Posts by Miriam Schoenbaum

Service improvements in the proposal

MARC's proposal increases service to Montgomery County, which not only contributes an increasing share of current riders but will account for still more in the future through transit-oriented developments around MARC stations.

At least one more train would stop at each of the county's stations except Silver Spring and Rockville, where all trains already stop, and Metropolitan Grove. The additional service would also benefit riders who work in Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Kensington. This is a good and needed change, and MARC should make sure it stays in the final schedule.

Also, the proposal adds a PanTran bus connection to West Virginia for the first daily westbound train. This would increase flexibility for riders from West Virginia stations who might need to go home early.

Finally, the proposal adds a third morning train from West Virginia. The train would leave Martinsburg at 6:00 am, between the two current departures.

West Virginia westbound service changes

In this schedule proposal, westbound train service to West Virginia would begin and end earlier. Instead of the 3 West Virginia-bound trains that currently leave Union Station at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 7:15 pm, there would be 3 trains leaving at 4:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 6:15 pm. The last westbound Brunswick Line train (the current 7:15 pm departure) would end in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg, and West Virginia riders would transfer to a PanTran bus.

MARC says that West Virginia riders have asked for an earlier departure, so the proposed 4:15 pm train might be an improvement. However, a bus transfer would not be a welcome change for riders who now take the last train.

In addition, riders who are not from West Virginia would have longer gaps between evening rush-hour trains because of the shift to earlier West Virginia service. This is because the 4:55 pm West Virginia train would become a 4:45 pm Brunswick train; the 5:15 pm departure would go to West Virginia instead of Frederick; the 5:40 pm departure for Brunswick would become a 5:35 pm departure for Frederick; and the 6:00 pm Brunswick-bound train would become the last West Virginia train, leaving at 6:15 pm.

For Frederick branch riders, the 85-minute gap between the trains leaving Union Station at 3:50 pm and 5:15 pm would increase to a 110-minute gap between trains leaving at 3:45 pm and 5:35 pm.

For Brunswick and Point of Rocks riders, there would be 2 evening rush trains (leaving at 5:15 pm and 6:15 pm) instead of 3 (leaving at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 6:00 pm).

And for Montgomery County riders, the 20-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:40 pm and 6:00 pm trains would increase to a 40-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:35 pm and 6:15 pm.

The magnitude of these confusing changes, the extra effort of arranging interstate connecting-bus service to the West Virginia stations, and the fact that the previous schedule proposal also had the last westbound train ending in Brunswick, all combine to suggest that ending the last train in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg is very important to MARC. Why?

Does MARC want to reduce service to the West Virginia stations because West Virginia does not contribute to MARC funding? If so, why do both proposed schedules add a third eastbound train from West Virginia?

Or does CSX want MARC trains off their tracks earlier? The last train now deadheads back to Brunswick after its 9:14 pm stop in Martinsburg. Storing the train in Martinsburg would get it off earlier. But ending the train in Brunswick at 8:58 pm, as MARC now proposes, would get it off earlier still.

Other issues

There are 3 other big issues: the end of the super-express, the absence of new trains, and the non-restoral of daily service for the first westbound train.

First, the proposed schedule would end westbound-service on the historic
super-express, which now leaves Union Station at 4:55 pm and stops only in Silver Spring, Rockville, Point of Rocks, Brunswick, and the 3 West Virginia stations. MARC explains that "with growing ridership in Montgomery County, we can no longer skip these stops when the demand exists."

Second, the proposed schedule does not add to the Brunswick Line's current 18 daily trains. MARC explains that CSX will not allow MARC to add trains until the State of Maryland builds a third track. However, MARC has nonetheless asked CSX for permission to add 1 morning and 1 evening train. CSX might even agree, given federal and state funding of CSX's National Gateway Project.

