Dozens of Montgomery residents packed the Montgomery County Planning Department headquarters in Silver Spring Thursday evening to support the Planning Department’s goal of advancing a new rapid transit system for Montgomery. Citing the proposed system’s potential for offering the best solution to the County’s traffic challenges, reducing local air pollution from car emissions, and providing more affordable transit options and access to jobs for working families and young people, the residents asked the Planning Board to adopt the proposed system into Montgomery’s General Plan for transportation.
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Transit Advocates Pushing For Support In Bus Rapid Transit Debate
Transit advocates are going on the offensive after the Montgomery County Planning Board expressed some reluctance toward the idea of wiping out a lane of regular Rockville Pike traffic for Bus Rapid Transit-exclusive lanes.
That idea, presented in Planning Staff’s Draft Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan a few weeks ago, almost immediately drew skepticism from residents and Planning Board members.
The D.C. based Coalition for Smarter Growth sent an email to supporters on Thursday asking people in favor of the BRT-dedicated lane to email Planning Board members ahead of next week’s second meeting on the Draft, set for Thursday, April 4.
In it, CSG asks “Will we continue to place cars above all else in the decisions we make, or will we begin to make a shift towards providing better options for people than sitting in traffic?”
Montgomery’s proposed Rapid Transit System can transform travel in our county, but there are a number of potential hurdles. This week we are approaching one of those hurdles and we need your voice.
A key part of the Rapid Transit System’s recipe for traffic relief is giving priority to rapid transit vehicles over cars where it’s the most efficient use of our roads. It’s also a principle that has been part of Montgomery’s general plan since 1993. But in hearings last week, some members of the Planning Board appeared to waver in their commitment to this key principle.
As the hearings pick up again, we need to make sure that Montgomery residents are voicing their support for lane priority so that we don’t end up with a watered-down system that makes no impact on reducing traffic.
County staff are hard at work calculating which roads would be the best fit for a high-quality, reliable Rapid Transit System to connect our communities and complement Metro and the coming Purple Line.
Priority lanes for transit aren’t a new idea. 20 years ago, the 1993 Master Plan’s transportation section stated we should “Give priority to establishing exclusive travelways for transit and high occupancy vehicles serving the Urban Ring and Corridor.”
Communities committed to prioritizing transit, like Arlington, Bethesda, and many others have seen success in relieving traffics, providing better options for people to get around, and improving quality of life. But last week’s Planning Board discussions indicate that they may be wavering on that fundamental point, and that they may need some convincing that prioritizing transit where it’s most efficient is the right decision for the county.
Without a commitment to that concept, building a high quality Rapid Transit System could be very difficult. The debate really comes down to this: How will we share the road? Will we continue to place cars above all else in the decisions we make, or will we begin to make a shift towards providing better options for people than sitting in traffic?
Many are against the proposal to make three-lane northbound and southbound Rockville Pike from the Beltway to the D.C. line into two lanes of regular traffic with a lane that would be dedicated exclusively to the BRT system, perhaps with stations and boarding areas in the median.
Residents have complained that the BRT system won’t be convenient enough for them to use for non-commuting purposes and that ridership would not offset the traffic impacts of reducing three lanes of already clogged traffic to two.
The Planning Board sent Planning Staff back to the drawing board in order to find new language for the Draft that would put drivers at ease.
“To me, this document screams that we don’t care what happens to drivers and I’m not comfortable taking that position,” Planning Board Chair Francoise Carrier told lead Planning Staff member Larry Cole during the first worksession on March 18.
Activists say transit priority essential to traffic relief
As Montgomery County planners tweak wording in a draft transit master plan, some activists say prioritizing the 10 corridors and 79 miles of proposed future bus rapid transit is essential to easing traffic gridlock.
The county’s planning board on March 18 rejected the first draft of the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, sending it back to the staff to soften language and explain why the plan recommends giving transit priority over cars and drivers.
The planning board is scheduled to discuss the updated draft at 9 a.m. April 4.
Action Committee for Transit President Tina Slater expressed disappointment that debate over transit priority has delayed the plan’s progress, even if only for a few weeks.
