Many also fear that the road would divert economic development from Prince George's by giving people a direct link to I-270. They say that a better approach to improving mobility would be to add transit capacity, and that a better business development approach would be to encourage firms to locate at underutilized Metrorail stations in Prince George's.
Some opponents said the $300,000 study, part of a federal environmental review, was flawed because it compared the results of building the highway with only one alternative: not building it.
The connector project was revived by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), above with Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R).
(The Washington Post)
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Opponents acknowledged that any new road capacity would improve short-term mobility and therefore lead to cost savings but said that focusing solely on that ignores the highway's impact on business development patterns over the long term.
Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000 Friends of Maryland, said the study missed the point. Instead of trying to figure out whether a single road would create jobs and lead to some savings, state leaders ought to be studying how to ease economic inequities in the region.
The study was done by a team at the University of Maryland, chosen as an independent party to allay concerns that the report would favor proponents of the connector.
But the manner in which the report was released nevertheless raised those very questions among opponents. Rather than releasing the findings at a news conference or other public venue, state highway officials met individually with a handful of reporters at the University of Maryland. State officials said they would not release approximately 800 pages of supporting documents for a few weeks.
"When the release is controlled by the secretary of transportation and the head of the State Highway Administration, it does call into question the independence" of those who did the study, said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "It's certainly very difficult for the public and outside experts to evaluate the report without the supporting documentation."
State officials said they chose the one-on-one format because of the detailed nature of the report, and the study's director, Hani S. Mahmassani, said his group was not influenced by politics.
"We really did do this independently," Mahmassani said.