Third, the proposed schedule does not restore daily service for the first westbound train. This Brunswick-bound train currently leaves Union Station at 1:45 pm on Fridays only. Daily service ended in 2009 when the Maryland Transit Administration cut service due to budget shortfalls.

What now?

MARC has stated that "[t]here is no target date for implementation—we want to first gather further feedback from our customers."

As they did the last time, MARC has set up an on-line survey for people to comment on the proposal.

MARC will also hold "town hall" meetings in Charles Town on Saturday, May 19; Rockville on Tuesday, May 22; and Frederick on Wednesday, May 23.

In addition, MARC staff will be at Brunswick Line stations to gather feedback in the afternoons/evenings between May 1 and May 17. MTA will send out e-mail alerts with specific stations, dates, and times.

The Brunswick Line is arguably the most complicated of MARC's 3 lines. It's certainly the longest, running for 73 miles northwest through Montgomery and Frederick Counties and on to Martinsburg, West Virginia, with a 13.5-mile branch line to Frederick.

In addition, like MARC's Camden Line, it runs on tracks owned and controlled by freight carrier CSX. And it is constrained, despite growing ridership, because CSX refuses to allow MARC to add trains until the State of Maryland funds and builds a third track.

On weekday mornings, Brunswick Line trains bring people from Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia to jobs in Montgomery County, the District, and Alexandria and Arlington. On weekday afternoons and evenings, Brunswick Line trains take them home.

Meanwhile, there are big plans for the future along the line. Montgomery County is encouraging transit-oriented development on its part of the Brunswick Line. Frederick County is doing the same in and near Frederick. Even West Virginia is getting in on the act.

But good policy requires good data. So, where do the ridership data come from, and what do they show?

MARC's counting method

The data come from counts conducted on Wednesday, February 8, and Wednesday, March 14. MTA passed out the data at the monthly MARC Riders Advisory Council meeting on April 19.

On count days, conductors are supposed to count everybody who gets on and off their train at each station. The total number of people getting on and off each train is supposed to be equal.

The boarding numbers are misleadingly precise. That is, a count of 123 eastbound boardings on Frederick on March 14 does not mean that exactly 123 people got on. However, the numbers are still useful, as they are probably generally accurate, and anyway, they are the only numbers available.

The Brunswick Line overall

The Brunswick Line accounted for roughly 1/5 of total MARC boardings, while the Penn Line accounted for roughly 2/3, and the Camden Line accounted for the rest. Here is a comparison of Brunswick Line boardings to MARC's other two lines:

MARC Line	Direction/Total	February 8	March 14
Brunswick Line	Eastbound (am)	3,898	4,102
Brunswick Line	Westbound (pm)	3,562	3,844
Brunswick Line	Total	7,460	7,946
Camden Line	Total	4,965	4,711
Penn Line	Total	22,911	26,218

On both days, there were more eastbound than westbound boardings on the Brunswick Line. This may be a precision error, or there may actually have been 300-some people each day who went to work on MARC and home a different way.

Montgomery County

Montgomery County has 11 stations: Silver Spring, Kensington, Garrett Park, Rockville, Washington Grove, Gaithersburg, Metropolitan Grove, Germantown, Boyds, Barnesville, and Dickerson. Rockville and Silver Spring are major destination stations as well as origin stations.

9 daily trains in each direction currently make stops in Montgomery County. 2 eastbound and 4 westbound daily trains currently stop at all of the county stations.

Here are the boardings for Montgomery County:

Direction/Total	Station/Total	February 8	March 14
Eastbound	Total	1,844	2,082
	Germantown	780	837
Westbound	Total	1,170	1,071
	Silver Spring	605	654
	Rockville	419	312
	Other*	146	105
Total		3,014	3,153

The data show three notable facts:

1. Germantown is a big station, by MARC standards. It's the biggest station in Montgomery County and on the Brunswick Line overall, and it's bigger, in terms of one-way boardings, than all Camden Line stations and all but 4 Penn Line stations (Odenton, Halethorpe, BWI, and Penn Station). (This comparison excludes Union Station.)

