Metro’s chronic train breakdowns and track problems on top of the scheduled disruptions of the SafeTrack reconstruction program may have alienated riders over the last half of 2016, but the poor service did not result in a traffic nightmare on already congested streets and highways, according to new data compiled by the region’s top transportation planners.

Over the course of 10 “maintenance surges” from June 4 through Dec. 20, 2016, Metrorail lost 16,350 riders per weekday, according to a new study by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) on the first six months of SafeTrack. The number amounts to only 2.6 percent of daily boardings, but millions of total trips nonetheless.

The big picture

Eric Randall, a principal transportation planner at COG, said that overall traffic in the region “was not strongly affected,” by SafeTrack. “We saw traffic effects most strongly in the immediate vicinity to the SafeTrack surge areas,” Randall said.

The localized impacts were felt most during the first surge in June — 13 days of around-the-clock single tracking on the Orange and Silver Lines in Northern Virginia. Average vehicle trip times during morning rush hour climbed 20 percent, and traffic counts performed along Lee Highway (U.S. 29) near the East Falls Church Metro station showed a 5.5 percent increase in cars over the week prior to the surge.

The COG study also found that traffic on I-66, further along the corridor served by the Orange and Silver Lines, actually decreased slightly during SafeTrack surges 1 through 5.

Considering all the variables that can affect traffic on any given day, Randall said the results, while unexpected, were not entirely surprising.

“When a relatively small section of the Metrorail system has no service or reduced service but the rest of the system is by and large operating normally, there’s a ripple effect in that local area, but the overall system doesn’t see much variation,” he said.

Traffic impacts from SafeTrack appeared negligible on most days during surges two through 10, with average travel times actually decreasing during morning rush hour during five of the surges. Data from the study showed that many commuters didn’t trade rail for cars. Across the first 10 SafeTrack surges, five percent of travelers switched to Metrobus, and four percent to other local transit systems, including commuter rail, according to the COG data. The Capital Bikeshare system also saw trip increases during nine of the 10 surges compared to the week before each surge.

Benjamin Navarro,  Falls Church City to Farragut West
“I switched from Metro to car about a year ago. Even though I have guilt about the ecological impact of my decision, the improvement in my quality of life has been positive.”

During the ninth SafeTrack project, a 25-day shutdown of the Red Line from Fort Totten to NoMa, casual and registered users logged 350,000 bikeshare trips, a significant jump from the previous week (50,000 trips).

In all, the region’s transportation system proved resilient as Metrorail riders sought alternatives to squeezing into a train. Demand was intense, as “an average 32 percent of regular Metrorail riders decided to not make a trip” during each surge, according to COG’s report.

Giving up Metro for good

If SafeTrack was a temporary disruption for most riders, some saw a chance to make a permanent break with the subway.

“It’s kind of nice to just have your own car and listen to the radio and be in your own little bubble,” said Matthew Stuart as he steered his new Volkswagen Jetta in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Georgetown.

The 24-year-old is typical of many newcomers to Washington: young, single, living in a studio apartment, and car-free – at least until last September when his tolerance for rail delays expired.

What was supposed to be a one-hour train ride from Northwest Washington to his new job in Alexandria often lasted much longer. He was repeatedly late, irritating his new boss. And the final straw came one morning when his train was offloaded for a mechanical problem just two stops away from his destination, leaving him waiting 20 minutes for the next train to arrive.

“My commute is far more predictable with my car than with Metro, and it’s more comfortable. So how can you blame me?” said Stuart, who said he realizes his choice does not square with the region’s goal of reducing dependency on single-occupant vehicles.

Stuart said SafeTrack, far from assuaging his concerns about Metro’s safety and performance, was producing the opposite effect, by revealing more problems than general manager Paul Wiedefeld believed existed. Stuart said browsing #WMATA Twitter further undermined his confidence in Metro, citing @unsuckdcmetro as one source of consistently negative developments.

Melanie De Cola, McLean to Georgetown
“I opted out of taking Metro for the month of December to avoid SafeTrack surge #11. I found that it was much faster to drive…the Silver Line usually takes 1 hour (on a really good day) to an hour and a half, but two hours is not unheard of and one time it even took me three. I’ve been a loyal Metro rider since I moved back to the area in 2012 but my nerves are frayed and my patience with Metro is gone.”

