ICC backers ‘suspicious’ of poll showing support waning for the road

Friday, March 24, 2006

by C. Benjamin Ford

Staff Writer

Intercounty Connector supporters are discounting a new poll touted by opponents as showing that backing for the Gaithersburg-to-Laurel toll road is dropping off.

‘‘To be quite candid, we are quite suspicious of the findings of the poll,” said John B. Townsend II, public and government affairs manager for AAA Mid-Atlantic. ‘‘None of the previous polling conducted by us — or any other recognized public service group — shows such an abrupt sea change in public opinion on the ICC.”

Past surveys of the ICC showed wide support for the highway statewide, Townsend said.

A poll last year by R⁄S⁄M for AAA showed 65 percent of the people in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties supported the road, compared to 19 percent who opposed it. Statewide, the AAA poll found that that 71 percent favored the ICC.

The ICC opponents who sponsored the new Mason-Dixon poll say the results show that support for the $2.4 billion project drops significantly as respondents learn about its costs and whether it will keep other transportation projects from being built.

‘‘The more people learn about the ICC, the less they support it,” said Montgomery County Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg, who opposes the ICC.

The State Highway Administration’s own study shows that the ICC would not ease congestion on the Capital Beltway as supporters claim, the road’s opponents said.

‘‘They made false claims the ICC would make a difference to traffic congestion,” said Laura Olsen, assistant director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. ‘‘To find the truth, you have to wade through a 10,000-page ICC study.”

One of the first questions asked in the Mason-Dixon poll, taken March 9-14, was whether the person supported or opposed the ICC: 59 percent said they supported the ICC, including 33 percent who ‘‘strongly support” it. The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.

That was followed by questions that contained statements. Question No. 4, for example, asked, ‘‘According to the Maryland State Highway Administration, the ICC will not reduce congestion on I-95 and I-270. Does this make you more likely or less likely to support the ICC?” Fifty-five percent said they were less likely to support the ICC.

State Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said the statements used in the poll were misleading.

The SHA never suggested the ICC would be ineffective, Flanagan said. The highway would be a new option that will ‘‘clearly alleviate the congestion problem,” he said.

‘‘This is a poll designed for one purpose only — to extend the 35-year delay in building the Intercounty Connector,” Flanagan said. ‘‘Thirty-five years is way too long.”

The Mason-Dixon poll also showed that 60 percent of the 500 respondents, all registered Democrats, believe Montgomery County should make mass transit and other traffic improvements instead of building the 18-mile ICC.

Construction is supported by all three major gubernatorial candidates.

The 17 questions on the ICC were part of a broader 60-question survey done for WTOP radio, County Council candidate Marc Elrich and a coalition of environmental groups.

Larry Harris, principal partner of Mason-Dixon, said the poll results were valid for the county overall because ‘‘Democrats call the shots” in Montgomery County.

The poll was released the day before the state and federal highway agencies closed a 75-day comment period on the ICC’s Final Environmental Impact Study.

Opponents said the comment period should be extended because SHA had forgotten to conduct a study on the air quality and issued an appendix to the environmental report that was filled with ‘‘hundreds” of errors, said Audubon Naturalist Society spokesman Brian Henry. The corrected appendix was released last week, and the public has not seen the air-quality analysis yet.

‘‘These are big errors that show a rushed artificial timeline,” Henry said, claiming that the studies were rushed for political consideration.

Capital News Service reporter Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.