2. Rockville and Silver Spring are not the only destination stations in the county. People also ride MARC to jobs in Germantown, Metropolitan Grove, Gaithersburg, Garrett Park, and Kensington.

3. On the March 14 count day, there were more eastbound boardings at Montgomery County stations than at all other stations on the Brunswick Line combined.

The Frederick branch

The Frederick branch has 2 stations: Monocacy and Frederick. The trains run on a 13.5-mile line that branches off just east of (and not connecting to) the Point of Rocks station. The State of Maryland built and owns most of the track. Currently, 3 eastbound trains leave from Frederick between 5:12 and 7:10 am, and 3 trains bound west for Frederick leave Union Station between 3:50 and 6:30 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers (all eastbound) on the Frederick Line:

Station	February 8	March 14
Total	442	408
Frederick	150	123
Monocacy	292	285

The Frederick branch opened in 2001 with 3 eastbound and 3 westbound trains. Projected ridership was 1,600 by 2005, with double the number of trains. Obviously, Frederick ridership is still much less; on the other hand, the number of trains is still the same as in 2001. That more frequent trains would increase ridership is a reasonable assumption.

Brunswick and Point of Rocks

There are also 2 stations in Frederick County that are not on the Frederick branch: Point of Rocks and Brunswick. Currently, 6 eastbound trains leave Brunswick between 5:00 and 7:40 am, and 6 daily westbound trains stopping at Brunswick and Point of Rocks leave Union Station between 3:35 and 7:15 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers at Point of Rocks and Brunswick:

Direction/Total	Station/Total	February 8	March 14
Eastbound	Total	1,135	1,162
	Brunswick	687	677
	Point of Rocks	448	485
Westbound	Total	29	17
	Brunswick	28	15
	Point of Rocks	1	2
Total		1,164	1,179

Brunswick is the second-biggest origin station on the Brunswick Line, and Point of Rocks is roughly tied for third with Gaithersburg.

The eastbound boarders include residents of Virginia and West Virginia as well as Maryland. However, there do not seem to be any data on how many.

Some of the westbound boardings may represent West Virginia residents who work in Kensington, Gaithersburg, Metropolitan Grove, or Germantown, and transfer from a Brunswick-bound train to the West Virginia super-express that leaves Union Station at 4:55 pm. In Montgomery County, the super-express stops only in Silver Spring and Rockville.

West Virginia

West Virginia has 3 stations: Harpers Ferry, Duffields, and Martinsburg. Currently, 2 eastbound trains leave Martinsburg at 5:25 and 6:30 am, and 3 trains bound west for Martinsburg leave Union Station between 4:55 and 7:15 pm.

Here are the boarding numbers (all eastbound) at the West Virginia stations:

Station	February 8	March 14
Total	477	450
Martinsburg	199	183
Duffields	173	175
Harpers Ferry	105	92

West Virginia no longer contributes to MARC funding. Eastern Panhandle legislators are trying to do something about this. Meanwhile, since 2009, West Virginia riders have paid a surcharge of $2 per one-way ticket, $20 per weekly ticket, and $80 per monthly ticket.

But these delays are not caused by the current schedule, and this new schedule will not solve the problems.

The winners in the new schedule are riders who board at the Brunswick and Point of Rocks stations. They will have more limited-stop trains and comparatively shorter trips. Of the 12 trains that serve Brunswick, 5 will have fewer stops under the plan and just 1 will be making more stops. Even with the schedule's increased time for loading passengers, 5 trains will still have travel times that are up to 10% shorter than in the current schedule.

There are two likely reasons for MARC's decision to benefit these riders. First, Brunswick and Point of Rocks are two of MARC's busiest Brunswick Line stations, with riders from Virginia and West Virginia as well as Maryland. Second, MARC places primary importance on "overall speed of service", i.e., getting the trains from origin to final destination as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, the losers in the new schedule are riders boarding at stations in Montgomery County and at the Monocacy and Frederick stops. They will face reduced train access and longer train rides in return for the improvements at Brunswick and Point of Rocks.

