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@JM: Even with the freeway-centric development, there are businesses close to New Carrollton station. Crossroads, regardless of location tend to become magnets for more intensive development over time. Silver Spring's development really began with its stop on the B&O, as well as major roadways. The barriers to really enlivening the SS area is in knitting together spaces that are a bit distant and integrating a few decades of urban renewal mistakes in the area. It's a convenient place, but for many people not really attractive as city or suburb, but the convenience has been enough to movw it forward in many ways.

Stations that function as car/transit/bus points often don't serve that function well, anyway and could use rethinking. Greenbelt has no Zipcars (which seems bizarre) and is an unpleasant, treeless place to wait for buses. It also fails to relate to the nearby residential area. Shady Grove is equally depressing. Despite the expressway entrance, etc., Shady Grove could develop in denser ways on the Rt 355 side, although that would be far in the future.

Redevelopment of New Carrollton station could help revive Annapolis Road as a commercial area if ways could be found to bridge the two. Redevelopment of open space and existing commercial areas could accomplish this.Tthere's always a lot of hang wringing about PG County, but there are plenty of jurisdictions, here and elsewhere that have had forward thinking development despite corruption. And when something clever happens like the Wegman's, it often works. The Green line, as others have noted offers great potential and on a recent trip to the PG Plaza area, I was impressed at how much has been accomplished in the past few years, building on the original mall as an anchor. The presence of NCHS is a help, too, because it diversifies the base and new development has ended the isolation of their space. PG has a lot of old suburban areas that seem ripe for redevelopment because they are filled with faltering retail and tired housing. W Hyattsville and Greenbelt seem like stations that are well located to catylize that. Gentrification has slowly been moving in this direction since before the Green line opened, a generational change in housing ownership in upper NE might begin to draw more interest into PG County. It never will be hip, but it never has been.

Although the architectural requirements for DoD would pose some barriers to urbanism, PG should consider ways to benefit from BRAC. I wouldn't be surprised if the Army winds up renting long-term space rather than truly consolidating at Fort Meade. DoD long has rented space far from posts for satellite activities and these often draw contractors, as well. Walter Reed rents lab space in Rockville. Back office and even strategic functions for the Pentagon have been scattered throughout the Virginia suburbs, including places like Dulles and obscure parts of Falls Church. The consolidation at Fort Meade could benefit the further out Metro stations in PG with creative marketing and packaging and an effort by DoD to provide convenient and frequent shuttles among sites.

by Rich on Jun 4, 2011 11:57 am • link • report