Montgomery County planning sneaky speed limit cut on Josiah Henson Parkway

The Montgomery County Planning Board is on the verge of approving a War on Cars draft of the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways at its meeting this Thursday, April 10, 2025. Removal of the M-83 Highway (Midcounty Highway Extended) is the centerpiece of the document. Opponents of the highway have successfully blocked its construction for decades, but anti-highway officials on the Planning Board and County Council are seeking to take matters a deranged step further by removing any possibility of its construction, despite it being the most-essential piece of infrastructure to support the growth upcounty that has already been approved and realized over the last twenty years. Also buried within the document are thousands of speed limit reductions to 20 or 25 MPH, even on major state highways.

Just one of many egregious speed limit cuts proposed is on Josiah Henson Parkway, between the "Western edge of downtown White Flint" and E. Jefferson Street, and from E. Jefferson Street to Towne Road. The change would lower the speed limit from 40 MPH to 25 MPH. In addition, the street classification of Josiah Henson Parkway (a.k.a. Montrose Parkway) would be changed from "parkway" to "Downtown Boulevard."

If this sounds familiar, it's because it has already happened elsewhere in the County. Developers seeking to demolish homes, churches, and country clubs along major state highways, and replace them with urban apartment towers, were successful in politicizing the Maryland State Highway Administration during the Larry Hogan administration. Formerly staunch advocates of sound traffic engineering best practices, MDSHA became a political playtoy amenable to any request from local officials beholden to development interests. This led to major speed limit cuts on highways like Georgia Avenue and River Road.

Josiah Henson Parkway is a County road, and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation was politicized even earlier this century than MDSHA was. The speed limit drop and street reclassification request for the parkway is being made (surprise!) on behalf of developers who are seeking to redevelop the land around it. This is yet another abuse of the system in Montgomery County. Not only was our master plan highway system never completed, but we have a continual effort to further cripple the congested roadways that somehow got built. Taxpayers were charged a fortune to build Josiah Henson Parkway, a mere shadow of the Rockville Freeway that was originally intended to use this right-of-way between Falls Road in Potomac and the InterCounty Connector in Silver Spring. Further impeding the (already-compromised) vehicle throughput function of the road we paid for, to facilitate private developer profits, is an abuse, theft, and misuse of public property.

The revision of the master plan of highways is a massive compendium of many such abuses. Most of the public will be unaware of the changes proposed until the new speed limit signs are installed. The document is fully "woke," to be sure. And while planners are smugly proud of their newfound power to ram things through over any public objection - a.k.a. dictatorship - they are most proud of the document's "Racial Equity and Social Justice Statement," which pretty much tells you how insane and out-of-touch-with-reality planning and governing in Montgomery County have become.