Unlike the county’s Ride On bus system, which is mired in the same traffic that gridlocks cars, BRT will give residents an option they never have had before by moving riders more rapidly in dedicated lanes, she said.
The population of Montgomery is expected to increase by 205,759 people by 2040, according to a Montgomery County Demographic and Travel Forecast, based on a 2012 Metropolitan Washington Council of Government report. Slater questioned how even more residents will get around if the county does not prioritize transit.
“We are going to have a major transportation problem on our hands if we don’t do something now,” she said.
Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, saw the planning board’s delay as doing its homework to ensure the right routes and dedicated service are recommended.
However, Schwartz said his organization feels there are more corridors poised for dedicated lane service than the staff recommended.
During the discussion on March 18, Planning Commission Chairwoman Francoise M. Carrier said she quarreled with the plan’s “categorical statements that transit gets priority all the time everywhere.”
Carrier argued that any priority should be expressed in more nuanced language.
Acting Planning Director Rose Krasnow said that under the existing procedure, roads get priority, all the time, everywhere, which has greatly harmed the quality of life.
Planning Board Commissioner Casey Anderson cautioned watering down the language.
If the board were discussing a rail line, it would not debate whether it was fair to give it priority over other traffic, he said.
But both the problem and advantage of BRT is that it can operate in a myriad of ways — dedicated lanes, dedicated right-of-way, mixed in traffic, etc. — depending on where it is built.
“And that’s great because it’s very flexible,” Anderson said. “The problem is, whatever is in this plan then gets negotiated down from there. And so this is the high-water mark. If you don’t put it in the plan now, it’s not going to get better for transit, it’s only going to degrade.”
Dedicated lanes, signal priority and queue jumping are proven approaches to bus transit and are being implemented in Montgomery by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority with its MetroExtra limited stop bus service, Schwartz said.
About 700 people ride MetroExtra every day on its route on New Hampshire Avenue, and more routes are planned.
“There’s no better option to manage growth in traffic while maintaining economic competitiveness than investing in dedicated lane transit and transit-oriented communities,” Schwartz said.
Historically, the county approach to traffic congestion was to widen roads.
Yet, many routes proposed in the draft transit master plan cannot be widened, Slater said.
“The only thing you are left to do if the road is as wide as it is today, and you are trying to stuff more people down it, is to put people on something that can move more people than a car,” she said.
But to give BRT dedicated lanes north of the Beltway only to let it snarl in the urban traffic for fear that taking a lane could worsen congestion for the cars would defeat BRT’s purpose, she said.
Once built as planned, BRT will be its own advertisement, Slater said.
Drivers sitting in traffic who see buses bypassing the gridlock will consider taking a bus to get to their destination more quickly, she said.
Reduced from the 160-mile network of 20 corridors recommended last May by the Transit Task Force, planning staff have proposed a 79-mile network of 10 corridors, including U.S. 355 north and south, Georgia Avenue north and south, U.S. 29, Veirs Mill Road, Randolph Road, New Hampshire Avenue, University Boulevard and the North Bethesda Transitway.
Montgomery County’s population reaches 1 million
Montgomery County became the first jurisdiction in Maryland with a population of more than one million last year after gaining more than 13,000 people since 2011.
U.S. Census data released this month puts the county’s population at 1,004,709 as of July 2012.
Prince George’s County had the next largest population in the state, with 881,138 people. Kent County had the lowest, with 20,191.
Most of Montgomery’s population can be traced to the fact that there were 13,097 births from 2011 to 2012 and only 5,467 deaths, according to the county planning department.
Also during that time, 8,700 people moved from other countries into the county, and 3,100 moved out.
Migration from the county is a trend county planners attribute to the recovering economy and housing market, which gives people more freedom to sell their homes as they find work elsewhere.
“We’ve planned for our population to increase,” Rose Krasnow, the county’s acting director of planning, said in a statement. “Years ago, we set up tools to preserve our agricultural land and maintain our single-family neighborhoods. More recently we have created many mixed-use, multi-family housing opportunities in our downtowns or near Metro.”
