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Update 2: The City has posted an outcomes document for this meeting. Included in this document is the following statement (note that it says that the MNCPPC meeting is on Tuesday, February 8 — clearly this is impossible. The correct date is Thursday, February 8):

Friday, January 19, 2007, Mayor Katz and City staff met with County Executive Ike Leggett and members of his staff to discuss their efforts to establish an employment center. The county is seeking to use county-owned property on Crabbs Branch Way and the City was asked to formally support the site. The issue is scheduled to be heard by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission on Tuesday, February 8, 2007. The City prepared a letter of support signed by Mayor Katz to be sent to Park and Planning Commission Chairman Hanson. The county believes that the project can be completed and put into operation, possibly within the next month. Following discussions later in the meeting, City Attorney Borten was directed to amend the proposed anti-solicitation ordinance to state that the legislation will go into effect upon the opening of the county’s employment center. A vote on the amended ordinance is anticipated for the Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Mayor and City Council meeting.

Update: The City has posted the video of this meeting.

Last night’s council meeting was somewhat unusual, in that more was done in the “From the Mayor and Council” portion of the session than during the whole rest of the meeting. The first regular Council meeting in three weeks, there were a half-dozen presentations to be made, two of which took a while, and one those included a long discussion. Several topics came up during public appearances, but the theme was pretty consistent — people are getting tired of the foot-dragging on the council.

The first bit of forward movement in the meeting came during the presentation and discussion regarding the Kentlands Commercial Special Study Area. This study area is comprised of the major shopping areas in Kentlands, including Kentlands Square (with K-Mart, Giant Food and Lowes) and Market Square (with Whole Foods and the movie theater). In a memo circulated before the meeting, City Manager David Humpton laid out five alternative approaches to the required study. These ranged from a meeting of the stakeholders and a report by staff, to an “enhanced charrette with extensive pre-charrette data collection process”. In the discussion, the Council were focused on the latter approach and another option which simply called for the charrette itself. The primary concern in choosing between the two was the schedule — John Schlichting, who had been trying to get this process started for four years, in particular was concerned that the more extensive process would take too long. In the end, however, the Council decided to go with the more extensive process, given staff’s confidence that the process could culminate in a charrette still being held in September. A large portion — at least $100,000 — of the funding for this process will come from two of the three major property owners in the area.

Public appearances included statements three major topics:

• The Senior Center
• The anti-solicitation ordinance. Several Olde Towne residents spoke with growing frustration regarding the lack of progress on the anti-solicitation ordinance. In the last meeting where this came up, on January 2, the Council punted on a version of the ordinance which did not require a laborer center to be in place. At that time, the Council expressed overwhelming support for passing an ordinance once a laborer center was in place. Now that such a center appears to be on its way with implementation expected sometime in February, many who have been waiting for a year and a half for this situation to be resolved thought that the Council should have been doing something about the ordinance last night.
• The clock tower, and just generally the condition of Olde Towne. Several people spoke about the need to do something in Olde Towne that went beyond talking. The clock tower and its associated plaza — improvements to the City’s own public property — has been in the City’s plans for eight years, and it still is not fully funded. By contrast, The City took less than a year to come up with nearly a million dollars — about the same amount needed for the Olde Towne project — to rebuild a plaza in Kentlands to improve private property. The Olde Towne Charrette was in 2004, and there is still no sign of any forward progress in the area; all we have is the broken ground at a stalled residential project on North Summit. Perhaps one of the most compelling speakers here was the co-owner of Growlers, who spoke about his frustration with the condition of Olde Towne, and the difficulty he faces in bringing patrons into his restaurant for dinner when they are afraid of walking across the parking lot.

Other topics raised included the status of the special improvement district to restrict early-morning alcohol sales in Olde Towne (staff indicated that work was on-going), and concern over connections between Crown Farm and Washingtonian/Rio.