“It seems to only be getting worse. I was reading an article yesterday about how they had to offload a train because there was a speedometer issue. And as they do the track work, more issues get uncovered,” said Stuart, whose 12-mile drive takes about an hour.

His monthly car payment is $260, more than he would pay for an entire month riding Metro, but he says it is worth it.

“There’s a long road ahead for Metro until it becomes consistent,” he said.

Toll lanes pay off

The commuters who reached for their car keys to avoid the repeated SafeTrack disruptions in Northern Virginia, were well served by the 495 Express Lanes, the high-speed toll lanes that upwardly adjust toll prices as congestion builds.

Nineteen of the toll lanes’ 21 busiest days in their four-year history were recorded between September and December. Four of the 10 busiest days took place during SafeTrack Surge 11, which ran from Nov. 28 to Dec. 20 on the Orange and Silver Lines.  Dec. 15 was the busiest day in the 495 Express Lanes’ existence.

The toll lanes’ operator suspects the Metrorail disruptions played a role.

“It is absolutely critical that we have a strong transit network, and what we’ve seen over the past several months really points to that,” said Michael McGurk, a spokesman for Transurban, a multinational toll lane operator behind the 495 and 95 Express Lanes.

The extra traffic drove up toll prices. The average toll of $4.59 surpassed $6.00 during the busiest days in December, when more than 60,000 cars passed under the electronic toll gantries, a third more than usual.

What’s next?

Transportation planners and transit advocates agree that the region’s ability to handle SafeTrack does not mean Washington and its suburbs can do without a functioning subway system. Working around short-term disruptions does not minimize Metrorail’s long-term importance; job and population forecasts foresee major growth and, with it, a lot more congestion.

Traffic congestion will increase by 60 percent over the next two decades, according to COG, as the influx of drivers outstripping local governments’ capacity to expand the transportation system.

“People will come back to Metro eventually, once the service rebounds. The question is, what will they do in the meantime? Certainly, some people will drive,” said Aimee Custis, deputy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Custis pointed to surveys that show transit riders are not impressed with frills like on-board wi-fi; they want frequent and reliable service, period.

“I think [Paul Wiedefeld] has been really honest that SafeTrack is just the first step in bringing us Back2Good,” said Custis, referring to Metro’s latest customer service campaign. “But the general manager himself has said it is going to be a long time, and SafeTrack alone won’t get us there.”

On Wednesday Metro released new statistics designed to show progress: railcar-related offloads were down 17 percent last year, railcar-related delays fell by 13 percent, and 31 new 7000-series trains were in service, replacing many of the oldest railcars in the fleet. Track delays also fell by seven percent in 2016, according to Metro.

Kevin Edward Flynn, Vienna to Navy Yard
“I typically commute by Metrorail, but switched to driving from July through December due to SafeTrack impacts. In theory, I’m an ideal customer for WMATA: my home and work are very convenient for a rail trip and I pay the maximum fare due to the distance covered. When I switched to driving, I learned that driving in the District during rush hour isn’t as bad as I had previously thought, and the price of driving and parking is actually cheaper than riding Metro.

These improvements may not be enough to stem the severe loss in ridership, especially with five more months of SafeTrack disruptions on tap.

Total rail ridership from July to September dropped “nearly 13 percent or 6.5 million trips compared to the same quarter last year. Ridership was down broadly across all time periods, days of the week, and individual stations. Consequently, rail revenue was down 15 percent versus prior year and was 17 percent under budget through the first quarter,” according to documents presented to Metro’s board of directors.

The hemorrhaging that occurred from October through December will be detailed at a public board meeting on Feb. 23, but it is expected to be severe, further undermining Metro’s bleak financial situation.

SafeTrack is scheduled to resume on Saturday with track work in Northern Virginia shutting down the Blue Line for 18 days, the first of five projects set for completion in June.

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WASHINGTON – (WMAL) In a bold vision that would shake up the region’s transportation scene, D.C. Councilmember David Grosso is proposing the District take over operations of Metrobuses that run only within D.C., and to increase funding in order to eliminate fares.