A growing population raises the perennial concern of creating more traffic, but the county has been taking the right steps to mitigate increased congestion, said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter-Growth, which advocates for walkable, transit-oriented development.
“[The population] makes it more important than ever that the county continue to focus on transit-oriented development and new rapid-transit systems,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz said the proposed Purple Line light-rail system and bus rapid transit systems — in which buses travel in dedicated lanes to avoid traffic — were the right kind of projects for the county.
The alternative is a scattered, suburban population having to use more crowded roads, he said.
The county’s growth rate from 2011 to 2012 was 1.3 percent, lower than the rates in the previous three years, which ranged from 1.6 percent to 1.8 percent, according to planners.
A similar slowing of growth has also occurred in areas such as Prince George’s County and Fairfax County in Virginia, which also have large population bases, said Roberto Ruiz, research director for the Montgomery County Planning Department. Such decreases are inevitable, he said.
“You’re not going to be able to keep up that rate [if] you’re already starting with a big base,” Ruiz said.
Coalition for Smarter Growth Speaks Out on Rapid Transit
The Coalition for Smarter Growth has released the following regarding Rapid Transit in Montgomery County:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 21st, 2013
Contacts: Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth, (703) 599-6437
Montgomery Planners Propose 78-Mile Rapid Transit system
Today, Montgomery County planning staff present to the Planning Board a 78-mile version of the proposed Rapid Transit System, based on several months of data-driven modeling and analysis. The Rapid Transit System would be a premium, reliable transit service using dedicated lanes as much as possible to bypass traffic, running frequently throughout the day, and stopping at enhanced stations featuring real time arrival information and efficient boarding like that found on Metro.
“The Rapid Transit System will complement the Purple Line and our Metro system, offering high quality transit to more of Montgomery County and helping to address traffic and future economic development. It is an essential investment, providing residents more affordable transportation and a better option than sitting in traffic,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Facing an additional 200,000 residents, 200,000 new jobs, and a 22% increase in the amount of time residents will spend on roadways by 2040, planners know that the county’s roadways, already overburdened with traffic, will be unable to handle additional vehicles. Their analysis, forecasting ridership to 2040, demonstrated that dedicating lanes to transit on several corridors could move more people per lane than individual vehicles, while improving traffic countywide. They are recommending a phased approach based on that data, with a first phase that would include two lanes dedicated to the Rapid Transit System in the center of Rockville Pike and northern US29, and one reversible lane in the direction of rush hour traffic on parts of Georgia Ave, Viers Mill/University Blvd, and New Hampshire Avenue. Their models show that their recommended network would attract a ridership of approximately 184,000 daily riders by 2040.
Said Lindsay Hoffman of Friends of White Flint, “We’ve come together in our neighborhoods and supported a vision for a walkable community in White Flint where it will be possible to leave the car at home and live a healthier, more affordable lifestyle. Improved and expanded transit service on Rockville Pike is critical to making that vision possible, and we as residents will need to work together to ensure this proposal meets our communities’ needs and becomes a reality.”
“The planning staff’s network is smaller than the full Transit Task Force proposal but also much larger than the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) proposal. The staff’s analysis is both rigorous and practical, and results in a network that can be effectively implemented,” concluded Schwartz.
In the planning staff’s brief, they reported, “ITDP did not do any ridership forecasting, whereas our transportation modeling work has shown that the forecast 2040 ridership on MD355 is far higher and we are confident that we should begin planning for a two-lane median busway for most of this corridor.”
The Montgomery County Planning Board will now have a month to review the staff’s recommendations before they release a draft for public hearings to be held in the beginning of May. After public hearings, the Planning Board will submit their draft proposal to the County Council.
The Smart (Growth) Crowd Weighs In
My smart growth buddies have issued a critique of the compromise transportation-funding deal. Among the highlights in the press release issued jointly today by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Piedmont Environmental Council:
Cutting gas taxes by up to one-third reduces the tie between transportation use and funding. “Transportation, unlike our schools, is like an electric utility, yet the primary fee—the gas tax—hasn’t been increased in 27 years. Transit users have been paying increased fares, year after year, yet road users would see a reduction in daily travel costs under the bill, leading to a potential shift from transit to driving, more driving and more congestion.”