In Montgomery County, Kensington will lose 1 train in each direction. Garrett Park will lose 2 outbound trains. Barnesville will lose 1 inbound train. Metropolitan Grove will lose 2 inbound trains and 1 outbound train. And Boyds and Dickerson will have gaps of 90 minutes between trains.

The most probable reason for this worsening of service is, again, MARC's belief that access to service is less important than speed of service.

Service at most of these stations is already marginal. For many current riders, losing service will mean that taking the train is no longer a viable option. This will lead to a death spiral of lower ridership and reduced service, ending finally in closing the stations altogether.

The decision to reduce service at Metropolitan Grove is especially baffling. Metropolitan Grove is one of the few stations in Montgomery County with a lot of unused parking. And, because the parking lots at Germantown are full, Montgomery County has actually been encouraging riders to board at Metropolitan Grove, the next stop.

As for the Frederick branch, there will be fewer limited-stops trains and longer trips—the opposite of the schedule's effect on Brunswick and Point of Rocks. Of the 6 trains serving Frederick, 4 will have more stops and just 1 will make fewer stops. Travel times on the Frederick trains will be up to 12% longer.

While Frederick and Monocacy currently serve fewer riders than Brunswick and Point of Rocks, this is surely related to the fact that the Frederick service has less than half the number of trains.

In addition, MARC's decision to favor riders from Brunswick and Point of Rocks over riders from Frederick and Monocacy is at odds with state transportation policy. Congestion on I-270 is so bad that in 2009, the state of Maryland proposed spending up to $3.8 billion on highway widening between Germantown and Frederick. Improving MARC service to Frederick is an obvious way of reducing traffic on I-270. But instead, the new MARC schedule worsens it.

Service to West Virginia also has its winners and losers. Earlier commuters will gain a morning train, leaving Martinsburg at 5:00 am, and an extension of the first daily afternoon train to West Virginia. But later commuters are clear losers, with West Virginia service for the last evening train canceled, and departure of West Virginia's new last train delayed from 5:40 pm to 6:15 pm at Union Station.

Do the majority of West Virginia riders want these changes? Who knows? Certainly not MARC, which is only now asking for information from West Virginia riders, after announcing the new schedule.

So what happens next?

MARC has decided not to hold public hearings or to create a public record.

Instead, they will have a series of "Meet-the-MARC-Management" events at selected MARC stations in the afternoon. The first of these meetings will be tonight at the Rockville station.

Meetings will follow at other stations over the next few weeks: Silver Spring on December 7, Monocacy on December 8, Union Station on December 13, Brunswick on December 14, Germantown on December 20, and Barnesville on January 4.

Given that the first event comes only 5 days after MARC's announcement, this is an ambitious timetable.

It also remains to be seen whether MARC commuters on their way home, during the holiday season, will have the time or inclination to stop and tell the MARC managers their opinion of the new schedule. And MARC riders who dislike the schedule may doubt that their feedback will change the minds of the very people who came up with the schedule in the first place.

MARC will hold further "town hall" events in Brunswick on January 3, Kensington on January 5, and Charles Town, West Virginia, on January 7. These meetings are supposed to provide an opportunity for community members, interest groups, government officials, and elected representatives to have their say.

If you can't attend one of these events, there are other ways to provide your feedback. MARC is hosting an online comment form. You can also e-mail comments to the general MARC address of marc@mta.maryland.gov, and CC your local officials.

Yes, the Brunswick Line contends with substantial operational and fiscal constraints. And its true that no public transit schedule can make everybody happy. But this is no excuse for a schedule that's practically guaranteed to make things worse, not better, for large numbers of the riders it's meant to serve. MARC should honor its commitments to all Brunswick Line riders by withdrawing this schedule.

