Building a sensible, time-efficient and user-friendly pedestrian bridge across U.S. Route 29, connecting Columbia's Town Center to the Village of Oakland Mills, has been discussed for roughly four years and continued to spark questions of funding during County Executive Allan Kittleman's roundtable discussion Tuesday.
While the current bridge caters only to foot and bike traffic, independent group Bridge Columbia has introduced ideas of a new bridge that would include vehicular traffic, such as electric buses. Current plans are to enhance the existing bridge through better lighting, landscaping and safety improvements with a $500,000 investment from the Howard Hughes Corporation and $100,000 investment from the county.
On Tuesday, federal, state and county government representatives joined residents and community leaders at The Other Barn in the Village of Oakland Mills in Columbia to present possible funding sources as well as bridge options.
"During my campaign, what was often told to me was that there would be funding from other sources," Kittleman said. "We certainly couldn't do it from Howard County, so our goal here is to basically see if that was true. There might be a lot of dreams for something, but if you don't have funding, you can't do it."
Representative Frederick Gottemoeller of Friends of Bridge Columbia, who is working on the project, said a new bridge should be viewed as a future icon for Columbia, the town he has called home for many years.
"When you go past Columbia [on Route 29], there are just green signs that say, Columbia,'" Gottemoeller said. "There ought to be something that says, 'this is a special place.'"
According to his studies, Gottemoeller said Bridge Columbia would significantly reduce bus travel time to two minutes between the destinations, rather than 10 minutes using Broken Land Parkway or 15 minutes using Route 175.
"It creates less need for a car, less need for parking and less congestion in redeveloping downtown," he said. "If we had this kind of a symbol on 29, it would be more visibility for Columbia and it would be more interesting for Columbia for people to live and work…"
With regard to funding, Gottemoeller said the Friends of Bridge Columbia estimated a cost between $10 million and $15 million with the County Feasibility Study ranging from costs of $15 million to $37 million.
"Either way, it will take multiple funding sources," Gottemoeller said.
Dennis Schrader, a deputy secretary with the Maryland Department of Transportation, said, "Basically, Maryland has the Transportation Trust Fund, which voters in the last election said they wanted a lock box on that fund. On an annual basis, we probably spend $2.5 billion on capital …"
Don Halligan, director of Office of Planning and Capital Programming, said the fund is MDOT's source of "state funding," allowing the department to direct resources to priority projects. Criteria are then listed for funding a project, Halligan said, answering questions like, "Are we required to do it by the federal government? Does it support other programs? Does it maximize our federal aid?"
Roundtable discussions later shifted to options for both the existing bridge and a new bridge led by the county's Office of Transportation Administrator John Powell. By spending roughly $2 million, Powell said, the current bridge could be renovated to include better lighting and basic repairs with an estimated completion time of 2 1/2 years.
"You can do something with what we have and make it look good," Powell said.
Additional options include a complementary bridge built beside the existing bridge specifically for transit, single or dual transit cable stayed bridges, single or dual transit iconic-designed bridges, single or dual transit lake bridges over Lake Kittamaqundi and a personal rapid transit bridge.
Powell said he believed renovations are needed for the existing bridge as soon as possible "because it's going to take time to get to the next option."
"How long is it going to take us to agree on one of these other options?" Powell said. "We're already looking for funding sources for the first option."
Four concepts for a third interchange on Route 29 were also introduced, including a half diamond, full diamond, flyover and connection interchanges, ranging from the latter of $44 million to the former of $82 million.
Oakland Mills Improvement Association Founder John DiTomasso said he has lived in the area for over 40 years and is now working to help revitalize his hometown.
"Everything points to the fact that [the bridge] is key to revitalization of the Oakland Mills Village Center and the community itself," DiTomasso said. "I haven't heard anyone who's against it, frankly. I guess there are people concerned about costs and things like that, but even those people think it's a good idea. It's a great idea, but it's just a question of how big it's going to get, what is it going to include and how much is it going to cost."
Town Center Village Board Member Linda Wengel said she wants the issue to be resolved.
"It's been going on four years now," Wengel said. "I'd like to know who's going to make the decision and do it."
Having supported bridge discussions from the beginning, Kittleman said he hopes the project will create more access between Oakland Mills and Town Center, revitalizing Oakland Mills in the process.
"To me, more than anything else, I want this to be a transparent and open process," Kittleman said. "[I want this to be] something where the community knows they've had the opportunity to participate, so that whatever decision is being made will be made by everybody in the community and not just a couple of people behind closed doors."