built and how, rather than whether it should be built at all. But, the new DEIS demonstrates that we're nowhere near ready for such a draconian decision.

Read the impact statement, and you will find that it's a rushed job, a mix of weird statistics and generalized statements. Here's a telling one: "This Draft Section 4(f) Evaluation does not specifically conclude that any of the analyzed alternatives or shifts are not prudent or feasible, but rather provides the information and analysis along with the DEIS to allow these conclusions to be drawn, where appropriate, in the Final Section 4(f) Evaluation." In other words, you've reached no conclusions, you're not finished with your work here, yet you are holding this Location/Design hearing. How are we, the public, supposed to comment on your conclusions if you haven't concluded anything yet.

I'll jump to conclusions. The study attempts to justify an ICC by relying for support upon broad strokes such as "best professional judgement and prior experience." But the statistics do not lie. The new study predicts that an ICC will introduce more cars on the Beltway and local roads, Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, that it will cause more environmental damage than estimated in the 1997 study, damage that moved the previous governor to abandon it. And, it's cost is now $2.4 billion in capital alone; add in another billion or so to help pay the loan that Ehrlich wants to get it started in his reelection year. Never mind the increased air, water, and noise pollution, or the communities wrecked by an ICC, for just those reasons above, it's a loser.

Back in November, 2003, one of our great captains of industry Rich Parsons told me right out there in the school vestibule that an ICC would take 21,000 cars off the Beltway, and that the reason the cost had gone from $1.5 billion in capital to $1.7 billion because of all the extra environmental mitigation the SHA would be doing. Today, it's going to add 3,000- 7,000 cars to the Beltway and local roads, and the environmental damage is going to be worse at twice the cost. Oh, I'm sure that the Chamber of Commerce and the governor's office have and will come up with new reasons to build the ICC, but I'll just leave you with one final question: When are you going to stop defending the indefensible and forget about the ICC, and move onto alternative transportation solutions that will work?