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I've been away from the computer today and missed this fascinating debate, but here are a few thoughts.

First, we should absolutely upgrade the Red Line. I'd love to see an express Red starting farther out in Gaithersburg or so, stopping at Rockville and Bethesda, then maybe down Wisconsin to Georgetown or something. However, we're not getting that anytime soon. In the meantime, there's MARC, and as I've written many times before, we should work out the freight issues so we can upgrade MARC to transit-frequency service.

Most importantly, this growth is going to happen no matter what. If we don't put more housing and walkability on Rockville Pike, then it's going to go out in Darnestown or Frederick, and that's worse, because those people have to drive. At least if it's on a crowded Red Line, some people can still drive, but some people won't; some will commute to work outside the peak hour; some will take the bus; some won't work downtown; and one day, we can expand the Red Line.

Dense development near Metro also creates ridership off-peak. People don't only commute to work. They also go downtown, to, Bethesda or to Rockville Town Center to eat or for a movie. They go see the Nats. They go visit friends. They go out to bars. If they're on Metro, then some of those trips will happen on Metro during night and weekend hours. And Metro has plenty of capacity then. The more non-commute ridership Metro gets, the more frequency it will run on evenings and weekends, which will make Metro even more appealing for evening and weekend use. Right now, it's pretty bad on weekends, and so a lot of people (myself included) often avoid it; housing around Metro helps reverse that slide.

In summary, putting housing near Metro can't be worse than putting it elsewhere, and there are a lot of reasons it's better.

by David Alpert on Oct 20, 2008 5:52 pm • link • report