The proposal feeds wasteful spending. “The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is squandering most of the $3 billion in borrowed funds authorized by the General Assembly in 2011 and we can expect more of the same.” Hard-to-justify projects include the Charlottesville Bypass, the Coalfields Expressway and the Route 460 Connector. Another $1.25 billion in funds raised by the tax restructuring will be lavished upon a Northern Virginia Outer Beltway.
The proposal offers no statewide funding for local road needs. “VDOT has zeroed out funding for local roads over the past few years. Instead, the bill will make Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads increase sales taxes and wholesale gas taxes to pay for local roads. This is a major step toward devolution and passing on the cost of local roads to Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.”
The compromise pushes all new transit funding — the 0.3 cent addition to the sales tax — into the General Fund, forcing it to compete with schools, health care and other public services. “Dulles Rail should long ago have been funded through the Transportation Trust Fund. It should not be a bargaining chip to get Northern Virginians to agree to taking General Fund revenues.”
Bacon’s bottom line: I agree with most of this critique — the General Assembly compromise enables a dysfunctional Business As Usual. I do take exception with one point, however. I believe that all modes of transportation should stand on their own two feet, so to speak. I don’t believe in subsidizing rail or mass transit any more than I believe in subsidizing roads. We need to create a level playing field — put each mode on a user-fee basis — and let the most economical mode win.
Would it then be impossible to finance new rail projects? Not necessarily. We could make rail more viable if we could figure out how to tap a portion of the real estate value created by rail projects to help finance the construction. That’s where we need to concentrate our energy, not how to stick non-users with the bill.
Photo courtesy of Bacon’s Rebellion
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New bus rapid transit proposal centers around Route 355
Route 355 is the only road in Montgomery County that could support a two-way bus lane, county planners said Thursday as they presented a scaled-back bus rapid system to the county’s Planning Board.
Planners are pitching a 78-mile system that would include eight corridors in the center and downcounty regions. Some would include new lanes in the current medians, one of which is a two-lane system and others that call for a one-lane track, and mixing the buses in with existing traffic.
The new version is about half of the 160-mile system proposed by a task force appointed by County Executive Ike Leggett. A report from the New York-based Institution for Transportation and Development Policy suggested that system would not have enough riders.
The buses in the new system would run down Route 355, Colesville Road/Route 29, Georgia Avenue, New Hampshire Avenue, Randolph Road, Veirs Mill Road, University Boulevard and the proposed North Bethesda Transitway between Old Georgetown Road and Interstate 270.
But Route 355 is the only road that could hold two lanes down the median and provide enough bus riders to make the new construction worth it.
Master Planner Larry Cole pitched building the bus system on Route 355/Rockville Pike and U.S. 29/Colesville Road first because these are the roads predicted to have the most riders and they can stand alone without other corridors feeding into them.
Some commissioners questioned why some corridors were chosen over others and what the methodology was behind determining ridership and congestion. There was also discussion of what was more beneficial for drivers and potential BRT riders: dedicated curb lanes or bus lanes in medians?
Planning commissioner Norman Dreyfuss asked whether Cole had considered creating new median lanes for cars instead of the buses to alleviate congestion on certain corridors and keep buses on the curb for pedestrian safety.
Cole said county staff was still working on the specifics of the system.
Area transportation advocates backed the plan, saying county planners are being realistic about the service they can provide the county.
“The staff’s analysis is both rigorous and practical,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “And results in a network that can be effectively implemented.”
A public hearing is scheduled for March 18.
Photo courtesy of Washington Examiner
Planners Say Rockville Pike Could Handle Major Bus Rapid Transit System
Montgomery County planners think Rockville Pike is the county’s best candidate for a “true” Bus Rapid Transit route, meaning the traffic-clogged artery could support a two-lane median busway similar to major systems that serve millions of riders in other countries.
The finding came today in a briefing from planners in front of the Montgomery County Planning Board and a little more than a week after it was revealed that an outside consultant found a potential 150-mile BRT system in Montgomery County would not have enough riders.
