You know, there are bad ideas, and then there are Montgomery County Council-level ideas—so absurd you almost respect the creativity. Like making commuting worse while claiming it’s all in the name of “safety.”
Which brings me to Councilmember Evan Glass, the Picasso of pandering policies, and his latest wacky transportation plan. Spoiler alert: no new roads, lower speed limits, and a utopian fantasy where we all skip merrily to work, barefoot, hand-in-hand with a cyclist, while a RideOn bus blares show tunes in the background.
Let’s dive in.
“Free RideOn for All!”
Glass proudly made RideOn buses free. On the surface, that sounds like a win—until you realize that the buses are still empty. But hey, at least now they’re empty for free! Meanwhile, the rest of us stuck in traffic can enjoy watching these taxpayer-funded chariots of air glide past at 14 mph, pausing only to pick up that one guy who uses it as a mobile nap zone.
“Safe Streets Act” or “Please Walk Forever Act”?
According to Glass, the Safe Streets Act has “increased safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers.” Translation? Lowered speed limits to the point where even squirrels are tailgating you. Some roads have gone from 35 mph to 25 mph. Why? Because Evan Glass saw a child think about crossing the street once, and that was enough for sweeping legislation.
I tried driving down Georgia Avenue the other day. It took me longer to go from Wheaton to Silver Spring than it took Magellan to circumnavigate the globe. I saw a guy walking backward on the sidewalk who beat me to my destination.
“No New Roads, Just New Rules”
Here’s the kicker: Evan doesn’t want to build new roads. At all. Ever. Because apparently, if you build roads, people use them. And we can’t have that! So instead of addressing congestion, we’ll just slow everyone down to a crawl and pretend it’s “equity.”
Instead of adding capacity or improving flow, Evan’s grand solution is to make everyone equally miserable. That’s his equity policy: flatten the curve—of your commute time, into a straight line of frustration. No lanes added, no new expressways, but plenty of plastic bollards, flowerpots in the middle of intersections, and bike lanes wide enough to land a Cessna.
Vision Zero: Speed Kills Joy
Evan is obsessed with something called “Vision Zero,” a plan to eliminate traffic fatalities by making it impossible to go fast enough to get anywhere or have an accident. It’s sort of like banning swimming to prevent drowning. My neighborhood now has so many speed bumps, I thought I’d accidentally merged onto a motocross track.
The World According to Evan
In Evan’s dream world, every Montgomery County resident lives within walking distance of their job, their child’s school, and their Kombucha co-op. You don’t own a car—you own a unicycle and a rain poncho. And if you must drive, you’ll do so at speeds previously reserved for toddlers in Fisher-Price jeeps.
Meanwhile, for the rest of us—parents rushing to drop kids off at two different schools, people who don’t live on a Metro line, and folks whose job isn’t in downtown Bethesda—we’re stuck. Literally.
Final Thought
Montgomery County doesn’t need a “safe space” from driving. It needs real transportation solutions. That means roads, bypasses, bridges, and yes, even that scary thing called capacity expansion.
Until then, I’ll be the guy stuck in traffic behind a “Slow Down for Safety” sign, trying not to scream as a RideOn bus zooms past—empty, free, and full of Evan Glass’s wildest dreams.
Ian Schwartz is a contributor for Direct Line News. He can be reached at ian.schwartz@mcgopclub.com
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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