The TAME Coalition and aligned transit, environmental, and community organizations need your help to permanently remove M83 highway—a flawed, community-harming, parkland-damaging, forest-destroying highway proposal—-from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways (Also see our ‘M83 Opposition’ page)
On September 12, 2024, the Montgomery County Planning Board held a public hearing on the update to the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways (MPOHT), where nearly a dozen people testified for removal of M83 highway from the MPOHT. Due to significant opposition to M83, the Planning Board, at its October 3, 2024 meeting, voted to hold another public hearing on the issue of M83 highway—its retention or removal from the MPOHT. https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/transportation/highway-planning/master-plan-of-highways-and-transitways/2024-technical-update/
This critical 2nd public hearing about the future existence of M83 highway is scheduled for November 14, 2024 at the County’s Planning Board hearing room, 2425 Reedie Drive, Wheaton, Maryland 20902. Tell the Planning Board to remove M83 from the Master Plan of Highways, and urge them to support sound, sensible transportation and transit alternatives to M83 that do not harm our natural resources, neighborhoods and public parkland. Please consider:
- Testifying at the Thursday, November 14, 2024 public hearing in Wheaton. Sign-up in advance is required by the County at: https://montgomeryplanningboard.org/meetings/signup-to-testify/
- Submitting an email or letter to the Planning Board at:
MCP-Chair@mncppc-mc.org or to 2425 Reedie Drive, 14th floor, Wheaton, MD 20902 before noon on November 28, 2024 (the close of record for the public hearing). The County requires your name, address, date of hearing (Nov. 14, 2024), and hearing item (Master Plan of Highways and Transitways) be included in your written comments.
- Attending the community meetings about M83 highway, organized by the County Planning Department—Monday, October 21, 2024 (6pm—8pm) (virtual meeting. Sign-up required)
Or Wednesday, October 23, 2024 (6pm—8pm) at the Neelsville Middle School, 11700 Neelsville Church Road, Germantown, MD 20876 (sign-up required:
Removing proposed M83 highway from our master plans is urgent, as long as it is kept in our master plans, it can be funded and built at any time. It would destroy forested parks in Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Montgomery Village used by thousands of residents. M83 highway would pollute our water, our air, and degrade wildlife habitat. We need our forests now more than ever for climate resilience and public health protection.
The time is now – 2024 – for the Montgomery County Council to remove proposed M83 from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways. This action will the clear path forward for sound transportation alternatives, including: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT); expanded MARC train service; and full-based funding for WMATA (Washington Area Metro Transit Authority).
We urge the Montgomery County Council to fully cancel proposed M83 highway by it removing from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways.
The TAME Coalition has published a scholarly compilation and brief summary of the studies, investigations, and analyses that provide the reasoning and justification for removing the proposed Midcounty Highway Extended (M83) from master plans in Montgomery County. The document is entitled:
“A Call to Action. The Foundation, Rationale, and Mandate for Removing Proposed Midcounty Highway Extended (M83) from all master plans in Montgomery County, Maryland”
The ‘Call to Action’ was delivered to all Montgomery County Council members, the County Executive, and the Planning Board in February 2024. Note the first sentence in the final paragraph of the introduction memo to the County Council that encapsulates our position on M83:
“Adherence to retrograde transportation policies embodied by M83 highway is not in the public interest.“
The TAME Coalition proudly announces the release of a new publication entitled, A Tour of the Proposed Mid-County Highway Extended (M83) in Montgomery County, Maryland
All seven (7) Focus Areas highlight notable landscape features, natural resources, and community amenities present within the alignment of the proposed M83 highway that would be destroyed, decimated, degraded, and harmed if M83 was constructed.
Focus Areas 1, 2, 3, and 4 illuminate the neighborhoods, community open space, recreational resources, and schools within and adjacent to the proposed M83 highway, and are easily accessible for viewing and experiencing the fabric of Montgomery Village and Gaithersburg.
Focus Area #1 Christopher Court, Breckenridge & Normandie Condominiums,
Hellingly Place/Boysenberry Drive
Focus Area #2 South Valley Park/Montgomery Village Athletic Fields, Watkins
Mill Elementary School, 19003/19001 Watkins Mill Road
Focus Area #3 Seneca Spring Way, Montgomery Village (Stedwick Community)
Focus Area #4 Walker House & Normandie communities, 9930 Walker House Road
Focus Areas 5, 6, and 7 showcase and describe elements of the ecological environment in Germantown—the resources, habitats, and parkland within the proposed M83 highway alignment.
