April 16, 2008

by William H. Carroll, North Cleveland Park, Printed in the NW Current

The Federal Highway Administration is abusing application of the federal environmental process to legislation enacted by the District of Columbia Council requiring repair of a .7 mile section of Klingle Road, NW.  The process has been on a treadmill for nearly 50 months since FHWA and the District Department of Transportation issued a Notice of Intent to environmentally assess Klingle Road on March 17, 2004.   In contrast, information provided by FHWA identifies 64 recent road and bridge building and repair projects throughout the United States for which FHWA completed the full environmental process in less than 50 months.  For the 18.8 mile Inter-County Connector being built through parkland, stream beds, and residential areas in Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties, FHWA completed the federal environmental process in 36 months.

In March 9, 2007, FHWA forecast January, 2009 for release of the Klingle Road Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for public comment and July, 2009 for issuance of a Record of Decision (ROD).  That forecasted completion process would have lasted 65 months.  Since March 2007, FHWA has introduced further delays. The January and July 2009 dates have been slipped for an indeterminate period that will be far in excess of 65 months. 

Your April 9, 2008 article, Local funds may help launch Klingle project, states that some environmental groups decry the use of city funds to short circuit the federal environmental process.  Thirty-six months to assess the environmental impact of building a brand new 18.8 mile super highway through parks, stream beds and residential areas in Maryland and over 65 months to study repair of a .7 mile stretch of an existing public road in the District of Columbia? 

Rather than short-circuiting the federal environmental process, Mayor Fenty and Councilmember Graham recognize that the circuit is blown and wont be fixed in a reasonable time.  Their Klingle Road local funding initiative deserves the highest level of support.