In the From the Mayor and Council session, the Council actually responded to the public statements in two areas. In the case of the clock tower and plaza, Henry Marraffa put forward a motion directing the City Manager to fully fund the project in FY08. There was much discussion over whether they could even do that (they decided that since the budget wasn’t approved yet that they could ask to have this placed in the next draft), whether the plaza should be included, and whether staff should also be directed to begin work on an RFP for the project. In the end it was decided to do the budget part but leave the implementation aspects until after a consultant — The Staubach Company, which is being hired to help market the Wye Site and the Fishman building (315 E Diamond Ave), two Olde Towne properties owned by the City, to developers — has a chance to comment on the plans.

The other response to public input was to direct the City Attorney to prepare a final draft of an anti-solicitation ordinance for the next meeting of the Mayor and Council, which as far as I know would be on February 20.

Additional information about the history of the anti-solicitation ordinance:

The idea of an anti-solicitation ordinance was first raised in the report of the Day Laborer Task Force, which was released in April of last year. For the next several months, the City seemed much more focused on finding a place for a day laborer center than in passing an ordinance that would give immediate relief to the historic district residents and restrict day laborers’ activities. However, these residents, especially several members of the task force itself, did not forget about this aspect, and repeatedly raised reminded the Council of this during public appearances through the Summer and into the Fall.

In October, when the City was considering the Festival Site, there was increasing pressure to do something about it. During the October 12 work session on the proposed site, a paper copy of a draft ordinance was circulated; by the next day it was available from the City’s website. This version contained a clause stating that the ordinance

shall not be enforced until, and shall only be enforced for so long as, a formal employment center is in operation within the corporate limits of the City of Gaithersburg or in the immediate vicinity.

On October 16, Assistant City Manager Tony Tomasello stated that he thought the ordinance would be ready for introduction by November 6 meeting. However, fifteen days later, the Festival deal fell through when the County was unable to negotiate a lease.

Rather than just go ahead with the ordinance as drafted, however, the City decided to change the ordinance to something that would apply regardless of the existence of a day laborer center. This version of the ordinance was what was introduced at the November 6 meeting, and was discussed at a highly contentious public hearing on November 20. In retrospect, it is almost as if the ordinance was re-written just to bring out the most vehement opposition possible. On January 2, the Council punted once again.

Even if the ordinance were to be passed as emergency legislation last night, it would still take twenty-one days before it would take effect, and the ordinance could have included the restriction that kept it from being enforced if no laborer center existed, as that would be less restrictive than the version that had gone to public hearing. There really was no good reason why, if they really intended to pass an anti-solicitation ordinance, that they could not have done so last night.

The City has published it’s Legislative Priorities for the 2007 session of the Maryland General Assembly. These are the things that, given their druthers, the City would have the legislature pass in the upcoming session. Key issues in here are:

• Yet more money for the Lakelands aquatic center
• More funding for the City police
• Funding for major transportation projects, specifically the CCT and the Watkins Mill Interchange
• Taxing authority issues: Exemption from the Metropolitan District Tax, authority to levy additional Hotel/Motel and Development Excise taxes
• Authority for a municipalities to be opt-out electrical aggregators. On the Takoma Park website, I found a PDF document from 2005 discussing this issue in detail. A couple of quotes from this document will go a long way toward explaining what they want to do:
  

  What is electricity deregulation?
  Generally, electricity deregulation refers to a state deciding that customers should be allowed to choose an electricity supplier by letting competition enter a market where only a regulated utility monopoly existed before. It is felt that the market forces of supply, demand, and competition will help to keep electricity costs low, and stimulate innovative new products and services that didn’t exist under regulation. Maryland began this process in 1999.

  So if there is supposed to be a choice of suppliers, why can’t we find any besides our existing utility?
  What has been found in every state where restructuring has been tried, including Maryland, is that competition only appears for large industrial customers. This is because electricity suppliers who try to recruit individual homeowners and small businesses quickly learn that the marketing expense is much too high per customer to make it worth their while, and they abandon the effort.

