With your help, we did it! The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the West Falls Church plan to transform acres of parking lots into an inclusive, walkable, bike-friendly, transit-oriented community. Thanks to all of you who took action and helped make this a success!
Category: Resources
CSG Testimony: TPB Vote on Capital Beltway/I-270 & Long-Range Transportation Plan
July 20, 2021
Hon. Charles Allen
Chair, National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board
Re: TPB Vote on Capital Beltway/I-270 and the Long-Range Transportation Plan
Chair Allen and members of the TPB:
I will keep our comments short:
- Governor Hogan and MDOT have:
- Completely failed to objectively study alternatives to the toll lanes
- Put the P3 negotiations and contracts ahead of completion of the EIS, and biased the entire process for private toll lanes.
- Run a scorched-earth political campaign which demonstrates their bias.
- The toll lane deals for 495Next in Virginia and for Maryland not only lack the commitment to transit funding we need, the non-compete provisions appear to prevent future Metrorail at the American Legion Bridge and other transit investments.
- Climate change is an existential threat. Contrary to MDOT arguments, highway expansion increases driving and CO2 emissions. It is astounding to see massive highway expansion proposed while the Arctic and Antarctic melts, the West burns, Europe floods, and shellfish cooks on the beaches of Canada.
- The toll lanes would reinforce the East-West economic divide in our region condemning Prince George’s commuters to either paying very high tolls or sitting in the general-purpose lane traffic that the toll road companies depend on to generate their profits.
- A far better alternative is Maryland investment in transit-oriented development on the east side of the region, which would increase jobs, shorten commutes, even out the flows on the Beltway and Metrorail, and help address the E-W economic and racial divide.
Therefore, we urge you to stand by your vote to remove the toll lanes from the TPB’s long range plan and honestly to take the same step for the 495Next project – in order to force objective consideration of alternatives, the climate impacts, and the development of the most sustainable and effective alternative with the least impact on parks and communities.
We are running out of time on the climate and are failing to do what needs to be done to address the E-W economic and racial divide. We need your leadership.
Thank you,
Stewart Schwartz
Executive Director
CSG News: Record heat waves, climate change, and our fight for a sustainable region
CSG’s July newsletter was sent out on July 2. Sign up for our email list by visiting smartergrowth.net/signup.
Event: Placemaking on Ward 3’s Avenues – What’s in the Streetscape Toolbox?
June 22, 2021 – CSG and Ward3Vision hosted an event to learn about the many tools we have to create and sustain lively places on the main streets of our community. We discussed why streets are important, what makes them comfortable, interesting, useful and inviting, and what models we might learn from. The event also helped the audience understand how affordable housing actually gets financed. The event also helped the audience understand the ‘software’ that helps make it all work.
Featured speakers:
- Matthew Bell FAIA (Principal, Perkins Eastman & Professor, University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation)
- Robert Peck (Gensler Architects)
- Erkin Ozberk (Neighborhood Planner for Wards 3 and 4, DC Office of Planning)
- Leigh Catherine Miles (Executive Director, Tenleytown Main Street)
Event materials
- View the event recording on youtube.
- Presentation slides:
CSG Testimony: Attainable Housing Strategies
We strongly support the direction of the Planning Department’s recommendations for more diverse housing typologies in Montgomery County, especially in places near transit, amenities, and jobs. Inequitable, unsustainable land use patterns are a systemic problem at the root of some of our most difficult social issues. Montgomery County should not be a place where your zip code can predict your future income, health, or other life outcomes.
Middle housing zoning reform will not change neighborhoods overnight or solve all our housing challenges. Rather, smart land use decisions will lay the foundation for a better, more just society where people can find a place to live that fits their needs, their income, and provides access to opportunities. It will help Montgomery County become a place where more people can choose to live car-lite or car-free and drive less; a place where more people can start a family or age-in-place.
CSG Comments: Draft Vision Zero 2030 Plan
We commend Montgomery County for its commitment to ending all traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Vision Zero is important for many reasons, chief among them to make our transportation system one where all users can safely move. We cannot create great places for people to live, work, and play in Montgomery County if people do not feel safe getting there. The county also faces other challenges, such as the county’s rapidly aging population who would like to age-in-place and combating climate change, of which Vision Zero is a critical component of the solution.
