Politics & Government

Forum on Midcounty Corridor Overrun

Officials want to reschedule in late September.

Scores of frustrated residents overwhelmed a forum on the Midcounty Corridor Study, forcing county officials to shut down the meeting on the analysis of ways to accommodate more north-south traffic between Gaithersburg and Germantown.

Up to 65 people can fit in the boardroom at the North Creek Community Center in Montgomery Village. More than 200 showed up for Monday night’s meeting. The turnout ran afoul of the fire code and defeated the purpose of holding an informational meeting.

"There’d be so many people stuck outside who couldn’t hear what was said," said Catherine Matthews, director of the Upcounty Regional Services Center. "The worst thing is to have people go off thinking they heard what we said."

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Matthews is looking to reschedule the meeting for sometime in late September.

In November, Montgomery County’s Department of Transportation announced the alternatives of the Midcounty Corridor Study:

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  • Alternative 1: No build
  • Alternative 2: Transportation Management system
  • Alternative 4: widen Muncaster Mill, Snouffer School, Goshen, Wightman and Brink roads
  • Alternative 5: widen Route 355 (with service roads)
  • Alternative 8: build the M-83 master plan alignment north from Watkins Mill Road
  • Alternative 9: build the M-83 master plan alignment
  • Three alignments (A, B and D) for building M-83

Much of the rancor is being fueled by alarm over Alternative 4, adding new fire to a controversy that has simmered since 1985, when the county planned for extending Midcounty Highway from Montgomery Village Avenue north to Clarksburg (M-83).

Monday night’s meeting arose out of a July 7 meeting at North Creek in which County Executive Isiah Leggett heard residents’ grievances with being caught off-guard by modifications to Alternative 4.

"We were just shocked," said Jane Hatch, president of the Northgate Homes Corp. "Our homes are immediately up against the county right-of-way. … Please, take this god-awful alternative off the table. It terrifies people. This has just cropped up out of nowhere. We have people who will not repair their homes. We have people who think they need to sell immediately."

Upon hearing the outcry, Leggett (D) agreed to set up a meeting with DOT.

Neither Leggett nor the county’s Department of Transportation have declared their favorite, but not completing the study fully “will create more of a problem going forward,” Leggett said, inviting lawsuits that all the options weren’t considered.

"I want to do this right," he said.


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