Transportation Alliance Urges Biden Administration to Reverse Decision Delaying Maryland Traffic Relief Plan

McLean, VA – Today, the Maryland Department of Transportation learned that the Federal Highway Administration’s acting director has decided to delay federal approval of the Maryland Traffic Relief Plan.

While staff overseeing the project at the Federal Highway Administration approved all of MDOT’s methodology and numbers, the acting administrator, a former president of the Conservation Law Foundation, decided to postpone the project against staff recommendations.

“We are extremely disappointed that four years of environmental work including hundreds of days of public comment and numerous changes to address community concerns can be completely derailed by an activist interim administrator who is clearly disregarding the scientific methodology approved by her own staff,” said Jason Stanford, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. “The Biden Administration needs to fix this unwarranted, political motivated decision now, before irreparable damage is done. The canceling of this project would be nothing short of catastrophic for the entire region and there is no ‘Plan B’.”

“In addition to stranding the hundreds of thousands of people who are stuck in soul-crushing traffic on the American Legion Bridge every day, failing to move forward will cost Maryland taxpayers billions in private financing, and hundreds of millions of dollars for local transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements in Montgomery County that are part of this multimodal project,” Stanford continued. “Furthermore, the required replacement of the American Legion Bridge in the next few years will divert more than $1 billion dollars from other transportation projects across the entire state. The disregard for the unwarranted damage that this decision will have on Maryland and DC area residents is staggering.”

This decision must be reversed.