“Instead of paying WMATA to operate these routes for our residents, let’s do it ourselves. We can task DDOT with running or contracting out the service, as we do with the Circulator. We could even brand them with the Circulator’s now-ubiquitous red and black,” Grosso writes on the urban planning website Greater Greater Washington. “Let’s take those millions of dollars we pay annually to WMATA, invest additional funds, and provide the type of transportation system that residents can rely on, one that is an attractive alternative to Metrorail.”

Grosso says it would give WMATA one less thing to worry about as they work to fix the rail side of operations, and would allow for additional investment that Maryland and Virginia may balk at otherwise. In making the buses free to ride, Grosso says it would also increase ridership, reduce the strain on Metrorail, speed up the boarding process, and reduce confrontations between drivers and passengers.

“To be clear, the city would not turn a profit under this scheme; we never have from our public transportation (or roads and highway projects for that matter),” Grosso writes. “But that’s not the point. What we’d get is something much greater.”

Some worry the proposal could further solidify philosophical differences between Maryland, the District, and Virginia.

“I’ve got mixed feelings,” Coalition for Smarter Growth Executive Director Stewart Schwartz tells WMAL. “There could be negative consequences in further fragmenting our regional bus networks. I worry it could distract from the regional conversation and regional commitment we need to have for the funding Metro needs.”

D.C. has been a leading advocate in increasing funding for Metro. Mayor Muriel Bowser has publicly called for the establishment of a new tax region-wide to serve as a dedicated funding source for Metro. The Governors of Maryland and Virginia have advocated for a more cautious approach, waiting to see if Metro can improve its operations and finances first before committing to more money.

Schwartz says the region’s ability to compete on a global level hinges on cooperation across borders around D.C.

“The more we can keep ourselves tied together through our transit system, and even other utility systems, and the more we can work together through regional bodies, the better for our region’s economic competitiveness.”

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WASHINGTON — (WMAL) It was one year ago today that Paul Wiedefeld took over possibly the least-coveted job in the transportation world in starting to chart a path forward for the floundering Metro system. Many D.C.-area leaders and transportation experts agree Wiedefeld has given the system some hope, but there is still much to be done both in the short and long term, and many sharp disagreements about the direction still to be ironed out.

“He has been willing to make the tough decisions,” Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly told WMAL. “Which many of his predecessors, frankly, did not do.”

Chief among those tough decisions was the unprecedented move to close the system for an entire day on March 16. The region was given little more than a few hours notice that the system would be shuttered for 24 hours that Wednesday to do an emergency inspection of jumper cables.

“That showed his ability to make tough decisions and stand by them,” Coalition for Smarter Growth Executive Director Stewart Schwartz told WMAL. “It really established his role as a leader.”

Those same sentiments were expressed when Wiedefeld put together the 10-month track rehabilitation plan known as Safe Track, designed to compress three years’ worth of work into a much shorter time span. It was also seen in some in-the-weeds issues like workforce development. Wiedefeld announced the firing of 20 managers in May, and layoffs to the tune of 500 positions in July in an attempt to turn around the oft-criticized culture of the system.

Some say Wiedefeld’s effort to turn around operations and safety is inspiring other area leaders to finally start tackling the long-term issues that are out of Wiedefeld’s hands, like overhauling how Metro gets its money, and increasing its subsidies to further the system’s improvement.

“We appreciate Paul’s sense of urgency and focus on what needs to be done,” Greater Washington Board of Trade President Jim Dinegar said. “How we’re going to pay for it, how it’s going to be governed and all the rest is a work in progress, but I believe there is a growing sense of urgency.”

That urgency is appreciated by Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans, who again warned his colleagues of the dire straits ahead.

“We are faced with these staggering costs here,” Evans said during a D.C. Council breakfast Tuesday. “We are looking at $160 million in the next two years in operating costs, and $492 million in capital costs, increases that we have to put into Metro, or not. And the ‘or not’ is, the system’s just going to stop running.”

Evans proceeded to rail against jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia that he says have been dragging their feet on giving Metro what it needs.

“Loudoun County is the richest county in America. Fairfax County is the second-richest county in America. Arlington County is the sixth-richest county in America, and Montgomery County is the eighth-richest county in America,” Evans said. “These are the jurisdictions who can’t afford to pay for Metro.”

Evans’ comments do little to help a system where cross-jurisdictional cooperation is key, Connolly said.

