AASHTO Journal, 11 October 2013
Just a month shy of celebrating two years of service to Maryland drivers, the Intercounty Connector/MD 200 is continuing to increase its popularity and gain users.
According to the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA), ICC traffic is currently growing at an average rate of about 2.6 percent each month. During the month of September, the average weekday traffic was roughly 40,000 vehicles. And, according to MDTA Acting Executive Secretary Bruce Gartner, while traffic is less than its original projection on the eastern end of the ICC, the western end, which connects to the I-270 business corridor, is experiencing usage much higher than originally predicted.
“The ICC was designed to accommodate expected traffic capacity in 2030 and to provide relatively congestion-free travel with reliable travel times today and for years to come,” said Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary and MDTA Chairman James Smith, Jr. “Even though the ICC is still in a ‘ramping up’ period in these early years of operation, average weekday traffic volumes for the ICC have grown approximately 75 percent since opening to I-95, and this year we confirmed the significant travel-time savings with the ICC in a study released in June.” (See related AASHTO Journal story on that study here).
MDTA said that during the period of July 2012-June 2013, more than 17.2 million trips were made on the ICC, accounting for $39.59 million in revenue. That number is just over the projected $39.56 million MDTA had originally projected.
The most recent statistics come from MDTA’s recently released financial data for fiscal year 2013. MDTA’s Annual Financial Statement is available here.