Solving traffic congestion in city takes center stage

With traffic snarls regularly clogging Route 1 and the lurching stop-and-go rush hours on roadways surrounding the campus, transportation has taken center stage as one of the area's most contentious issues.

As the legislative session comes to a close and an election looms on the horizon, elected officials are wrangling over the feature of the city's main thoroughfare, which is bursting at the seams with more than 65,000 cars per day traveling the four lanes of Route 1. Several options for controlling the traffic problems include a proposed expansion of the Metro system and a controversial connector road between the campus and the Capital Beltway.

Mass transit has emerged as the most clear-cut solution to gridlock, and state Sen. John Giannetti (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George's) introduced a bill last month to extend the Metro's Green Line - on which the College Park station is located - to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and is an avid supporter of expanding studies that would examine the feasibility of a newly formed "Purple Line" that would streamline access to stations close to Interstate 495.

"People can understand where we're trying to take the Metro," Giannetti said, highlighting the importance of BWI as an economic engine in the state. "What's important in Annapolis is to build some excitement on it."

Other legislators, such as Del. Barbara Frush (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George's) are strong supporters of mass transit projects - "Anything we can do to get cars off the road, I support," Frush likes to say, and projects like extended Metro lines find many area officials in wide agreement.

But with 93,000 cars projected to travel Route 1 by 2030, and no chance of ever widening the thoroughfare, vehicular traffic has emerged as the elephant in the room politicians have sought to find solutions for.

One proposed solution often touted by university officials and supported by Giannetti calls for a connector road to be built from the Beltway to Comcast Center. But several proposed routes for the road would cut through the nearby Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and run uncomfortably close to housing in the College Park Hills community, generating widespread opposition among city officials and residents.

The connector road has evolved during the past few years as one of the most controversial issues in the area, as university officials such as Vice President for Administrative Affairs John Porcari have formed alliances with legislators like Giannetti in pushing for studies that would examine whether building the road is possible.

"All we're asking for is project planning, which takes about 18 months," Porcari said. "It has a lot of citizen input. We just want it to be decided on the merits."

City residents and officials opposing the plan fear results of the study would encourage construction of the road, paving the way for increased development around the road and creating a negative environmental impact on open space now used for research purposes. And although Frush and other officials such as Mayor Stephen Brayman said they strive for positive relations with the university, the connector road is proving a divisive issue.

"One of the things I think we find is that the unviersity claims there is too much traffic on campus and that the connector road would help," Frush said. "But the university does not take sufficient measure to take traffic off campus. When you build a road, the first thing it does it fills up with cars."

Frush introduced legislation in January that would require the university to study ways to reduce the number of cars on the campus. If passed, Frush hopes the results of that study would show a connector road would increase traffic on the campus and help dissuade university officials from continuing to support the road.

Giannetti said area officials' lack of support for the connector road has made garnering support for Route 1 redevelopment politically complicated.

"I don't see how you could be in favor of the university and be against the connector," Giannetti said. "Right now the political rifts between the delegation and the county executive are causing [Route 1 funding] not to go forward. When we get some balance, we'll get the funding we need ... We all have to be working on the same theme."

Contact reporter Kevin Litten at littendbk@gmail.com.