More than 100,000 jobs.
Hundreds of millions of dollars from contracts and paychecks, pouring into the economy year after year.
Changes in where we live and work, and how we travel between them.
Over the next 20 years, Maryland will experience a $30 billion infrastructure campaign unlike anything in state history.
Designing and building replacements for the collapsed Key Bridge, the overloaded Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the congested American Legion Bridge will generate an economic boom of unprecedented proportions.
“Absolutely,” said Melissa Williams, director of planning at the Maryland Transportation Authority. “We are creating jobs.”
Because the projects will overlap, starting with the Key Bridge and ending with the final demolition of the existing westbound span of the Bay Bridge in about 2045, those infrastructure paychecks could flow for a generation of workers.
Exactly how many jobs is up for debate. Construction jobs will come and go as the projects progress, but the completed bridges will create jobs too.
The MDTA estimates that as many as 75,000 will be directly generated at the Bay Bridge, the largest and most complicated of the three projects.
George Mason University, meanwhile, predicted a new American Legion Bridge, which carries the Capital Beltway across the Potomac River between Bethesda and McLean, Virginia, could add 2,200 construction jobs and jump-start 45,000 more across the region by removing a major roadblock to economic growth.
The impact of the bridges will go beyond construction jobs and eliminating gridlock. The state’s economy will expand to fill the space the bridges create.
From opening the Port of Baltimore to the world’s largest cargo ships, to removing traffic choke points on the Capital Beltway, to making it easier to find homes on the Eastern Shore — the economy will have room to expand.
“This is a game changer, and people need to see it for what it is,” said Beth Rheingold, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Chamber of Commerce.
There is a lack of that vision at the moment.
It should be an issue in political races across Maryland this year. The winners of races in several counties will be in office during the first waves of construction.
“We’re going to have to pay very, very close attention to the county executive race, what the candidates say they think about the bridge,” Rheingold said.
Even transportation planners struggle with the scale of what’s coming.
Impact studies on the projects reach just a few miles beyond the bridges, but the consequences will be felt far downstream.
The most likely option for a new Bay Bridge won’t even eliminate summer weekend bottlenecks in Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties.
“Somebody ought to tell the governor,” said Douglas Silber, a member of the Queen Anne’s Economic Development Commission.
Although there are limits to how much housing and commercial growth will follow — Queen Anne’s County is at 98% of its sewer capacity — the bridges will open more doors.
They could revitalize older communities such as Essex, satisfy pent-up demand for housing with construction on the shore and create small businesses to serve all those people in new places.
MDTA officials say they are urging local governments to update their long-term-planning documents and zoning rules.
“I have not been able to find a single major infrastructure project in the entire United States of this scale that hasn’t brought with it a massive amount of development in its wake,” said Jay Falstad, executive director of the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association.
His group is urging the state not to build a new Bay Bridge, worried it won’t be able to hold back the tide. The bigger danger is not being ready for this change.
When work on the Bay Bridge started 80 years ago, developers showed up in Queen Anne’s County with plans for thousands of homes.
That’s not going to happen again, but there will be pressure on farmland and the Chesapeake Bay.
Limits on housing in Baltimore County could push buyers into Harford County, or past Queen Anne’s into Talbot, Kent and Caroline counties.
Bottlenecks such as the American Legion Bridge and the Bay Bridge exist because Maryland’s economy is bumping up against the limits of its transportation network.
“We’re seeing more and more folks want access to the Eastern Shore, want to have access to opportunity,” said Mike Sakata, president and CEO of the Maryland Transportation Builders and Materials Association.
“I think bridges do not create sprawl; they reveal and relieve demand that already exists.”
If you know where to look, you can see change starting.
On the line between Baltimore and Anne Arundel County, there’s a rusty old gate that warns people to stay out.
Beyond it is the Curtis Bay Depot, 483 acres opened during World War I as an ammunition dump. It’s been largely idle since the 1970s.
The National Guard built a center there to teach soldiers how to navigate rivers and bays with the Army’s fleet of little boats. Baltimore K-9 teams use it to train dogs.
In December, U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks announced the Pentagon finally agreed to let it go, and now the General Services Administration is preparing to hand it over to Maryland as surplus.
It could be a smaller version of Tradepoint Atlantic, the sprawling redevelopment of an old steel mill as a logistics hub across the Patapsco River. It could be waterfront housing.
State officials say it’s too early to talk about it.
“Once we have more concrete information, we’ll be happy to connect with you,” said Katie Parks, a VP at the Maryland Economic Development Corp.
One thing is sure: New construction next door will be a factor in whatever happens on this almost forgotten site.
The depot’s entrance is just three miles from the planned southern landing point of the reborn Key Bridge.
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