Focus Area #5 Great Seneca Stream Valley Park and Seneca Creek Greenway Trail
Focus Area #6 North Germantown Greenway Stream Valley Park and
Dayspring Silent Retreat Center
Focus Area #7 Agricultural Reserve/Wildcat Road/Special Protection Area
The vivid photographs, detailed descriptions, and dynamic graphics make a compelling and convincing case to permanently cancel the proposed M83 highway and remove it from all County master plans.
The TAME Coalition encourages you to contact the Montgomery County Council at County.Council@MontgomeryCountymd.gov and tell them to remove proposed M83 highway from master plans, protect our parkland, and implement realistic and sensible transportation and transit alternatives to the M83 highway.
Welcome | Vision | Who We Are | Accomplishments
Welcome to the TAME Coalition!
The TAME Coalition is affiliated with Montgomery County residents and organizations, from the Upcounty and beyond; with elected county and state officials, and; with state and regional organizations – all dedicated to promoting transit alternatives to Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83 Highway), as well as safe walkable and bikeable streets, and to protect our communities and the Climate Resilience Forest of the Upcounty by eliminating the proposed M-83 Highway. We are about protecting the health, safety, and quality of life for all residents of Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, Germantown and Clarksburg; and to support Ride On Bus Service, Bus Rapid Transit, all-day two-way MARC Train service, safe streets for walkers and cyclists, and telework.
TAME Coalition’s Honest Vision
TAME Coalition envisions this future for our County – let’s work together to make this reality:
Montgomery County, Maryland shifts from a car-centric transportation system to a people-centric system. Local elected and appointed officials, working with residents including through the TAME Coalition, cancel the proposed M-83 highway and remove it from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways. The funds saved by these actions are devoted to transit projects, telework, pedestrian, and bicycle projects, including for the Upcounty communities of Clarksburg, Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Montgomery Village. Guided by their commitments to racial equity and social justice, County officials fully support residents who choose to not own cars, or cannot afford cars, enabling them to travel to work, school, shopping, and park destinations via upgraded and extensive transit networks, and safe walkable and bikable streets.
This shift to people-centric transportation in the Upcounty enables progress towards climate justice, including permanent preservation of the Climate Resilience Forest of Great Seneca Creek and its tributaries. This Climate Resilience Forest continues to absorb summertime heat, and to provide clean air and water, and nature-based outdoor recreation, to residents of Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, Germantown and Clarksburg. As a result of these actions, Upcounty families are healthier, transit-based access to jobs is more reliable, the air and water are cleaner, and neighborhood social connections are stronger.
Who We Are
“M-83 Highway would be devastating, life-quality-changing, a disaster. Let us look at a third way.”
Maurice Miles is a life-long resident of Gaithersburg in Montgomery County, a former member of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee, and former D39 candidate for State Senate. In his sharing of stories from his life with TAME Coalition leaders, he has recounted some of his experiences of racial segregation of the Montgomery County of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. Maurice graduated in 1950 from the County’s first ‘Negro High School’ – Lincoln High School in Rockville, where he played varsity baseball.
He worked as a research technician for NIH for thirty years, and for seven years as a community case aide for the County’s Housing Opportunities Commission. Both as a youth and as an adult, Maurice played sandlot baseball in Montgomery Village, in the Whetstone Run floodplain that is now part of Watkins Mill Elementary School grounds.
Sharing his thoughts and feelings about the threat to this place posed by the proposed M-83 highway, Maurice says about Whetstone Run, “I love this creek, and I have a lot of history on this creek…I can’t believe how anyone in their right mind would even think of putting a highway through this creek.”
Brief History of the TAME Coalition: Advocacy for Upcounty Transit and ‘No M-83’
Since 1975, there has been a 45-year history of advocacy to eliminate proposed Mid-County Highway Extended (M-83). In 2009, the TAME Coalition was organized from those residents of Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, Germantown neighborhoods, and the Dayspring Silent Retreat Center who came together to advocate for transit alternatives to the Mid-County Highway Extended (M-83). TAME has grown to include state and local elected officials, civic organizations, HOA and COA groups, faith-based communities, environmental and climate advocates, transit justice groups, urbanists, rural groups and coalitions.
