This is from my letter to the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation (DOT) on behalf of the North College Park Citizens Association (NCPCA):
For more than a decade, the Maryland DOT has been unable to find funds for the upgrading of U.S. Route 1 in College Park. The for engineering the improvements, with the actual construction still a distant dream. The road traffic associated with this facility is expected to average perhaps 350 additional container trucks per day, with a maximum capacity above 700 trucks. If the Beltsville location were chosen, then inevitably a very large share of these trucks would have to use Route 1, and they will tend to wreck the county plan for a safe, pedestrian-friendly corridor for developing College Park. A Beltsville intermodal facility would be inconsistent with two decades of planning by the state, the county, and the city.
Truck traffic will not be limited to Route 1. It will also heavily impact Sunnyside Avenue, a county road, and Route 201. Neither road is built to handle the additional burden. DOT simply does not have the funds to mitigate the necessary impacts at this location.
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Our members also expressed concern about the specific site proposed, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are reasons that this site has never been developed, or even used intensively for agricultural experiments. A truck/train interchange at this location would damage the Indian Creek watersheds and the surrounding wetlands.
