The area between the northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. to the southern suburbs of Baltimore has long needed a route to improve community mobility and safety, support local land use development, enhance economic development and serve homeland security needs while still preserving environmental resources. The proposed 18-mile, six-lane, multimodal Intercounty Connector project provides important transportation between two corridors — the I-270 Corridor in Montgomery County and the I-95/US 1 Corridor in Prince George's County.
The Approach
During his election campaign four years ago, Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. promised to bring this long-delayed and often denounced project to construction before the close of his first term. He made a direct request to President George W. Bush to include the ICC on the President's list of priority projects.
Throughout its development, the ICC project has been the subject of three separate National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) studies. The first two Draft Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) were issued and public hearings were held; however, no final decisions were made. For the most recent study, McCormick Taylor led the environmental studies and documentation efforts in coordination with several other consulting firms and multiple local, state and federal agencies.
The Result
The culminating result was a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which contributed largely to federal officials' ultimate decision to approve the project. A $370 million environmental mitigation program was developed to ease opposition and to address environmental impacts. The Record of Decision approval for the ICC, granted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on May 29th, marked a major milestone for the project, and after five decades of political stalemates and public controversy, construction began.
