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For Immediate Release: November 14, 2006

For more information, contact:
Mike Harold, ANS, 301-652-9188 x 22
Laura Olsen, CSG, 202-244-4408 x 4#

Outgoing Governor Ehrlich’s Intercounty Connector Plan
to be Challenged in Court

Community groups representing thousands of Maryland residents announced today that they will challenge Governor Ehrlich’s study of the Intercounty Connector.

“As we reviewed the Environmental Impact Study, we found the Ehrlich administration has violated the law. With the interests of Maryland residents in mind, we are taking this challenge to the courts,” said Neal Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of the Audubon Naturalist Society. “Since Gov. Ehrlich launched this 3rd study of the ICC in 2003, we have been concerned that the Ehrlich administration would violate both the spirit and letter of laws designed to ensure a fair consideration of alternatives and a complete analysis of impacts that results in the most effective and least damaging project.”

Audubon Naturalist Society along with several others will be filing a legal challenge about how the state conducted its study under the National Environmental Policy Act. In addition, Environmental Defense and Sierra Club announced last week that they will challenge the air quality analysis in the study to protect public health.

“At every turn, we have asked the Governor to look at a range of options for addressing traffic and mobility needs in the region that have fewer environmental and community impacts,” said Fitzpatrick. “At every opportunity, they have refused.”

The Ehrlich Administration’s study has been considered incomplete by many since it was designed to favor a new tollroad as the answer from the start. The Ehrlich Administration continually refused requests from residents and regional organizations to study a range of options to address traffic including the Purple Line, local road fixes and shifting future jobs to transit stations in Prince George’s County. Audubon and others even commissioned a study of a package of alternatives and submitted it to the state.

“Prince George’s Councilmembers have long understood that the ICC is a bad deal,” said Eric Olson, Prince George’s Council member-elect. "With a $3 billion price tag, the ICC takes critical funding that could be put to better use fixing our existing roads. In Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, we need transportation priorities that re-invest in our infrastructure and improve our transit systems, such as building the Purple Line."

In a recent interview with WTOP, Gov. Ehrlich repeated the false claim that the ICC would relieve traffic on the Beltway, despite contradictions from Transportation Secretary Flanagan and the state study. The State’s own study finds that "an ICC would not be expected to provide relief to the Beltway"(1) and traffic on I-270 or I-95 “is not expected to be helped by an ICC.”(2)

“Governor-elect O’Malley is right that we need a real statewide transportation plan. As part of that effort, we need a true, updated cost estimate for the ICC and we should reconsider whether we can afford such a controversial, environmentally destructive and expensive project that doesn’t provide traffic relief,” said Fitzpatrick.

“In light of our increasing knowledge of the value of parklands and open space, it is counter-intuitive to be building a massive road when we could be taking care of traffic through more logical adjustments,” said Delegate Karen Montgomery (District 14). “We need to be focused on more accessible, cheaper and more frequent public transportation service.”

The Intercounty Connector, a proposed piece of an outer beltway, has been turned down twice before by federal agencies, due to the lack of transportation benefits and the high community and environmental impacts. In this third attempt to secure approval, Gov. Ehrlich went directly to President Bush. Bush issued an executive order to fast-track the environmental review process of the ICC and twelve other projects around the country. One of these fast-tracked projects has already been rejected by the courts due to insufficient study.

“With limited funding, we need to provide commuters with more options,” said Laura Olsen, Assistant Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Voters are clear that the Purple Line and local road fixes are their priorities, not the ICC.”

"At the least, the SHA should be instructed to immediately cease its aggressive moves to take peoples’ homes and land along the proposed ICC right - of - way. They need to await the outcome of these legal challenges before either taking our homes and land or finalizing construction contracts for the proposed highway," said Connie McKenna, a homeowner in the proposed path of the ICC.

“The ICC is a bad deal, not a done deal,” said McKenna. “I applaud Audubon Naturalist Society and their partners for representing our interests.”

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(1) ICC Final Environmental Impact Study (FEIS), Chapter IV, page 353
(2) ICC FEIS, Chapter IV, page 380