“You can’t be Chairman of Metro and trash your compact partners,” Connolly said. “I have a Republican General Assembly in Richmond I have to sell (an increase in funding) to. And Jack Evans, every time he opens his mouth, makes that job harder.”

Evans made waves two weeks ago when he questioned Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s motivations in refusing to give Metro extra money, insinuating the Republican cares little for constituents in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties since it is a heavily Democratic area. Hogan’s office dismissed those claims, and a spokeswoman questioned Evans’ fitness for the job.

“The system needs strong, balanced, and rational leadership,” the spokeswoman said, “and if this chairman can’t provide it, then it’s time to find someone who can.”

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A review of more than 450 written public comments and more than an hour of in-person public comment and board discussion preceded a final vote by the TPB on November 16 to amend the region’s Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan (CLRP). Regularly updating the plan is one of the TPB’s primary responsibilities as the federally designated metropolitan planning organization for the region.

This year’s CLRP amendment added five major new projects, including new Express Lanes on I-395, an 11-mile extension of Virginia Railway Express (VRE) commuter rail, new bus-only lanes on 16th Street in the District of Columbia, and an expansion of the District’s dedicated bicycle-lane network. The amendment also made changes to four major projects already in the plan and included several other smaller additions and changes.

MORE: See all of the major additions and changes in the 2016 CLRP Amendment

5 key CLRP-related actions at the Nov. 16 TPB meeting

The TPB took five formal actions to finalize this year’s CLRP amendment. The actions together pave the way for the TPB to submit the amendment and an update of the region’s six-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for federal review and approval.

• ACTION #1: Accepted public comments and staff and agency responses to comments.The board reviewed and accepted the more than 450 written comments received during a 30-day comment period that ended November 12. The board also reviewed and accepted a set of “responses” developed by staff and sponsoring agencies explaining how the issues raised have been or will be addressed or directing commenters to other appropriate avenues to share their input. Listen to the full presentation and discussion.
• ACTION #2: Approved the results of the Air Quality Conformity Analysis. The federally required analysis demonstrated that future vehicle-related emissions of certain smog-forming pollutants will fall sharply in coming years under the plan and remain below approved regional limits. Most of the reductions will be thanks to tighter federal controls on vehicle technology and fuel formulation. Board member Dave Snyder (Falls Church) reminded the board that the region needs to remain committed to achieving further reductions through measures like transportation demand management, since tougher new air quality standards are expected in coming years. Listen to the discussion and vote.
• ACTION #3: Adopted the 2016 CLRP Amendment. The amendment included five major new projects, changes to four major projects already in the plan, and dozens of other smaller additions and changes. The amendment also reaffirms the hundreds of regionally significant highway, transit, and bicycle and pedestrian projects already in the plan. Four of the 28 board members present voted against the amendment, saying the plan does too little to improve the region’s transportation future. Listen to the discussion and vote or read more analysis below.
• ACTION #4: Approved the FY 2017-2022 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP).The TIP identifies amounts and sources of funding for hundreds of projects programmed for planning, engineering, or construction over the next six years. The TPB updates the TIP every two years, usually in conjunction with an update to the long-range plan. Listen to the presentation and vote.
• ACTION #5: Approved a certification of the metropolitan transportation planning process. When it approves the TIP, the TPB must also certify that the metropolitan transportation planning process it carries out meets all relevant federal requirements. Some board members expressed some reservations about the certification but ultimately voted to approve it. Listen to the presentation and vote.

A mix of criticism and praise emerged in the final discussion of the 2016 CLRP Amendment

Extensive public comment and board discussion preceded the TPB’s final votes related to the 2016 CLRP Amendment. Staff summarized and presented the more than 450 written comments submitted during a formal 30-day public comment period. Four people presented in-person comments at the beginning of the meeting. And several board members spoke up to express concerns, ask questions, or to explain their support for this year’s amendment.

