They complain of being virtual prisoners in their neighborhoods and of emergency vehicles that get delayed in miles-long traffic backups. They argue that Routes 50 and 301 and arterial roads are already jammed with “through” traffic, particularly during the morning and afternoon commutes and on weekends during beach season. Many Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s residents oppose a third span near the existing crossings. The Federal Highway Administration issued its “record of decision” in tandem with a final environment impact statement on April 14. There would also be an analysis of how traffic and the environment would be impacted by a decision not to expand capacity. The next study would also consider a broad range of environmental and traffic impacts associated with construction and operation of a new bridge and the state would be required to identify its funding source. A “Tier 2” study would produce an exact location for a third span, “within the two-mile-wide Selected Corridor Alternative.” In approving Maryland’s “Tier 1” analysis, federal officials paved the way for the state to advance to the next phase in the process. The Maryland Transportation Authority studied 14 potential options for a new bridge before selecting “Corridor 7,” the area adjacent to the two spans that connect the Annapolis area and Queen Anne’s County. Photo by khalid/.įederal highway officials have given the go-ahead for Maryland to move forward with plans to build a new Chesapeake Bay crossing near the existing Bay Bridge spans. Maryland just needs the will to look at this idea seriously.Maryland has federal approval to move forward with plans to build a new Chesapeake Bay crossing near the existing Bay Bridge spans. It’s certainly more complicated than that, but where there’s will there’s a way. The ferries could be commissioned and operated in a private-public partnership and paid for with passenger fees. Imagine leaving your car at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County or at Port Covington in Baltimore City and taking a battery-powered ferry to Rock Hall for the day. Visitors could avoid the bridges altogether and take an electric-powered ferry from Annapolis for a day trip to Crisfield, or perhaps from Edgewater to Romancoke, or from Chesapeake Beach to Tilghman Island, or maybe Havre de Grace to Betterton. The emphasis is tourism - the ferry as a way of giving more people access to more stops along the bay. I bring the subject up again in my Wednesday column in The Baltimore Sun because a consortium of five Maryland counties is about to undertake a feasibility study on a “sustainable ferry service” to connect destinations along the bay.
(And, of course, greatly reduce greenhouse emissions.)
My argument against building a $10 billion third span is that a fleet of car-carrying, electric-powered ferries, originating at multiple points along the bay, could not only drain traffic away from the bridges but take Marylanders and tourists to points they can’t access by water unless they own a boat. And the dominant suggestion now is that we build a third bridge at the same point - a 20th Century idea in the 21st Century. For those on the western shore who want to reach the Eastern Shore and Ocean City, we have created a bottleneck at the bridges by offering that passage as the only one for the masses. There are 2 million more Marylanders today than lived in the state in 1973. But since the 1950s, when the first Bay Bridge was completed - the second span opened in 1973 - we’ve been sending all traffic to the narrowest point between the western and eastern shores, between Sandy Point and Kent Island. Look at a map of the huge Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay and there are numerous places where you could make a crossing by boat in a reasonable amount of time.
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