Today, planners presented a modified 87-mile BRT system they said would attract more riders than the outside report from the New York-based Institution for Transportation and Development Policy suggested.
“ITDP’s report’s focus is on which corridors are best suited to high-quality “true” BRT with frequent all day service. The report finds that MD355 is the best candidate for this treatment, but expresses a concern that if future BRT ridership is only double the existing bus ridership, it would be very low compared to other BRT operations nationwide,” reads the Planning Staff’s memo. “ITDP did not do any ridership forecasting however, whereas our transportation modeling work has shown that the forecast 2040 ridership on MD355 is far higher and we are confident that we should begin planning for a two-lane median busway for most of this corridor.”
The Planning Staff briefing also found that the proposed North Bethesda Transitway BRT route (with a previously estimated daily ridership of 8,000 to 10,000 riders) was a corridor that could stand alone, without the benefit of a county-wide network.
The Coalition for Smarter Growth, a D.C.-based nonprofit lobbying for smart growth initiatives and transit funding, had supportive words for the latest proposal.
“The planning staff’s network is smaller than the full Transit Task Force proposal but also much larger than the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) proposal. The staff’s analysis is both rigorous and practical, and results in a network that can be effectively implemented,” Coalition for Smarter Growth Stewart Schwartz said in a statement.
Daily ridership projections by 2040 presented at a Coalition for Smarter Growth meeting last week show between 44,000 and 49,000 riders for a southbound MD 355 system and between 22,000 and 34,000 riders for a northbound MD 355 system. The projections for the North Bethesda Transitway range from 4,000 daily riders to 10,000.
Photo by Juanman 3 via Wikipedia; route map via Montgomery County Planning Department
Montgomery Planners Propose 78-Mile Rapid Transit system
Today, Montgomery County planning staff present to the Planning Board a 78-mile version of the proposed Rapid Transit System, based on several months of data-driven modeling and analysis. The Rapid Transit System would be a premium, reliable transit service using dedicated lanes as much as possible to bypass traffic, running frequently throughout the day, and stopping at enhanced stations featuring real time arrival information and efficient boarding like that found on Metro.
Group Introduces New Coalition To Push Transit Funding
A new collection of transit advocates yesterday began a push to get Annapolis lawmakers focused on transportation funding and a member of the group fueling the effort yesterday night asked for support from a Bethesda Advisory Board.
Kelly Blynn, of the D.C.-based nonprofit Coalition for Smarter Growth, told members of the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board that without transit projects such as the Purple Line light rail in Bethesda or a Bus Rapid Transit system along Rockville Pike, Montgomery County could not handle the over 200,000 more people coming to the county by 2030.
The Coalition for Smarter Growth spearheaded the “Get Maryland Moving” campaign, which it introduced on Tuesday.
“Maryland’s economic competitiveness is at risk if the state fails to invest adequately in maintenance, local roads and modern transit systems,” Coalition for Smarter Growth executive director Stewart Schwartz said in a statement. “These transit investments are essential for providing relief from peak hour congestion, for supporting economic development, and for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Blynn came looking for allies at the Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday and described the group’s three-legged approach toward improving local traffic issues: investment in the projected $2.4 billion Purple Line, Bus Rapid Transit (still far from its final design) and Metro system improvements.
Supporters of the “Get Maryland Moving” campaign include the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce, Action Committee for Transit and and Purple Line Now.
With no state funding in sight, Purple Line design work by the Maryland Transit Administration could be stopped, which local lawmakers say would derail the process. The 16-mile light rail from New Carrollton to Bethesda, with stops in College Park, Silver Spring and Chevy Chase, among others, would bring 15,000 riders a day to the Bethesda station, according to MTA projections.
County leaders say this is the year to get a gas tax hike in the General Assembly that could cover the state’s share of the cost. They are pessimistic that leaders would agree to a gas tax hike in 2014, an election year. So far, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) hasn’t made achieving transportation funding a priority, to the chagrin of Montgomery leaders such as Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Bethesda-Potomac).
The “Get Maryland Moving” campaign includes a petition to spur action from O’Malley and others on the issue.
Photo courtesy of Get Maryland Moving