ICC could take candidates in either direction

Friday, June 2, 2006

With a ceremonial mulching of a single tree, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. on Tuesday made good on a promise made four years ago to break the political gridlock over the Intercounty Connector and start building the highway before fall 2006.

But if he thought 18 miles of asphalt would be his EZPass to re-election, one pollster is saying the governor might want to plan alternate routes to a second term.

Although surveys show majorities support the ICC, the surveys also show an underlying skepticism that a $2.4 billion project like that is going to make a difference in congested highways, said Steve Raabe, principal at OpinionWorks in Annapolis.

Growth — and by proxy the ICC — is surfacing as a major issue for the fall elections.

‘‘And I couldn’t emphasize the anti-growth sentiment more, particularly in Montgomery County,” Raabe said.

The ICC represents a double-edged sword not only for Republican Ehrlich but for his Democratic challengers as well. Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley also support the 18-mile link between Gaithersburg and Laurel.

‘‘For the past decade, growth has been a major issue in the region’s politics. In the past two or three years, we’ve seen an explosion of concern. And I think it’s driven by traffic,” Raabe said.

He said ‘‘a stew of issues” will be influencing November balloting. Voters are upset over traffic congestion, but they doubt that more roads will bring only more development. They want more affordable housing, but they think more houses means more people on the highways.

‘‘It’s very complicated for a policy-maker to see their way through,” Raabe said.

Governor’s race

The ICC announcement comes as the Democratic primary race shifts gears.

For months, O’Malley has ignored Duncan’s salvos at problems in Baltimore. In the past two weeks, O’Malley has returned fire on Montgomery’s growth issues.

On Thursday night, the Baltimore mayor was to hear Germantown residents’ thoughts on sprawl. The town hall meeting was to follow a tour of Clarksburg, a community beset by planning mistakes that Duncan’s critics have tried to blame on the county executive’s lax enforcement.

‘‘I don’t think you can come to Montgomery County and talk about protecting quality of life without talking about growth,” O’Malley said in an interview Thursday.

‘‘I think there’s a sense after [Hurricane] Katrina that there’s a weakness in the executive under Bob Ehrlich. I think there’s a sense the government is not up to the task of protecting our quality of life.”

The mayor and his running mate, Del. Anthony G. Brown, have echoed Raabe’s comments, hearing voters express ‘‘growth anxiety” as they campaign.

‘‘Growth anxiety could lead people to throw a red flag and say, ‘No growth for 10 years until we figure this out.’ But that’s only going to exacerbate the affordable housing problem,” said O’Malley, who grew up in Montgomery County.

That anxiety circles back to the ICC.

Raabe said support for the highway has slipped, from about 60 percent in June 2004 to the mid-50s a year ago.

‘‘As soon as it started to reach these approval milestones, the numbers started to drop off,” Raabe said.

Mixed bag for politicians

But Tuesday’s milestone was one for ICC supporters to cheer.

‘‘Now we can say for the first time that the ICC is going to happen,” said Richard N. Parsons, president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. ‘‘This is really it. The ICC fight is over, and we’re going to have the ICC.”

ICC opponents, however, now have a target.

Laura Olsen, assistant director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said the group’s lawyers were examining the Federal Highway Administration’s ‘‘record of decision” to figure out the next step. She said Ehrlich violated the spirit and letter of laws that require an examination of alternatives.

‘‘The governor has never been about how to solve traffic problems. He’s been about how do you build an interstate highway,” Olsen said.

The lawsuits could slow down the project — expected to begin construction this fall with portions done in 2010 and 2011 — but Robert Grow, director of transportation for the Washington Board of Trade, wasn’t sure.

‘‘But they’ve been thorough here, meticulously dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s,” Grow said.

At Tuesday’s announcement, along Interstate 370 in Gaithersburg, Ehrlich touted the 14,000 jobs that will be created by the highway as well as the $270 million in environmental remediation that will ‘‘undo damage of old engineering practices” — hence, the ceremonial tree planting.

The $2.4 billion highway will connect Montgomery’s I-270 corridor with I-95 and U.S. 1 in Prince George’s County almost directly to the east. The six-lane controlled-access highway will have nine interchanges and one intersection.

Even with growth anxiety, the FHWA’s approval is a victory for the Ehrlich administration.

‘‘They’ve been trying to get this done for 30 years, and Bob Ehrlich is the only one who has been able to come through with it,” Republican activist Carol Hirschburg said. ‘‘People want good roads and people want less traffic congestion. And I think people respect public officials who can get this done.”

Because of the federal government’s involvement in funding, Ehrlich might have a dicey time touting the accomplishment.

‘‘Bringing up a relationship with President Bush is not going to help with voters in a very, very blue state. Voters are in a very cranky mood with regard to the federal government,” Raabe said.

Duncan also might want to claim some credit for the ICC. His 2002 re-election was a referendum on the highway, and his County Council slate ensured the ICC would face few roadblocks at the county level.

But Hirschburg pointed out that as a Democrat, Duncan could not get the state’s Democratic leaders to push the road forward.

Other road projects

Other areas of the state have also seen transportation projects advance since Ehrlich took office. A new concourse opened at Thurgood Marshall Baltimore Washington International Airport last summer. And two lanes of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge opened two weeks ago.

In Southern Maryland, officials broke ground on the $52 million Hughesville bypass in November 2004. The 3-mile project, which has been delayed for nearly three decades, was the region’s top transportation priority.

Like the ICC, its effect on the pols or the polls appears murky.

‘‘I don’t know that anybody takes it down to a single issue like ‘They built a road I’ve been waiting for a long time,’” said Robert Eaton, past president of the Charles County Chamber of Commerce.

And it is difficult for one politician to take all the credit for a project that has developed over many years, and with the contributions of both Democrats and Republicans, said Zach Messitte, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in Southern Maryland.

‘‘The sense is that it was a cooperative effort to get this thing to the starting gate, so I don’t think there’s any one politician who is identified with bringing the bypass to the people,” he said.

Del. W. Daniel Mayer (R-Dist. 28) of Issue, an Ehrlich ally, recognizes that the bypass is a product of years of work, but hopes voters acknowledge the governor sealed the deal.

‘‘Even though others contributed to it before he got there ... it was built under Ehrlich,” he said.

Staff Writer Alan Brody contributed to this report.