In the end, the board approved the 2016 CLRP Amendment with broad support, saying that the projects in this year’s amendment were worthwhile and needed. But there was also a sense that the TPB should work toward developing a plan that will more positively impact future travel behavior and travel conditions in the region.
Public comments focused on two main projects but many addressed a range of other issues

In all, the TPB received more than 450 written comments from individuals, businesses, organizations, and governmental representatives during the 30-day comment period that ended November 12. Most focused on two of the proposed additions in this year’s CLRP amendment:

• I-395 Express Lanes: More than 300 comments addressed the proposed addition of express toll lanes on I-395 in Northern Virginia. All but a few expressed support for the projects, for reasons including improved travel time for all users, the use of private rather than public funding, and that the tolls from the lanes will provide a revenue stream for transit improvements in the corridor. A couple of comments expressed concern about the potential adverse impacts of the lanes on lower-income travelers, while others said that no toll revenue should be used for transit services in the corridor.
• DC dedicated bicycle-lane network: About 160 comments addressed the District’s plan to expand its dedicated bicycle-lane network by removing travel lanes for automobile traffic on certain road segments throughout the city. Specifically, the comments opposed the addition of bicycle lanes on a portion of 6th Street NW, citing impacts on parking for several nearby churches as well as traffic implications for major downtown event venues. Representatives from the United House of Prayer, one of the churches affected by the 6th Street proposal, provided in-person comments at the TPB’s October meeting highlighting their congregation’s concerns. DDOT officials said the agency would work with church leaders to determine the best routing for the new bike lanes.

MORE: Full summary of all comments received on the 2016 CLRP Amendment

The November 16 meeting also featured in-person public comment from representatives of four area organizations. Kevin McNulty (Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce) and Brandon Shaw (Prince William County Chamber of Commerce) both spoke in favor of the projects slated for inclusion in the 2016 CLRP Amendment, citing the impact the projects will have on the region’s economy. Nancy Smith (Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance) applauded the key road projects in Virginia but said that the region needs a more strategic approach to identifying worthwhile projects that will have a truly regional impact.

Stewart Schwartz (Coalition for Smarter Growth) applauded the transit investments slated to be included in the plan but told board members that transportation investment will only get the region so far in solving its transportation problems. He said that more efficient growth patterns and land-use will be necessary to address regional transportation challenges.

Board member Linda Smyth pressed VDOT on allowing commercial trucks to use I-66 Express Lanes

Last year’s CLRP amendment included the addition of a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) plan to add new express toll lanes to I-66 inside and outside the Capital Beltway. The agency has since said that the private concessionaire that will build and operate the lanes has proposed allowing commercial trucks to use the lanes on the portion of the facility outside the Beltway.

At the November 16 meeting, board member Linda Smyth (Fairfax County) reiterated her ongoing concerns about the air quality, noise, and traffic impacts of allowing commercial truck traffic on the new lanes and pressed VDOT for an analysis of potential impacts.

“I understand what VDOT is saying here, except their analysis is not complete. The environmental analysis should include the impacts on neighborhoods and air quality,” Smyth said. “What they’re looking at essentially is the through-movements of trucks on the express lanes, not where they get off on the ramps and what neighborhoods they then drive through. And that should be part of the analysis.”

VDOT’s Rene’e Hamilton told Smyth that the state will study the effects as part of a reevaluation of the environmental analysis of the project.

“We are going to go through a reevaluation and look at those interchanges and potentially the impacts to neighborhoods around there,” Hamilton said. “We will go back in and look at air, noise, and all the traffic related to any changes,” she said.

Hamilton also explained that the results of that analysis would be taken through a public review and comment process, including bringing it back to the TPB, before VDOT makes a final decision.

“I will look forward to a very comprehensive analysis,” Smyth responded.

Four board members voted against CLRP approval, saying the plan falls short

“I understand the importance of why we do this work, keeping the system going. But I do think it’s important that at least some of us register our frustration that we do not have a CLRP that actually reduces congestion and improves performance by whatever related standards we determine are appropriate.”

That was the sentiment of board member Peter Schwartz (Fauquier County), who along with three other board members voted against adoption of the 2016 CLRP Amendment.

Schwartz, along with two of the other opponents, Marc Elrich (Montgomery County) and Neil Harris (Gaithersburg), cited the CLRP’s failure to improve travel conditions in the region despite tens of billions of dollars in capacity-expanding highway and transit projects.

“Some of us need to say more concretely that we don’t think this is where we really need to be,” Elrich said.