  What exactly is municipal aggregation?
  Aggregation in general refers to many customers joining together to form a buying group. Municipal aggregation refers specifically to the situation where a municipality organizes the pooling of its citizens to become the buying group. The municipality (or a group of them) then seeks out offers on behalf of its constituents to get a better price, terms and services than would be available to an individual.

  What is the “opt-out” part?
  If a municipality has to go out and recruit citizens to join the buying group (i.e. getting them to “opt-in” to the program), then just like when a business tries to do it, it is prohibitively expensive in time and money. Where aggregation can be successful is when it is allowed to be done another way using the so-called “opt-out” approach. This allows the city to publicly declare its intention to become an aggregating entity for its citizens through hearings and mailings, and all citizens are then included in the buying group unless they respond to the mailings or otherwise tell the municipality they wish to “opt-out” of the program.

  There’s a lot more detail in that document, but I think that this gives a pretty good idea of what’s going on. The document explains that forming such a buying group, where people would belong unless they explicitly bother to request exclusion, is not currently legal in Maryland; the proposed legislation is the thing that would make it legal to do this. It also asserts that the electrical utilities — PEPCO in particular — are opposed to this because it would force them to be more competitive.

Anyway, what follows is the complete text of the City’s 2007 legislative agenda, as posted on their website:

City of Gaithersburg State Legislative Priorities for 2007
Posted 12/27/2006

FUNDING

Regional Aquatic/Recreation Center - Bond Bill Needed for Construction

• Additional funding is needed to move forward with this project on Route 28 and Edison Park Drive that will serve both City and County residents.
• The project is now in design phase.
• Gaithersburg has committed $9.5 million.
• Montgomery County has committed $6 million.
• Crown Farm project developers have committed $5 million.
• $1 million bond bill is requested in the 2007 legislative session so we can move to the construction phase.

Police - State Aid Requested to Improve Public Safety

• Maryland provides $1,800 in state aid for each sworn municipal police officer. This figure has not increased since 1999.
• Additional state assistance is necessary for Gaithersburg to expand its force, which currently stands at 49 sworn officers.
• The Maryland Municipal League has made increasing this aid a key component of its legislative agenda.

TRANSPORTATION

Watkins Mill Road Interchange - Engineering Funds Need to be Increased

• The Watkins Mill Road Interchange at I-270 is critical.
• It will aid economic development and reduce congestion at one of the busiest intersections in Montgomery County
• The City and County are working with developers on the Watkins Mill Road extension.
• Gaithersburg recently approved a Road Participation Agreement that would provide for build-out in two years.
• Gaithersburg has secured 65% of the Interchange right-of-way at no cost to the state. Efforts are underway to secure the rest.
• The Interchange is in the engineering phase, but there are not adequate engineering funds earmarked for this project in FY 2008.
• The proposed Consolidated Transportation Plan only calls for $800,000 and the Department of Transportation notes that an additional $7.8 million is needed for engineering.

Corridor Cities Transitway - Make a Top Funding Priority

• Congestion on I-270 has reached intolerable levels.
• The Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT), which is supported by municipalities along the route, provides an effective light rail alternative to commuters.
• The entire right-of-way throughout the City of Gaithersburg is available for construction, and the land for the transit stations has been set aside.
• This project needs to be the next major transportation initiative in Maryland.

LEGISLATION

Metropolitan District Tax - Exempt Gaithersburg and Rockville

• Gaithersburg requests a Bi-County bill establishing that properties annexed into the City of Gaithersburg or City of Rockville since 1965 not be subject to the Metropolitan District Tax.
• This tax is used to support parks operated by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
• It has never been assessed on properties located within Gaithersburg or Rockville, but a recent County Attorney’s opinion has determined that properties annexed in either City should be subject to the tax.
• Both Gaithersburg and Rockville have their own extensive parks systems and recreational programs that are funded by the respective City’s property tax revenues.

Hotel/Motel Tax- Allow Municipalities to Assess

• The City of Gaithersburg currently has 14 hotels operating within City limits.
• They require additional public services such as police protection.
• Gaithersburg requests that enabling legislation be approved allowing municipalities to assess a 3% hotel/motel tax.
  
