Washington Post -Transportation Section
Maryland is studying three sites for a new Chesapeake Bay crossing, report says
By Katherine Shaver
September 1, 2020 at 6:17 p.m. EDT
Maryland transportation officials have rejected 11 of 14 potential sites for an additional Chesapeake Bay crossing, saying a new span must be built close to the existing bridge to provide the most traffic relief and cause less environmental damage, according to a state report released Tuesday.
The report, part of a $5 million study by the Maryland Transportation Authority since 2016, makes clear that one option — building a third span adjacent to the two there now — is the leading contender of the remaining three. The other two would be within two miles of the bridge, either to the north or south.
All three remaining options would connect on the west with Anne Arundel County, where residents already complain about bridge traffic swamping local roads. Two would connect on the eastern side with Queen Anne’s County, where the current bridge touches down, while the third would connect south of there, in Talbot County.
The option at the site of the existing bridge would relieve the most traffic congestion, provide the shortest alternate route in case of problems on the bridge, and is “more compatible with existing land use patterns,” the report said. Because it would be the shortest span and tie into existing roads, it also would have fewer environmental impacts, the report said.
The prospect of another bay crossing bringing more traffic to Anne Arundel roads has drawn objections from local officials. They say Route 50 and side roads already become so swamped with bridge overflow traffic that residents often can’t reach their homes or leave their neighborhoods.
Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman (D) said the two remaining options north and south of the existing bridge would be “disastrous” for local communities where a new bridge would touch down. The destruction would include parkland and neighborhoods, he said.
Another span adjacent to the existing bridge could destroy Sandy Point State Park, he said, and require widening Route 50 on both sides of the bay.
“Building a new span doesn’t solve the traffic problem,” Pittman said. “The traffic problem takes place on Route 50.”
Anne Arundel County Council member Amanda Fiedler (R-District 5), who represents the area near the existing bridge, said she believes the region needs another Chesapeake Bay crossing. However, she said, she’s worried that building one next to the existing bridge would further overwhelm local roads.
“We have to get traffic away from the same local roads that are already being impacted,” Fiedler said. “It really cripples these communities.”
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is notorious for severe backups as weekend beachgoers head to and from the Eastern Shore and as daily Eastern Shore commuters head to and from jobs in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.
The bridge study is a major endeavor by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who has said building a third span is the “only serious way forward” to reducing bridge backups.
State officials say the bay needs another crossing to keep pace with population growth, reduce congestion, make the crossings safer and provide an alternative when one of the spans is narrowed or closed because of a collision or disabled vehicle. State officials have said that without an additional crossing, eastbound traffic congestion on summer weekends in 2040 would span 12 hours — two hours more than in 2017.
“This is a huge study for the Maryland Transportation Authority and the Hogan administration,” authority spokesman John Sales said. “We’re focused on providing another crossing across the Chesapeake Bay, but this is only the first step.”
Sales said the draft environmental impact study, which will identify the state’s “preferred alternative,” is scheduled to be released for public comment this fall. The final study is scheduled to be completed for federal approval in mid-2021, he said.
The latest report doesn’t offer a detailed analysis of any of the remaining three alternatives’ environmental impacts. However, the route near the existing span would affect the least amount of forest and “compares favorably” with the other options for the amount of farmland, open water, wetlands and streams affected.
The report doesn’t include cost estimates but says any new crossing is “expected to be multiple billions of dollars.” It also doesn’t provide any timetable for construction or say how it would be paid for. The existing bridge is a toll facility.
The authority said last summer that it recommended focusing on the three remaining alignments but held public meetings on all 14 options last fall. The report released Tuesday confirms that the authority has officially dropped all but those three from consideration.
The rejected options spanned nearly 100 miles of the bay, from as far north as spanning Harford and Cecil counties and as far south as connecting St. Mary’s and Somerset counties.
Pittman said he hopes the state will reexamine the need for a third span in light of how many people have started working from home during the pandemic. He said he also believes that many Eastern Shore residents don’t want the kind of auto-dependent sprawl development that state officials are projecting.
“If we can save ourselves billions of dollars by not building a third span,” he said, “we should really look hard at that.”
The recently completed Alternatives Report [baycrossingstudy.us8.list-manage.com]provides details on the alternative screening process. The report includes an overview of the Purpose and Need for the study, describes the range of preliminary alternatives considered that was made publicly available in Fall 2019, and presents an environmental inventory of the study area. The report also discusses the alternative screening process and the screening analysis results.