Temporary bus-only lanes along Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda and Chevy Chase, and along Rockville Pike in North Bethesda and White Flint, will be removed next week, the Maryland State Highway Administration announced yesterday. Starting Monday, September 7, all vehicles will again be able to use the lanes. MDSHA crews will work overnight between September 7 and September 11 to remove the bus lane markings, and restore painted lines destroyed by the project.
Montgomery County elected officials were applying heavy pressure to MDSHA behind the scenes to make the temporary bus lanes permanent as late as this week. When ABC 7 News reporter Tom Roussey asked MDSHA on Tuesday if the lanes would be left in place after the Metro station shutdown ended next week, the MDSHA spokesperson was
unable to answer his question. This shows just how intense the pressure from County politicians was, as MDSHA had sworn up and down that these lanes were temporary, and would not typically be waiting until the last minute to schedule overnight road work.
By Thursday, MDSHA - in a rare return to professionalism in an agency that has become increasingly politicized over the last decade - declared that it would indeed be removing the lanes, as promised. MDSHA further told Roussey in a
follow-up interview Thursday that the data the agency collected during the lane closures this summer "showed the best decision was to remove all bus-only lanes along Route 355." In other words, giving buses their own lanes does not generate more commuter throughput than automobiles can, no matter how many explainer graphics anti-highway radicals post on X. Of course,
residents of Staten Island could have told them that ten years ago.
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One of many Metro shuttles seen
traveling in the center or left lanes of MD 355,
despite having been given its own exclusive bus lane |
Montgomery County's War-on-cars elected officials - all of whom hypocritically drive to "work" at their very-part-time Council "jobs" - must be
furious with MDSHA at this hour. The agency not only vetoed their wishes, and foiled their Trojan horse scheme to achieve a permanent 33% in reduction of vehicular capacity on a major commuter route for two counties, but also made public that the data shows County officials are dead wrong in their claims regarding bus lanes and BRT. Again, this is how MDSHA and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation used to function up until the last decade. They would regularly veto and reject the wishes and whims of rabid, radical politicians when they conflicted with traffic engineering best practices. I would strongly encourage MDSHA to use Thursday's decision as a turning point to restore the agency's previously sterling reputation for professionalism and independence.
We've also got to credit the public for being more engaged this time, compared to when the County successfully cajoled MDSHA into making similar "temporary" lanes - in similar "Metro stations are closed!" Trojan horse fashion - permanent in Silver Spring a few years ago. MDSHA and WMATA heard loud and clear the outrage from drivers on the already-congested MD 355, on which MCDOT still does not synchronize the traffic signals during rush hour to not turn red at every block. Stay engaged, and make your displeasure effective by voting these bums out in November.