• Most counties and the City of Baltimore currently charge a hotel/motel tax, but other municipalities do not have the authority to assess a tax of this nature

Municipal Opt-Out Electrical Aggregation- Approve

• Deregulation has not produced meaningful competition in Maryland, and our residents’ electric utility rates continue to increase.
• Like municipalities across this State, the City of Gaithersburg would like to seek competitive bids from electric providers on behalf of our residents.
• We are requesting that the General Assembly approve municipal opt-out electrical aggregation this year.

Development Excise Taxes- Enact Enabling Legislation

• The City of Gaithersburg is supportive of Rockville’s request for enabling legislation that would permit municipalities to charge development excise taxes to assist in providing the infrastructure necessary to support new development

Note that the City has posted the video of last night’s meeting.

The meeting was about as low-key as it appeared from the agenda. Everything that was up for a vote was approved, with only some abstentions on the approval of some of the minutes. Items of note:

• Stanley Alster was elected Council Vice President
• Public appearances brought several people who spoke about day laborers and illegal immigrants. There were some responses and reaction to the previous meeting’s public appearances, especially as regards to the anti-solicitation ordinance and David Rocha’s performance. One speaker encouraged the City to make English the official language in the City, while another speaker reiterated her opposition to Mr. Halici’s appication to tear down the Talbott House.
• In the From the Mayor and Council segment, Mr. Schlichting raised the topic of sponsoring a Charrette to consider design issues related to the Kentlands commerical district, preferably by Spring of next year. This brought a fair amount of discussion, which was not universally supportive of the idea. The Mayor and most of the Council generally agreed that the Corridor Cities Transitway alignment (which Mr. Schlichting mentioned as one of the issues facing Kentlands) was important to the City, but there was some disagreement as to how much of a window was left for influencing the final alignment, and how the arrival of a new administration in Annapolis will affect the process. Other concerns included the funding of the Charrette process, whether the planning process should even be a Charrette, and the level of interest in this activity from the business and property owners in Kentlands.
• The City Manager, clearly in response to the the sign incident at the previous Council meeting, circulated to the Mayor and the Council members a statement of a new policy that he planned to post at the entrance to the City Council chambers. This new policy would state that, during Council meetings, participants would not be allowed to hold signs in such a way as to disrupt the proceedings or block the view of the audience or cameras. The Mayor and Council agreed with the plan, and Mr. Humpton noted that the Mayor had agreed to enforce the policy in future meetings. Unofficially, I expect that this will become known as “the Rocha rule”.
• Mr. Roman gave his presentation on the overcrowding and illegal occupation problem in the City. In the discussion that followed, Mr. Roman was asked several questions about enforcement. Apparently the City inspectors can only enter a private home to inspect if the owner consents. However, if there is probable cause — and formal and detailed complaints from the public, which are allowed to be filed anonymously, are important factors in demonstrating probable cause — the inspectors are able to obtain administrative search warrants, allowing them to enter and inspect a home without the owners consent. In addition to fines that may be levied against a property owner, which can be one-time fines or even fines that are levied for every day the property is out of compliance, the City does have the ability to condemn a property, making it illegal to occupy until the problems are corrected. Several among the Council expressed concern that perhaps the fines — often in the hundreds of dollars — are not high enough to act as an effective deterrent. In Mr. Roman’s presentation, one suggestion was that fines for repeat offenders be raised; and the sympathies of the Council were clearly in this direction, if not also to raise the fines for first-time offenders.
• In the discussion of the proposed financial assistance for the Bozzuto project, the principal concern was that the assistance would only be made available to purchasers who would be living in the property — that it was exclusively directed at encouraging owner-occupied housing.
• Regarding the defibrillator ordinance, the only substantiative question that I recall was whether this ordinance would also apply to swimming facilities; it was unclear that it did, and Mr. Felton promised to look into this. As it was a public hearing, one member of the public rose to speak in favor of the ordinance, and also to recommend that the City consider placing these units in police cruisers.
• The HDC convened largely to elect officers — in a remarkable coincidence, Commissioner Katz was elected Chair, and Commissioner Alster the vice chair — to approve three sets of minutes, and to state that they would be holding a closed executive session after the Council meeting.

