Unsnarl Traffic by Changing Governors

The choice is now extremely clear as to which direction Southern Maryland should look in the race for Governor.   With the pullout of Doug Duncan from the Democratic nomination election process, the choice will be between Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and Governor Robert Ehrlich.

For Southern Marylanders, there can only be one choice: O’Malley, and backing the Mayor is an easy decision due to his strong stand on improving transportation for Southern Maryland by adding a second span across the Patuxent at Solomon’s and getting started on commuter rail for the region.

Only a blind man with his hand in the pockets of the highway construction lobby cannot see that Routes 4, 235, 5, 301 and 231 are congested, stopped up, clogged, overloaded and otherwise a tangled web of malfunction junction.  The answer of Ehrlich has been a desperate attempt to block common sense solutions offered by Senator Roy Dyson, solutions which have been embraced by O’Malley.

Southern Maryland has three key bridges, all which have been habitually unprotected from terrorist attack no matter how much money the Ehrlich Administration has drained from the national treasury.  All of these bridges are simply two-lane structures designed decades ago for a time of rural passage. 

Southern Maryland has an existing CSX rail line to Morgantown and to Aquasco.   This rail line could be upgraded and MARC commuter trains added to the region within a short period of time with the MARC providing stations at key points.  This action would serve to get thousands of cars off the area’s roadways and link the region to the Washington-Baltimore area via Upper Marlboro and Bowie where this CSX Southern Maryland line meets the main north/south rail lines.

In addition, a railroad right of way already owned by the St. Mary’s Commissioners extends to Pax River from Hughesville and the General Assembly already conducted a feasibility study which urged the right-of-way be protected from any further encroachment, a warning which hasn’t been followed by the St. Mary’s Commissioners and worse yet, the State Highway Administration has ripped up a long stretch of the right-of-way as part of the Hughesville bypass.

You and everyone else sit in traffic every day in every part of the region as an endless series of crashes caused by aggressive and speeding motorists tie up our roads.  You have no alternative. 

The answer is to improve our transportation infrastructure and it takes a Governor in Annapolis who believes that goal is important to bring it about.  Former Governor and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer has already made a commitment to commuter rail for the region and he sits on the powerful Board of Public Works.  Now we need to change another member of that body by electing a new governor. 

Support Martin O’Malley for Governor.