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Commentary Transportation


OPINION: PLANS TO PRIVATIZE MARYLAND’S HIGHWAYS WITH TOLL LANES ARE NOT IN THE
PUBLIC INTEREST

By Guest Commentary
July 14, 2022
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Heavy traffic moves slowly on I-495 during Thanksgiving travel in November 2019.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

By Gary V. Hodge

The writer is president of Regional Policy Advisors, vice chair of the Maryland
Transit Opportunities Coalition, and a former Charles County commissioner. He
has been engaged in state and regional transportation projects and advocacy for
50 years as a planner, public official, consultant, and citizen activist.

Today Maryland’s interstate highways, I-495 and I-270, still belong to the
public. Our taxes paid for them, we depend on them, and we expect that any
changes to them will be made in the public interest by accountable
representatives of the citizens of Maryland.

But something new and disturbing is happening. When the Board of Public Works
approved private toll lanes for I-495 and I-270, they said ‘yes’ to the idea of
surrendering control of our public highways for the next 50 years to a private
conglomerate whose mission — to maximize its own profit — may well come at the
public’s expense and long-term interests. Only now, as the state’s current
administration is racing in its final months to finalize an opaque deal with
toll-road giant Transurban, are the implications of this radical transfer of
public assets becoming clear.

Transurban, the company selected to lead the design, construction, financing,
operation, and maintenance of the toll lanes, is a powerful foreign corporation
based in Australia whose economic model requires continuous expansion.
Transurban’s CEO speaks openly of plans to build a continuous network of
toll-lanes to encircle Washington, DC, then move on to privatize billions more
dollars’ worth of U.S. transportation assets. In fact, it can be said that
Transurban has embarked on a hegemonic quest to establish a North American
toll-road empire, with I-270 and the Capital Beltway its newest acquisitions,
and projects like the proposed new Chesapeake Bay Bridge a future target of
opportunity.

While Transurban may only have a concession on the toll-lane assets, in practice
it would control traffic all across the highway network, including the existing
free lanes. In private toll lane schemes like this, the concessionaire raises
tolls very high just prior to rush hour, when the vast majority of drivers can’t
or won’t pay. This jams up the free lanes and makes the toll lanes more
attractive to those affluent drivers willing to pay. Peak tolls could be as high
as $50 each way from Shady Grove to the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The
Maryland Department of Transportation’s own documentation shows that building
toll lanes would offer little or no benefit in shorter travel times to drivers
in the free lanes during the evening rush.

If the Maryland toll lane deal goes as planned, Transurban will own and control
the American Legion Bridge/I-495/I-270 toll-lane assets and can trade and sell
them on the world market. This has already happened in Virginia, where
Transurban sold half its stake in the toll lanes it built on the Northern
Virginia side of the Capital Beltway.

The governor says all the present highway lanes will remain free. But the
existing I-270 HOV lanes would be converted to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes
for Transurban’s profit. So using the toll lanes on I-270 would be tantamount to
paying to drive on highways that Maryland taxpayers already own — essentially
paying twice to use the same infrastructure.

Transurban and Virginia plan to “uncork” the toll lane merge-point bottleneck in
Virginia, moving the bottleneck to Maryland. Bottlenecks are a convenient device
for continued expansion of toll lanes, as Virginia has demonstrated. Toll lanes
at the merge point create congestion and accidents, forcing transportation
agencies to approve contracts to extend the toll lanes. This is part of the
long-term strategy of toll lane developers to control the region’s
transportation network and the increased revenue stream and potential profits
that go along with it.

The Hogan administration claims the only way to free-up state funds for other
infrastructure projects is to mobilize private capital by partnering with
Transurban in a public-private partnership (P3). But a value-for-money analysis
was not done to verify the merits of this approach compared with the State’s
conventional financing methods. The state signed the predevelopment contract
with the Transurban-led consortium Accelerate Maryland Partners without adequate
legal and financial review of the costs, risks, and implications of the contract
and its numerous compensation and relief events. The former state treasurer
requested funding to perform an expert fiscal analysis, but the administration
denied the request. As the Purple Line P3 contract vividly illustrated, contract
provisions — and flaws in them — can have serious repercussions for the state.

The toll lane project being pushed in Maryland has high hidden costs and
consistently subordinates public interests — including health, safety,
environment, climate, equity, and local and regional priorities — to private
interests.

In recent days serious questions are being raised — in Maryland and Virginia —
about Maryland’s obligations and financial risks that are still hidden in the
secret terms of the Capital Beltway Accord announced almost three years ago by
the two Governors, and new revelations of the need for Maryland to build five
flyover ramps in Virginia.

If the I-495 and I-270 toll-lane P3 project is allowed to move forward, our next
governor may find their ability to stand up to Transurban and make major
infrastructure decisions in the public interest significantly diminished. The
predevelopment contract already gives Transurban a de facto monopoly on future
toll lane extensions in Maryland if a final construction contract is approved.
And also troubling, Maryland’s public-private partnership law does not contain
the kinds of provisions for protection of the public interest that Virginia’s
does.

We can clear the decks and develop a far better transportation strategy in
collaboration with Maryland’s counties and cities without sacrificing our
ability to control publicly funded assets, in the public interest. The state of
Maryland recently reported the largest budget surplus in its history, and the
new $1.2 trillion national infrastructure program will deliver billions more to
our state for highway, bridge, and transit improvements.

Transportation investment decisions are some of the most consequential the state
makes. We need to build the modern transportation system our people will need in
the future, not double-down on highway-building as the default setting for our
capital investment program, or make a half-century deal with toll-road
profiteers that denies the next generation of Marylanders the freedom to design
a new mobility strategy that lays the foundation for our 21st century economy.

The coming months will determine whether the public good or private profit will
dominate Maryland’s transportation policy for decades to come.

Votes are already being cast in this year’s primary election. With a dozen
candidates running for governor, a few hundred votes could decide the outcome.
And whoever is elected governor on November 8 may be in a position to decide the
fate of this misguided project after taking the oath of office in January. Now
is the time to study the candidates’ positions on this critical issue, and
choose wisely. Every vote counts.

Tags: Gary HodgeLarry Hogan
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Maryland Matters welcomes guest commentary submissions at
editor@marylandmatters.org. We suggest a 750-word limit and reserve the right to
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