A weekly sampling of reader comments culled from most-read Bethesda Beat stories.
Is a Second Potomac River Bridge in Montgomery Dead in the Water?
Longtime proponents of a Potomac River bridge connecting upper Montgomery County and Loudoun County, Virginia say a new bridge would bring significant relief to traffic crossing the Beltway’s American Legion Bridge near Cabin John. The main obstacle, they say, has been the lack of political will. Questions about a second river crossing are resurfacing as a proposal by Maryland’s governor to widen Interstates 270 and the Beltway is being rolled out at public hearings and an overturned tanker blocked traffic for 12 hours last month, leaving drivers wondering about the best way to relieve regional bottlenecks.
Comments
- Access to airports isn’t the primary issue. It’s the daily commute going both ways across the river. The status quo is intolerable, and getting worse. Forcing commuters onto mass transit is a pipe dream. Bus lanes will only make things worse by taking away travel lanes that are already inadequate, and commuters still have to get to and from the bus stop. An expansion of Metro or the Purple Line might help, but does anyone think that will happen in our lifetimes? The only practical solution is another traffic bridge and a Reston-to-ICC highway to parallel I-270 and the existing bridge. It should have been built a decade ago, but short-sighted politicians (mostly in Montgomery County) and NIMBYs sat on their hands while congestion got worse. There is no easy, quick or cheap fix — but something’s got to be done before a big chunk of the region’s economy grinds to a gridlock halt.
- Giving people more options for getting across a river is never a bad idea.
- Calling the Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance “an advocacy organization that works to improve transportation options for commuters in the Maryland suburbs” is like calling the Outdoor Advertising Association of America “an advocacy organization that works to improve information options for commuters in public spaces.” I’m sorry to say that I’m really disappointed in the reporting of this piece.
- It seems clear to me that the American Legion Bridge should be double-decked with (high-occupancy toll) lanes. There is no political will in Maryland for a new bridge, the environmental concerns alone would probably kill it, and it would only lead to more sprawl — the opposite of what is needed.
Council Debates Higher Street Parking Rates in Bethesda, Silver Spring
County Executive Marc Elrich has proposed a demand-pricing model for parking meters in downtown Bethesda under which users would be charged higher rates at busy times of the day. Currently, on-street meters in Bethesda charge users $2 per hour, with most garages costing $1 per hour. Street meter rates could jump to $4 an hour.
Comments
- Businesses have reacted negatively. How shocking. They didn’t see that coming. That’s the problem. How ‘bout asking constituents first? This is completely opposite of what they should be doing but far Left Dems never met a tax or fee they didn’t like. No wonder Bethesda District suffers from so many vacancies and turn overs.
- I don’t mind demand pricing on toll roads, where you have a ready alternative. But, if you’re driving safely, you’re not scanning your parking app before deciding whether to park in the garage or at the meter. So, you are going to find a spot, open the app, and then be really annoyed that the demand-pricing is going to cost you more. This is a dumb proposal.
- With all of the money Montgomery County wastes building and subsidizing its urban parking lots they should convert the on-street parking spaces to protected bike lanes in downtown Silver Spring & Bethesda.
- Even more reason not to go shopping in those areas when Amazon will deliver things to my door for free. A sad day, seeing more and more small shops close up. Spend some weekends going to areas that offer free parking in their business districts and you will see a vibrant business district.
County Leaders Pledge To Fully Fund MCPS Budget, Earmark $5 Million
After rounds of public hearings on the county’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year, leaders say they have found a way to fully fund the $2.6 billion requested by the school board. The county executive’s budget recommendation fell about $14 million short of the recommendation. The first step is using about $5 million from county money set aside for upgrades to the 911 phone system since the state will be covering more of the cost.
Comments
- Lower academic standards and still the graduation rate continues to fall.
- $5 million doesn’t even cover the MCPS administrators’ annual credit card bill. They need more money to pay for administrator lunches, dinners and conference vacations.
- Hold on. Did anyone see the trick the Council just pulled? Note they say that the new 911 system will be paid for by the state. Now go look at your cellphone bill. 75 cents/month is a county 911 tax, and 25 cents/month is a state 911 tax. So if the state is paying for the new 911 system, will the County be lowering the 75 cents/month 911 tax? I doubt it.
Repeated Power Outages Hit Bethesda During Work on Substation
Hundreds of Bethesda-area residents near Suburban Hospital experienced short power outages each day for nearly two weeks as the regional power company Pepco said it was doing maintenance work on a nearby substation.
Comments
- As usual, Pepco is full of it. It was a lot more than a few hundred and more neighborhoods than Huntington Terrace, and people who called were given all sorts of reasons why their power went out night after night (transformer problem, equipment replacement and–I swear this is true–“a squirrel ate through the line.”) Outages were widespread throughout the Bethesda area, from the Beltway to downtown. Reporter, go back and ask more questions–they are not being straight with you.
- We were once told by Pepco that run-away balloons (like the ones you’d have at a kids’ party) were the cause for one of our power outages. And the recent outages haven’t been for “minutes” at a time, nor have they been limited to a course of about 10 days in April. Since March, in addition to these multiple mini-outages, our neighborhood has also had complete outages lasting hours during the daytime and in the evening, at times when the weather was clear, there was no wind or precip, etc. When calling in to report the outages, Pepco has said 600+ homes were affected each time. We’ve also been without water for 1-2 days at a time on a couple of occasions following water main breaks. What century is this? And why don’t we have any competition?
- To be fair. when we circulated a message about this on Custer Road, i notified Pepco and received a return call within a half an hour. the next day a member of their testing team had installed a diagnostic tool on our meter and helped isolate the issue. while i agree that Pepco should adopt an advanced notification process similar to that used by WSSC for water line repairs. i found their response pretty good. As they say Stuff Happens.
Full text and additional comments accompany the individual online stories and updates.