Metro’s Shyam Kannan was responsible for the fourth “nay” vote, saying that the transit agency could not support any amendment to the plan that did not include sufficient funding for Metro’s capital needs, including both reinvestment in existing infrastructure and key expansion projects.

The CLRP amendment ultimately passed with broad support—24 of 28 board members who were present voted in favor of the amendment.

Some board members publicly voiced their intention to cast a “yea” vote, including Jay Fisette (Arlington County), who said that the CLRP amendment process had given localities the chance to work with VDOT to refine the I-395 Express Lanes project.

“This project now includes as a base condition a minimum of $15 million annually for multimodal improvements in the corridor to promote transit use and moving more people and fewer vehicles. That was nowhere a part of the plan earlier,” Fisette said.

Board member Martin Nohe (Prince William County) also voiced his support, bringing a dose of reality to the discussion. Nohe said he agreed with the comments that the region needs a better long-range plan, but that the CLRP isn’t that plan.

“I believe we do need a bigger, multijurisdictional, regional plan that says, ‘Here is what we can do if we had the money,’” he said. “But the fact is, [the CLRP] is what we can do with the money that we have, and therefore I think we should go do it.”

Also publicly voicing their support were board members Cathy Hudgins (Fairfax County), Jonathan Way (City of Manassas), R. Earl Lewis, Jr. (MDOT), and TPB Chairman Tim Lovain (Alexandria).

Next steps for the CLRP

The 2016 CLRP Amendment as adopted will now be submitted for federal review and approval. The TPB will forgo a 2017 plan amendment and instead focus on the next major four-year update of the plan as required by federal law. The update will include revised estimates of available revenue and is expected to include a new “unconstrained” element to highlight projects for which funding has not yet been identified but that area leaders might want to rally support around to find new funding.

Other takeaways from the Nov. 16 TPB meeting…

• The TPB’s Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) endorsed Vision Zero. After a briefing on regional traffic safety data at its November 10 meeting, the committee formally endorsed Vision Zero, an effort to eliminate traffic-related bicycle and pedestrian deaths in the region. Read the full CAC report.
• Recruitment is underway for new CAC members for 2017. Applications to join the CAC for its 2017 term are due December 9. The three incoming TPB officers for 2017 will appoint nine new members to the committee, three from each state-level jurisdiction. Learn more and apply.
• Chairman Tim Lovain recapped the Nov. 2 traffic incident management conference.The conference brought practitioners and regional leaders together to discuss ways to further improve the region’s already robust traffic incident management practices. Read more about the conference.
• The TPB’s Long-Range Plan Task Force presented its Phase 1 report. The group is looking at the region’s unmet funding needs and is hoping to identify a limited set of projects with the greatest potential to improve the future performance of the region’s transportation system. The Task Force met just before the November meeting and expects to meet again soon in the new year. Read the full Phase 1 report.
• COG is leading work on a Metro funding study and establishing a new Metro safety oversight agency. COG Executive Director Chuck Bean updated the board on ongoing work to quantify unmet funding needs for Metro and to facilitate the establishment of the new tristate Metro Safety Commission (MSC). Listen to Bean’s full report.

Picture credit: Elvert Barnes/Flickr

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Montgomery County is considering changing how it measures the transportation impact of proposed development, focusing — for the first time — on how accessible new buildings would be to transit rather than how many vehicles they would add to roads.

In areas around Metro stations — including traffic-clogged Friendship Heights and downtown Silver Spring and Bethesda — developers would no longer be required to complete traffic studies. Montgomery planners say that there’s no room to widen roads in more urban areas and that doing so would only make crossing them harder for pedestrians and cyclists.

Planners propose focusing on how many jobs would be reachable within a one-hour walkable transit trip of a new development, rather than the amount of traffic it would generate. Instead of vehicle trips, a development’s potential impact would be measured in “person trips” — whether by car, transit, foot or bike.

As Montgomery planner Pamela Dunn said, “We’re no longer a county that drives everywhere.”

The debate over how to best measure a new development’s impact on the transportation network comes as the County Council updates its Subdivision Staging Policy to ensure that infrastructure keeps pace with growth. Traditionally, the policy has focused on schools and roads as it specifies how growth’s impact should be measured and guides how developers should pay to mitigate them.