Following is the Outcomes posted by the City:
Read the rest of this entry »

Update: The City has published an Outcomes document for this meeting, as well as the Video, two parts: Part 1, Part 2.

The agenda for Monday Night’s Council meeting is extensive — more than two dozen items in seventeen segments — so I’ll just hit a few highlights here. Refer to the agenda as posted on the City’s website for complete details.

• The City Manager’s Day Laborer Report. As this is the first meeting since the failure of the Festival site, I have no idea what Mr. Humpton might have to say here.
• Joint public hearing on SDP-06-005 for Crown Farm. I’ve discussed this previously.
• The draft anti-solicitation ordinance.
• T-379, affordable housing ordinance. Note that the latest background materials reflect the planning commission’s recommendation for alternative 2 of the ordinance, which treats Olde Towne as a special case. The planning commission also suggested that the ordinance “require affordable housing as Olde Towne approaches the same levels of vitality as the remainder of the City”, although this would happen automatically if my suggestion — that the ordinance merely be sensitive to the amount of affordable housing near any proposed project — were implemented.
• The 120-day deferral ordinance, which in my estimation is probably dead in the water, given the progress on T-379. One interesting aspect of this, however, is the list given in the background materials of all the redevelopment projects currently under consideration. This is yet another bit-mapped PDF, so what follows is OCR’d, and the original document should be consulted before commenting. I’m more or less familiar with almost all of the projects listed here except for the last one, for “redeveloping several blocks of North Frederick Avenue”. I find this quite interesting, because the entirety of North Frederick Ave is not much more than “several” blocks long in the first place. Such a project could have a major impact on what many people see as “Gaithersburg”.

  But my primary reaction to this is that it really is a sad state of affairs; it is a litany of failure, uncertainty and stalemate. Money continues to flow into greenfield developments such as Crown Farm and Watkins Mill Town Center as if it were water over the Niagara. But when it comes to Olde Towne revitalization, we see at best a slow drip from a leaky faucet, most of it evaporating before it can serve any useful purpose. At this rate, I don’t think that the Planning Commission really has to worry all that much about Olde Towne “[approaching] the same levels of vitality as the remainder of the City” any time soon.

  West Deer Park Apartments (198 units)-RST Development has indicated they can not move forward with this redevelopment due to adjustments in the housing market and high costs of materials.

  Executive Garden Apartments (85 units)-Property was recently purchased, and developer has showed staff a concept plan for redevelopment. Concept plan shows 78 townhouse units. Staff has told the developer that we believe the plan is too dense, lacking green space, and is severely under parked. Developer maintains that this project will only be economically viable if he can build 78 units. To date, formal application has not been submitted.

  Water Street (52 units)-The same developer that purchased Executive Gardens has 52 units on Water Street under contract. While he has not yet produced a concept plan, he recently indicated that he would not move forward with purchasing the properties unless the City was supportive of the density he was proposing for Executive Gardens.

  Stratford Place Apartments (350 units)-Property owner has requested that the Mayor and City Council approve a text amendment that would allow a waiver for four stories in the residential portion of the CD zone. This text amendment is scheduled for policy discussion on December 4, 2006. If the text amendment is approved, the property owner has indicated he will be filing a request for rezoning and a schematic development plan requesting approval of a mixed-use residential development including townhouses, apartments, and two-over-two condominiums.

  East Diamond Avenue consolidation (73 units)-Staff is still working with a developer and the property owners of three small apartment complexes who would like to redevelop this area with fairly high density apartments. During a work session on May 30, 2006, the City Council indicated general support for the project but expressed concern about the scale and density of the project. To date, no application has been submitted.

