Money spent on Gude interchange best used on transit

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Money spent on Gude interchange best used on transit

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The proposed Gude⁄Interstate 270 interchange is not worthy of our support. It can’t be built without harming the senior center and the Millennium Trail.

The senior center now is shielded from I-270 by a small forest. That would have to go. The Millennium Trail crosses over I-270 along Gude Drive. If we put in an interchange, the trail would have to cross the access ramps, with drivers looking to merge rather than looking for pedestrians and bikers on our city’s biggest bike trail. It wouldn’t reduce traffic, only move it around a little.

The way to address the traffic problem is by building the Corridor City Transitway, building light rail down Route 355, and encouraging their use through Traffic Demand Management. An interchange at Gude would cost around a $100 million. That’s a $100 million that can’t be devoted to transit improvements. It makes no sense in light of global warming and peak oil. Building more roads and postponing transit is the most sincere way to say we don’t believe that global warming is a real problem.

Peak oil is global warming’s evil twin. Peak oil refers to the point at which global oil production can no longer be expanded due to underlying resource constraints. It doesn’t matter when we run out of oil. What matters is when production enters decline. That is when our growing population that is used to having more oil every year will have to get by with less oil every year.

Oil experts are coming to a consensus that the peak will be sooner rather than later. Oil production stopped growing in 2005. Since then the price has doubled. Global oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. America’s oil production peaked in 1970. We have been burning more oil than we discover since 1980. Now is not the time to blow our transportation dollars on more roads.

If we respond to declining oil production with more transit, biking, telecommuting, car pooling and more efficient cars, then global warming will recede as a concern. If we respond to declining oil production with oil shale, tar sands, coal liquification, ethanol and biodiesel then we will put the last 6 inches of good top soil into our gas tanks and suffer through climate chaos. We are making the decision about which course to take as we decide whether to build more roads or invest in transit.

Carl Henn, Rockville