Like many suburbs, Montgomery is planning to accommodate population and job growth without worsening its sprawl-induced traffic by pushing for more high-rise development around transit stations.

Although many residents say they’re all for getting cars off the roads, some worry that the county’s vision ignores reality. Some say it’s impractical to expect transit, walking and biking to absorb the bulk of the growth in a suburb where about 75 percent of residents still commute by vehicle and many don’t live or work near a rail station or reliable bus service.

Critics point to a high-rise proposed for downtown Bethesda that would be adjacent to both a Metro Red Line station and a future light-rail Purple Line stop— and still have an 800-space parking garage.

“You can’t leave out the traffic impacts,” said Barney Rush, a council member for the town of Chevy Chase, where single-family homes in long-established neighborhoods abut downtown Bethesda.

Some people coming to new high-rises will still drive, he said, even if they live atop a Metro station.

“They might take Metro to and from work, but they could still be soccer moms or dads driving their kids,” Rush said. “We don’t expect roads to be empty, but we do expect our infrastructure to support the level of development coming.”

Some residents say the kind of traffic study the county requires, which is no longer considered the industry standard, isn’t sophisticated enough to capture the lengthy backups that occur when saturated intersections close together create near-gridlock. They question whether county officials are considering scrapping traffic tests near Metro stations because more accurate results might make it more difficult or expensive to build the kind of high-rise, transit-oriented development that their long-term growth plans rely on.

Discussions of how to best measure and reduce the burdens that growing communities face as they attempt to move beyond their auto-centric roots are happening across the region.

Across the Potomac River, Fairfax County officials expect that by 2050, traffic-clogged Tysons will get 100,000 new jobs and a fivefold increase in its current residential population of 19,000. Amid the vast parking lots and strip malls that line Routes 123 and 7, new high-rises are quickly sprouting around the area’s two-year-old Metro Silver Line stations. Traffic-mitigation measures required of Tysons developers include reducing the number of single-occupant cars entering or leaving their new buildings, such as by funding vanpools and shuttle services to Metro stations and building mostly smaller roads to create a more urban and walkable street grid.

Even so, some longtime Tysons residents say the new high-rises have already brought significantly more traffic as many of the new residents and workers continue to drive.

Many details of the Montgomery proposal remain up for debate, and the council has until Nov. 15 to approve the growth policy. But several county council members said they appreciate the need for a less car-centric approach.

Accommodating new building by continuing to focus on traffic congestion “isn’t going to get us to the future we need,” said Montgomery County Council member Hans Riemer (D-At Large).

County Council President Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), who also chairs the panel’s planning committee, said improving transportation will mean developers helping to pay for different things in different parts of the county.

“In [downtown] Bethesda, we won’t be building bigger intersections for cars to go through more rapidly,” Floreen said. “But we’ll have a list of what else needs to be done there, like improve sidewalks.”

Montgomery isn’t the only jurisdiction considering a different approach. Pete Tomao, Montgomery advocacy manager for the Coalition For Smarter Growth, a pro-transit group, noted that California recently threw out development-impact standards based on intersection congestion and now considers vehicle miles traveled. California officials have said that measurement better aligns with the state’s environmental goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, rather than helping people drive more.

While developing around transit lines focuses growth and reduces government infrastructure costs, Tomao said, those proposals often become more difficult or costly under traditional traffic-congestion tests. The result: It can become easier and cheaper for developers to build farther out, further adding to unsustainable sprawl.

“The vehicle delay could make a development look bad, but the benefits — people taking transit and walking more — weren’t taken into account,” Tomao said.

Developers say any additional taxes or fees would raise their construction costs. That, they say, could make it harder to secure financing and possibly require them to charge higher rents, which might prompt some businesses and residents to take their jobs and tax dollars elsewhere, such as to Tysons.

“How much can you tax development and still make sure that high-rise apartment buildings or office buildings get built?” said Steve Silverman, a former Montgomery County Council member and economic development director who now consults for developers.

At least one council member said he’s concerned that Montgomery lacks enough frequent and reliable transit service to absorb the amount of high-density growth planned, and there’s little money to provide more.

“If there’s no transit capacity, they’re all drivers,” said Marc Elrich (D-At Large). Traffic “is already horrible. You can’t add more development and not make it worse. It’s just not logical.”

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Image credit: Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post

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