The region’s Transportation Planning Board has voted to remove Maryland’s I-495/I-270 toll project from its long-term plans, putting the future of the project in question.

The vote was based on the project’s incomplete environmental impact assessment. Board members want a more complete look at how projects would affect climate change through a process called air quality conformity analysis. The motion to remove the project came from Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich’s office.

Montgomery County Councilmember Evan Glass, who has opposed the project, celebrated the vote. “This is essentially a vote of no confidence for the project,” Glass said. “Our actions prohibit the federal government from approving the environmental reports.”

TPB Chair and D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen said in a tweet that he was happy to join Maryland colleagues in halting the project.

“Whether we’re trying to address greenhouse gas emissions or better options for regional transit, this was not the right solution,” Allen said. “Most local Maryland officials agreed and I’m happy to support them as chair.”

Gov. Larry Hogan has touted the four toll-lane expansion as a key way to reduce congestion along some of the region’s heaviest trafficked highways. Hogan’s office has not returned a request for comment.

In a statement, the Maryland Department of Transportation said the vote was detrimental in a number of ways.

“Today’s decision is a vote against easing congestion across the American Legion Bridge, one of the most significant bridges in the nation and largest traffic bottlenecks in the nation, jeopardizing a bi-partisan agreement across the Potomac. It’s a vote against providing reliable bus service across the American Legion Bridge… It’s a vote against Maryland’s economic recovery, infrastructure investment and the creation of thousands of jobs. It’s a vote against private investment that would unlock state and federal funding in the Transportation Trust Fund for projects across the state.”

MDOT says the state is “not prepared to give up on any of that, and will continue to work toward solutions that will provide congestion relief.”

Some officials on the TPB say Maryland could try to heavily revamp the project to meet climate goals and bring it back at a later time. County officials say the state should create reversible lanes that can accommodate morning and evening rush hours.

The TPB vote also drew stinging criticism from driver lobbying group AAA.

“It is singularly one of the worst decisions in the history of the TPB. Instead of investing in transportation, the TPB is creating huge problems for our transportation tomorrow when the region once again suffers from some of the worst congestion in the entire nation,” the group told Maryland Matters.

The board is made up of elected officials from 24 jurisdictions and department staff from places like the Maryland Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and WMATA.

So how can a regional body overturn a state project?

“Among its federal requirements, the TPB must ensure that the ozone-related emissions from projects in the long-range plan, taken collectively, conform to the limits established in the region’s air quality plans,” according to board documents.

Projects must be included in the TPB’s long-range Vision 2045 plan in order to be considered for federal approval. The project is using a public-private partnership, though, which Hogan says will not cost taxpayers and won’t need federal funding.

The TPB rarely pushes back on projects, but momentum to stop the project has been building among some of Maryland’s local leaders for years. The board said it wanted to meet climate goals laid out and that the project wouldn’t help in achieving those goals, but would rather encourage more people to drive. Many board members say MDOT did not prove how the project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Proponents of the project say it would reduce congestion by expanding the American Legion Bridge, a major bottleneck, and create a smooth experience by connecting Maryland’s toll lanes with Virginia’s toll lane network. They say it would also provide major economic and quality of life benefits to residents in Maryland and the entire region.

MDOT’s Deputy Secretary for planning, Earl Lewis, said during the meeting that the project would reduce congestion by using high-occupancy toll lanes, which incentivizes carpooling and transit use that avoids tolls.

“I think our citizens will be very disappointed if we do not take proper action to move forward projects that make a difference in their lives every day,” Lewis said.

Lewis mentioned sitting in traffic for 25 minutes while trying to visit his kids in Northern Virginia on a Saturday.

Environmentalists say the project’s environmental process was rushed, incomplete, and shouldn’t move forward. Many have suggested transit and commuter train improvements instead of building more roads.

“This (vote) reinforces that Gov. Hogan’s Beltway/I-270 proposal is bad for the climate and doesn’t have the support it needs to move forward,” Josh Tulkin, director of the Maryland Sierra Club said. “We must pull the plug on this project and go back to the drawing board to plan for a sustainable, equitable transportation future that actually addresses congestion.”

“The unifying theme in today’s vote was the overwhelming concern of elected officials about climate change. It motivated the vote to remove the toll lane project and to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our region’s transportation sector,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

“This vote forces revisions and delay if it does not kill the toll lane scheme entirely,” Ben Ross, chair of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, which has opposed the project, said in a statement. “If the Board of Public Works goes ahead with the proposed contract next month, it will be voting to waste $50 million of Maryland taxpayer money.”

The board is soon set to vote on a preliminary contract with private partners Transurban and Macquarie to develop the toll lane proposal.

But the project has changed over time in response to community input. Last month, Maryland cut back the scope of the project from building HOT lanes from around the entire Beltway to just the portion from the American Legion Bridge at the Potomac River to I-370 near Gaithersburg.

It’s unclear what the vote means for the joint American Legion Bridge project that Virginia and Maryland agreed to undertake in 2019.

In the middle of a roll call vote on another issue, Virginia Department of Transportation officials tried to move to separate the bridge project from the larger toll lane project. They were overruled by Chair Allen because they didn’t properly take up the issue according to meeting rules.

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich’s office says that the project to replace the bridge should be a national infrastructure priority funded through a federal infrastructure program.

Vote cut across jurisdictional lines

Board members voted 16-13 to remove the project from the long-range plan. But that vote was then converted into a weighted vote based on the population of each jurisdiction, which still led to the same outcome: 9.2 yes to 5.7 no.

Most Maryland jurisdictions voted to remove the project including College Park, Frederick County, Greenbelt, Laurel, the Montgomery County Executive’s office, the Montgomery County Council representative, the Prince George’s County Executive’s office, and the Prince George’s Council rep, Rockville, Takoma Park, the Maryland House of Delegates representative.

“This project does nothing to move our region forward,” Rockville Mayor Bridget Newton said. “Not in social justice, not in environmental justice, and it’s not the way we should be going.”

The Maryland Department of Transportation representative, Frederick City, and Gaithersburg voted no. Some, like Charles County, abstained.

Kelly Russell, an alderman for the City of Frederick, said the toll lane project was the only way for her city to get better commuter bus options towards D.C.

“We’re not going to get MARC (commuter) rail, we’re not going to get a Metro station… our option is commuter bus and the only way to move consistently dependable commuter bus is with these toll lanes,” she said.

D.C. elected officials voted yes, with the agency officials abstaining. Most of the Virginia localities voted no except for Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax City representatives.

The board also took action to make sure future projects have a more robust environmental analysis.

Starting in 2022, projects will be required to be measured for their greenhouse goal emissions –– a level of analysis that is currently not done. The TPB would review regional projects and itemize them based on their climate impact.