TAME Coalition continues the 45-year history of citizen opposition to the proposed Mid-County Highway Extended (M-83). Photo caption: Jane and Rich Wilder testifying at the October 17, 2017 Montgomery County Council hearing.
TAME Coalition is an active member of the Better Buses Campaign, an initiative of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
TAME activists organize rallies focusing on members of the Montgomery County Council and the Maryland General Assembly to demand full funding of transit projects, and the cancellation of new highway projects like proposed M-83 Highway. We schedule hikes along the M-83 right-of-way’s climate resilience forest and wetlands. TAME activists host online issue briefings, testify at hearings at the County Council, Planning Board and the State’s standing committees, and issues public educational reports. Our faith-based members boost awareness through sermons, earth ministry courses, and the power of prayer.
Accomplishments
Bus Rapid Transit on Route 355 in the Upcounty is found by MCDOT to be the highest-benefit transportation approach. TAME Coalition’s advocacy led to the issuance in 2017 by Montgomery County Department of Transportation of a Midcounty Corridor Study Supplemental Report that for the first time, included a transit alternative to the proposed Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83).
MCDOT’s Supplemental Report states that “During the past several decades, Montgomery County has been working to employ smart growth principles including reducing the reliance on automobiles for travel and providing transit alternatives throughout the County.”
According to MCDOT’s 2017 study of the Midcounty Corridor, Bus Rapid Transit on Route 355, plus local intersection and roadway improvements, is the approach with the lowest vehicle miles traveled. This translates to the lowest carbon emissions – a crucial climate goal.
Montgomery County Council passes Resolution 18-957 prohibiting use of M-83 Highway in future master plans. The Resolution is a victory for transit alternatives to the proposed Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83). This Resolution, Transportation Solutions for Northwest Montgomery County, prohibits decisionmakers from using the proposed M-83 Highway in future master plans for transportation planning.
« The Council directs the Montgomery County Planning Board not to assume additional road capacity from the northern extension of Midcounty Highway when calculating the land use – transportation balance in future master plans, including but not limited to the upcoming Gaithersburg East Master Plan and the Germantown Plan for Town Sector Zone. This step ensures that any new development allowed under these plans does not rely on the northern extension of Midcounty Highway, while retaining the right-of-way for this extension in these plans. »
Montgomery County Maryland – Council Resolution #18-957, “Transportation Solutions for Northwest Montgomery County” Adopted October 31, 2017.
TAME Reports document the case for Transit Alternatives to the proposed M-83 Highway. The reports’ authors include the TAME core founders, who come from lifelong careers as biologists, physicists, mathematicians, economists, graphic designers, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs. They applied their deep expertise to produce the reports. The reports highlight the role of transit in providing effective transportation to the Upcounty.
Best Transportation Improvements for Midcounty Corridor Area (2018). Authored by TAME Coalition. 20 pages.
The TAME Coalition’s research team found multiple existing road projects around the Midcounty Corridor area, that collectively provide significant traffic improvements, without needing M-83 highway. EPA’s concerns about the environmental injustices of the proposed M-83 highway were confirmed by TAME’s analysis.
The Environmental and Economic Case for Removing the Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83) From the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways (2016). Authored by the TAME Coalition. Eight reports, 80 pages.
- Testimony by Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation on flawed assumptions used to promote M-83 highway;
- Montgomery Parks staffs’ analysis that recommended against M-83 highway;
- Analyses of M-83 highway impacts on: wetlands, streams, and floodplains, and increased pollution of Great Seneca Creek;
- The Math of Highways, showing how small increases in transit use significantly reduce traffic congestion.
The Case for Cancelling the Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83) and Investing in More Effective and Sustainable Alternatives (2015). Coauthored by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and TAME Coalition. 41 pages.
This report shows how transit-based alternatives meet MCDOT’s goals for the Midcounty, including reducing congestion, improving safety, and enhancing connectivity.
Maps show that transit-based alternatives will better serve all residents, including lower-income families, than the M-83 highway.
