The Montgomery County executive disputed claims from the chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors that Maryland intentionally isn’t fixing the crawling traffic near the Legion and Wilson bridges.
Chairman Jeff McKay claimed Maryland’s motive was to keep workers in Maryland by discouraging them from traveling to Virginia.
“I think they believe that if people can't get across the two bridges, they'll stop coming to Virgina to work, and ultimately, they'll take jobs in Maryland, and that will help their economic development,” McKay said. “To me, that is the most absurd economic development vision of all time."
"If he had that concern, I wish he would have just picked up the phone and just called me and said, What's going on?" County Executive Marc Elrich said.
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Elrich said funding — not jobs — is the reason traffic isn't getting fixed. A new American Legion Bridge, for example, is heavily reliant on federal money.
Elrich said he thinks McKay is just frustrated.
“Because they’re going to be at the bridge with their project, and our project is nowhere near started,” Elrich said. “I get the frustration, but there's no intentionality to blocking this. I just want to assure the supervisor nobody on our side is trying to delay or stop the building of this bridge."
Currently, there's no concrete plan to fix the Legion Bridge or mitigate traffic at the Wilson Bridge.
Maryland's Department of Transportation told News4 it is committed to working with Virginia on a path forward with the bridges.
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