Washington, D.C., regional board tables controversial toll road P3

A Washington, D.C., metropolitan planning board Wednesday tapped the brakes on adding new toll lanes to the Capital Beltway, but asked transportation officials from Virginia, which supports the project, to return in a year with a revamped plan.

The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, made up of members from Maryland, D.C. and Virginia local governments, voted unanimously not to include the I-495 Southside Express Lanes project in its long-range “Visualize 2050” strategic plan. The vote essentially deferred consideration of the controversial toll lanes until 2026.

“They basically punted it until the next administration,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation.

The “strategic logic” is that with a Democratic administration likely in Virginia next year to align with Maryland’s current Democratic governor, “the project is more likely to move forward solely for political reasons,” Feigenbaum said.

“They hope that with Democratic leadership and maybe some different personalities it will be easier to move the project along,” he said. “A one-year delay is frustrating but not really all that shocking, and I think this is the best play to see if they can get it done.”

Heading into Virginia’s Nov. 4 gubernatorial election, Democrat Abigail Spanberger is considered the frontrunner although Republican Winsome Earle-Sears is gaining in some polls. Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is up for re-election next November.

Political support is key for controversial projects like toll road P3s. Maryland’s now-dead P3 plan to reconstruct the American Legion Bridge and build new tolled lanes on parts of I-270 flamed out after its top cheerleader, former Virginia Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, left office. Shortly after current Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who had expressed skepticism about using a P3 structure, took office the concessionaire pulled out. Moore said he would seek federal funds , but the project has since stalled.

Feigenbaum said Virginia could pursue the latest P3 express lanes project on its own, although it would be difficult from an engineering perspective, adding that Maryland lacks the money to pursue a traditional design-build structure.

At Wednesday’s transportation planning board meeting, chair Walter Alcorn said part of the problem was different planning processes in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

“This is a controversial project to say the least,” Alcorn said during the board meeting. “Virginia has a very different process for doing these big projects than Maryland does, and that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“The problem with this project is there’s not an agreement and consensus by the different jurisdictions through which the project would go,” he said. “There still needs to be more work to be done, but we’ll see,” he said. “The project is not dead.”

The current plan calls for 11 miles of new express lanes, two lanes in each direction, on the I-495 Capital Beltway from Fairfax County, Virginia, across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and to Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Virginia’s Department of Transportation, which has pushed for the project since 2022, has proposed it be structured as a design-build-operate-finance-maintain concession similar to the rest of I-495 toll lanes on the Virginia side, said Feigenbaum.

“It’s a fairly extensive project, not cheap and not simple,” he said.

The project does not yet have a price tag.