  Frederick Avenue consolidation (75 units)-Several months ago, staff met with a group of developers that expressed an interest in redeveloping several blocks of North Frederick Avenue that included several commercial buildings and 75 apartments. To the best of staffs knowledge, the developer does not have the apartments under contract and has not prepared a plan.

• Proposed Legislative Priorities for the 2007 General Assembly Legislative Session. Most of what is listed in the background document seems pretty straightforward, and I’m happy to see a couple of items in there about increasing funding for public safety. However, I’m quite curious about the first listed item:
  

  A bond bill for City Capital project(s).

  What could this possibly mean? The City is not especially given to borrowing money for capital projects, and in fact they have frequently been criticized for not doing this. Does this item indicate a change? Or am I completely missing their intent here?

• Financial incentives for the Bozzuto project on North Summit. That project is currently languishing, with nothing but bulldozed dirt and a sales office at the corner of Park & Summit (as of this writing the local.live.com image shows the corner before the houses were torn down). It’s being proposed that the City would provide such incentives as down payment assistance to prospective buyers of homes in this new project. Will we ever see an unsubsidized redevelopment project in Olde Towne again?

Several items in this week’s Gaithersburg Gazette:

• Push is on for light rail along upcounty transitway, by Melissa A. Chadwick
  
  

  ‘‘It ought to be a light-rail project, which will attract more riders,” said Congressman Albert R. Wynn (D-Dist. 4) of Mitchellville.

  Other officials agreed.

  ‘‘I have never seen economic development around a bus stop,” said State Sen. Robert J. Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown. ‘‘It needs to be rail.”

  Thirty-one elected officials, community activists and candidates for state and county office signed a petition of support for a light-rail CCT.

  The group also unveiled a marketing campaign for the project, declaring the CCT is ‘‘Good to Go.”

  Maryland’s Secretary of Transportation Robert L. Flanagan said in a telephone interview on Monday that the Department of Transportation is reviewing both the light-rail and bus options and will choose the better mode of transit sometime next year.

  ‘‘It is our responsibility to develop the best light-rail alternative and the best bus-route alternative,” he said.

  It is too early to know which will be best, he said.

  This was the event I blogged about earlier.

• Developer asks to re-lease West Deer Park apartments, by Jaime Ciavarra
  
  

  ‘‘[T]he redevelopment of this property for townhomes … is simply not feasible and cannot be financed,” Scott Copeland, principal of RST Development, wrote in an Oct. 18 letter to Mayor Sidney A. Katz. ‘‘On the other hand, by retaining it for rental units … we will address a market where there is a housing shortage.”

  The shift is a first in city history, and planners are researching how and when returning the buildings to rental units could be approved, said Greg Ossont, the city’s planning and code director.

  The city already authorized a new site plan for the construction of luxury townhouses in January 2005. To return to rental units, RST will have to go back before the Planning Commission and may need to add measures — such as more parking spaces — to bring the buildings up to current code.

  ‘‘It’s not as simple as tearing the fence down and renting them out,” Ossont said. ‘‘The city needs to go through the legal planning process again. We’ve got a lot of question marks at this point.”

  This is an ongoing story.

• Spanish Catholic Center moves again, this time to Olde Towne, by Sebastian Montes
  
  

  The Spanish Catholic Center first opened its Gaithersburg branch in 1986, most recently operating out of cramped offices on East Deer Park Drive. After the move to Olde Towne, the center plans to be up and running today.

  The new building is at 415 East Diamond Ave. In July, the City Council rejected the site as the site for a day-laborer center.

  In its job placement program, the SCC sees 60 to 70 workers from across the upcounty four days a week, last year providing more than 8,000 employment leads. At two informational sessions each morning — the first for men, the second for women — the SCC does not ask a worker their immigration status.

  I don’t know where to begin on this one. The whole day laborer thing started when the SCC was at 117 N Frederick. Also, is there a reason why the SCC would not consider contracting to run the proposed day labor center in Festival?