RELEASE: New Analysis Measures Racial and Economic Disparities in Transit Access Across National Capital Region
2021.06.17-RELEASE_-New-Analysis-Measures-Racial-and-Economic-Disparities-in-Transit-Access-Across-National-Capital-RegionDownload
For Immediate Release
June 17, 2021
Contact
Ben Fried, TransitCenter, 347-675-5592
Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth, 703-599-6437
Ron Thompson, DC Transportation Equity Network, 202-780-7940
New Analysis Measures Racial and Economic Disparities in Transit Access Across National Capital Region
The Transit Equity Dashboard illustrates inequities in access to jobs, health care, and other services for Black and brown residents.
An analysis released today measures racial and economic inequities embedded in the National Capital Region’s transportation network. The Transit Equity Dashboard, produced and launched today by the national foundation TransitCenter, maps and quantifies the disparities in transit access caused by segregation and discrimination in land use and transportation policy. TransitCenter is releasing findings for an initial six U.S. metropolitan regions over the coming week.
The COVID crisis made racial inequities in public health and economic status very plain, and demonstrated just how critical transit is for our essential workers. “As recovery from the pandemic accelerates in greater DC, our organizations call on political leaders to prioritize public investments that will shrink gaps in transit access and address other inequities as a result, putting the region on the path to a just recovery,” said Ron Thompson of the DC Transportation Equity Network.
People of color are more likely to rely on transit in the Capital region — in 2019, 18% of Black residents took transit to work, compared to 12% of white residents. But disparities in transit access linked to race and economic status are undermining transit’s capacity to function as a “ladder of opportunity” connecting people to jobs, education, medical care, and other necessities. Using data from transit agencies and the U.S. Census, the dashboard reveals these disparities.
In addition to job access, the dashboard measures transit access to grocery stores, hospitals, parks, and colleges, reflecting the fact that most trips are not commute trips, and that equitable transit enables people to access more than the workplace. Key findings include:
- The average Latinx resident can access 157,040 potential jobs in 45 minutes using transit, the average Black resident can access 160,893 jobs, and the average Asian resident 184,018 jobs — compared to 256,140 for the average white resident.
- On a weekday evening, it takes 40 minutes for the average resident of the Washington D.C. region to take transit to the nearest hospital, and even longer for the average Asian or Latinx resident. Poor access to healthcare is associated with worse health outcomes; it also means long transit commutes for essential healthcare workers working second- and third-shift roles.
- On a weekend morning, it takes more than three times longer to reach the closest hospital using transit than using a car, and nearly three times longer to reach the third-nearest grocery store. The dashboard measures time to the third-closest grocery store to show how effectively transit connects people to a variety of options.
Achieving more equitable transit in greater DC will require changes to both the broad sweep of transportation and land use and the specifics of transit operations and fare policy. Advocates have proposed reforms to remediate the racial and economic divides in the region’s transit access, including:
- Redesigning bus networks in DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland to expand access to jobs.
- Operating transit more frequently throughout the day and week, in order to better meet the needs of essential workers.
- Dedicated transitways to make bus and streetcar service faster and more reliable, both within DC and throughout the region.
- Addressing the east-west economic and racial divide that cuts across the region as well as the racial and economic residential segregation apparent within each jurisdiction.
Transit agencies and local governments in the Capital region should also adopt new performance targets that measure inequities like those identified by this dashboard, and assess progress toward equitable transit access.
“TransitCenter’s maps highlight once again the need to address the region’s east-west racial and economic divide, as well as the need to prioritize dedicated bus lanes, more affordable fares, and networks redesigned for more frequent service and improved access to jobs,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
While noting the recent actions by the WMATA board on service changes and fare affordability, the Alexandria DASH bus network redesign, and planning for regional network redesigns, the groups collectively urged much more rapid progress.
###
CSG Testimony: Comments in Support of West Falls Church Redevelopment Plan
For nearly 25 years since our founding by the region’s leading conservation groups, we have helped the region work toward a vision for a network of transit-oriented communities, a vision committed to by Fairfax County and endorsed by all 23 jurisdictions in the Council of Governments’ Region Forward plan and supporting plans. It is a vision shared by the conservation community, affordable housing, bike/ped and transit advocates, and much of the business community.
We support the West Falls Church TSA – with recommendations: 1) swift action to make the streets that surround the Metro station site safer for local residents, bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit-
users and 2) addressing climate change by slashing our emissions from transportation. L
We are signatories to the joint supportive comments submitted by leading conservation and housing groups in the Fairfax Healthy Communities Network – which you have in your packet. In addition to CSG, the signatories are Audubon Naturalist Society, Northern VA Affordable Housing Alliance, Sierra Club – Great Falls Group, Friends of Holmes Run, and Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions.