[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Maryland “Freak State” PING!

[Daveinyork]

The best solution is to cut federal spending, and lay them all off. That would cut down on the BMW traffic jams in the area.

[sickoflibs]

Just keep building and more and more Housing developments and increasing Maryland population like what has happened the past 10 to 15 years, that will help.

This is a disaster. And it turned R counties like Howard Dem too.

[Venturer]

It’s crowded going North that;s for sure, But north of Washington gets all of the funding, while we down Sout of DC get roads like Rt. 5 that will tear the bottom out of your car, and congested 210. We need a new Morgantown Bridge and a new Bridge across to Solomons Island., both are congested and the solomons Bridge was so badly constructed they had to put braces on it a year after it was built. It could fall down any time.

[matginzac]

Part of this highway goes through Chris Van Hollen’s district of VERY wealthy demon-rats....
Hey Chris...tax the a** off your richey tax payers...they can do more of their fair share to solve this problem....you putz.

[George from New England]

Gee, I thought all liberals used mass transportation !!!

Guess not, trains are for you and not for me.

[Paladin2]

Cut the budget, targeting those employed in or near DC.

With reduced local employment, the traffic should soon subside.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Shut down more lanes. We’ll all be better off if those assclowns never reach their offices.

[ShadowAce]

Put a second layer of 12 lanes right above it.

[ArrogantBustard]

Bustard's Solution:

Reduce the size and scope of Fedzilla. Like, maybe, all the way down to what the Constitution actually specifies. Fewer unconstitutional bureaucracies ==> fewer bureaucrats ==> less traffic on I-270.

Simple, no?

[kevkrom]

How about getting rid of the freaking HOV lanes — the social experiment that reduces the road capacity between 20% and 33%, depending on the number of other lanes out there? Anyone who’s ever driven that side of the Beltway will tell you that the Inner Loop starts backing up into Virginia at almost precisely 3:30pm every day. Why? Because that’s when 1/3 of the I-270 spur lanes are taken away for HOV restrictions.

[cymbeline]

“The county’s economic well being — and the state’s — depends on a plan ...”

Also the country’s and the world’s well being!!!

[Rummyfan]

With Gov. Martin O'Malley and lawmakers concentrating on how to replenish the Tran sportation Trust Fund ...

To drive through Maryland on I-95 northbound, I pay $3 to go through the Harbor Tunnel, and another $4 to go over the Susquehanna River bridge. I would also say that this is also one of the most heavily-travelled segments of interstate in the country. Yet the Transportation Trust Fund is broke? Where does all the money go????

[ßuddaßudd]

Make all the .gov employees ride the bus and that should help a lot...

[Texas Eagle]

Here ya go.....problem solved:

[Opinionated Blowhard]

I don’t know what the solutions are, but I am pretty sure they will involve a lot of government spending that gets into the pockets of politically connected contractors.

[Oberon]

I suspect that if they extended the Metro from Shady Grove up to Frederick, that would help considerably. For me, the best solution was to just not get a job in The City.

[twistedwrench]

A useless study was done on the bay area traffic, but the data gathering technic was very informative.

The study's authors anonymously tracked more than 350,000 Bay Area drivers using their cellphone and GPS signals -- the first time that's been done -- to gather some of the most detailed data yet on what causes our traffic jams.

http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_22328900/key-source-bay-area-traffic-headaches-revealed-by?source=rss

[NRA1995]

IMHO, I-270 congestion is a sign of morbidly obese, bloated federal, state, local government within Maryland, DC and Virginia. Same with I-695 and I-495.

[asinclair]

Regarding area traffic jams: A number of places around the country have tried schemes that might work for our District of Columbia:

• Staggered hours: this worked in Elk Grove Village, IL among other places. Business starting times were staggered over a three hour interval.
• More extensive telecommuting: keeping people in their homes keeps them off the streets.
• Aggressive car pooling: this has been done, with limited success, in California. Dedicated HOV lanes help a little...except at popular on-off points.
• Public transportation: New York is the poster child, with its subway system. Unfortunately, DC is square dancing instead of line dancing, so the Metro is of limited help.
• Outsourcing: helps reduce the federal payroll, provides more flexible options, and the people can work tens or hundreds of miles away. Thousands?
• Consolidation and merging duplication: helps reduce the federal payroll, reduces the number of non-harmonized rules for grant and service applications.
• Send local services back to the States, County, and local level: helps reduce the federal payroll, brings local control back closer to the voters.
• Get out of the charity business. (But Democrats won't)

The I-270 issue is but a symptom of the bigger problem.

It's not like this situation hasn't been discussed before. Science fiction fans will remember the Foundation series by Issac Asimov, and how the planet Trantor became one very large city because it was the "seat" of the Galactic Empire...and the problems all that centralization caused. And how the Empire finally broke into little bitty pieces because of the concentration.