The City has released several documents related to SDP-06-005, the Crown Farm Project. In the form of twenty-seven Acrobat PDF files, the documents cover many aspects of the proposed Crown Farm development, including design guidelines, materials, streets, landscaping, utilities, traffic calming, and affordable housing (MPDU) distribution. This SDP will be discussed in public hearing at the November 6, 2006 regular meeting of the Mayor & Council, in joint session with the Planning Commission; I’ve mentioned this upcoming meeting in a previous post.

While some of the documents — for example the natural resources inventory — cover the entire Crown Farm property, the documents which go into the greatest detail cover only neighborhoods two and three.

The current Gaithersburg edition of the Town Courier also had a brief article about the release of these documents.

Below are some images extracted from the online PDFs:

A coalition of light-rail advocates is planning a publicity event to be held at Shady Grove Metro at 8:00 am next Monday, October 23. From their press release:

On Monday 10-23 at 8:00 AM, coalition representatives including business leaders, community activists, and city, county, and state officials will be at the Shady Grove Metro station to officially announce their campaign support for the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT), an extension of the Metro’s Red Line that goes from Shady Grove to Clarksburg. They seek the support of commuters and other citizens for county, state and federal funding of the service.

I also received an email from Ben Ross, of Action Committee for Transit, informing me of what I assume is the same event. But more interesting, to me, was an article by Mr. Ross that was linked to from ACT’s website, entitled “Stuck in Traffic: Free-Market Theory Meets the Highway Lobby”. Quoting,

Put a conservative in the driver’s seat, and he can sound like a utopian Marxist. If you ask him about food, housing, or health care, he’ll explain how buying it and selling it in the marketplace creates the best of all possible worlds. But his car has an inalienable right to free parking and open roads. “To each automobile according to its needs” is a truth so self-evident that it need not be uttered.

One of [public policy consultant Wendell] Cox’s favorite arguments against new light rail lines, for example, is that the cost of construction is enough to buy a Mercedes for each future rider. Not factored into this computation is the price of the road the Mercedes will drive on — no small item when a new highway in the Washington, DC, suburbs is expected to cost $39,000 for each daily round trip that crosses its busiest point. But since roads — as Cox likes to see the world — are as free as the air we breathe, railroads must be wasteful because they run on expensive tracks!

On one project that has just broken ground, the widening of a ten mile stretch of I 95 north of Baltimore, the tolls won’t even raise enough money to cover the extra costs of building toll lanes instead of free lanes. A trip is expected to cost around $1.50 in rush hour and 50¢ at other times. The revenues these charges will yield can be estimated from experience on [California] SR 91; both have the same length and number of toll lanes, and tolls will be adjusted so both carry the same number of paying vehicles. Current tolls on SR 91 run four or five times higher that what is predicted for I 95 and bring in $39 million a year, so annual revenues for the I 95 toll lanes should be in the vicinity of $8 to $10 million. But putting toll lanes on the highway requires extra access ramps, so construction will cost $270 million more than adding the same number of free lanes. The toll revenue won’t even be enough to cover the interest on the extra $270 million, let alone pay the entire $830 million price of widening the highway.

I highly recommend that everyone interested in these issues go read the rest of Mr. Ross’s article.

I’d like to highlight a few letters in this week’s Gazette:

• David B. Humpton: City ‘committed to finding the right solution’ to day labor center issue
  

  The Sept. 27 Gazette editorial (‘‘Breaking the day labor stalemate”) criticized the city of Gaithersburg for its inability to find a site for a day laborer employment center. With terms like ‘‘flat footed” and ‘‘sitting on their hands,” the editorial unilaterally dismissed the efforts of an entire community to find a solution.

  […]

  This has been one of the most difficult issues we’ve encountered in Gaithersburg. Public input has been passionate on both sides. With no support from the federal level, local jurisdictions are left on their own to struggle with the quality of life and public safety issues that surround day laborer gathering sites. Have our deliberations taken a long