The heirs are asking the Montgomery County Circuit Court for declarative and injunctive relief in order to stop JHU's implementation of development plans for the Belward Farm property, on grounds that the plans violate the donors' intent as shown in both the sales contract and the deed of conveyance.

According to the 1988 contract of sale and 1989 deed of conveyance, provided to me by one of the heirs, Tim Newell, there were no limits for the "use or dispos[al]" of the eastern 30 acres of Belward Farm. However, the proceeds of "any such sale or disposition" were to be "used to create or add to a fund established in the name of Elizabeth B. Banks for the benefit of" JHU.

Use of the western 108 acres of the property was restricted to "agricultural, academic, research and development, delivery of health and medical care and services, or related purposes only, which uses may specifically include but not be limited to development of a research campus in affiliation with one or more divisions" of JHU. This part was to be known as the "Belward Campus of the Johns Hopkins University". JHU was to preserve "an appropriate wooded and fenced buffer area" between the western and eastern parts of the property.

The use restrictions on the western part were "a covenant running with the land". However, if JHU violated the restrictions, the violation would not "result in a forfeiture or reversion of the fee simple title to the land".

And so, in 1989, JHU became the owner of Belward Farm. Then what happened?

In July 1990, Montgomery County approved the Shady Grove Study Area Master Plan, which proposed "expansion of the R&D Village concept west of I-270 to include [JHU's] proposed Belward Research Campus on the Banks Farm".

JHU accordingly applied for and received a rezoning of the property from low-density residential (R-200) to an office/research zone (R&D). According to the lawsuit, the donors "cooperated in [the rezoning] in the expectation that it would facilitate the college campus development of [the western part of the property]".

In March 1997, the Planning Board approved a preliminary plan of subdivision for the property, which JHU now called the "Johns Hopkins Belward Research Campus". The plan proposed a maximum of 1.8 million square feet of gross developed area, described in the lawsuit as representing "about 99.7% of the maximum development allowed under the then-existing R&D zoning [an FAR of 0.3]". Again, the donors did not object to this plan.

But JHU did not apply for final approval of this plan. Instead, according to the lawsuit, JHU and Montgomery County reached an understanding that was recorded on the deed to the eastern part of the property: JHU would donate the eastern part of the property to Montgomery County, in return for the county's support for development of the western part.

According to the lawsuit, this understanding violated the donors' intent in two ways.

First, Elizabeth Banks had told JHU before the sale that she opposed Montgomery County's efforts to control development of Belward Farm—part of which the county now owned, thanks to JHU's donation.

Second, although the sales contract specified that proceeds from the disposition of the land must go to the establishment of an Elizabeth B. Banks Fund, JHU disposed of the land through donation, not a sale. Hence no proceeds, and no fund.

However, JHU did not tell the donors about its transactions with Montgomery County. As a result, the donors had no significant objections to the subsequent commercial development of the eastern part of the property, believing that JHU planned to use the money from the development to pay for building of the campus on the western part. The eastern part was developed into 390,000 square feet of R&D buildings, with associated parking lots. A strip of forest now divides it from the western part.

Elizabeth Banks died in 2005. That same year, according to the Planning Board website, "JHU [began] to rethink their original plans for Belward". Because the 1997 preliminary plan had already proposed the development of the property to the maximum allowed by the R&D zoning of the time, JHU's "rethinking" also required a second round of rezoning.

In 2007, the Planning Department started work on the new area master plan, then known as Gaithersburg West. The final master plan, renamed the Great Seneca Science Corridor, recommended re-rezoning the property from lower-density R&D to higher-density LSC, with a maximum FAR of 1.0, or approximately 4.7 million square feet of development.

The County Council approved the master plan in May 2010 and the rezoning request in July 2010. And in July 2011, the Planning Board approved JHU's request to amend its 1997 preliminary plan.

Due to staging requirements in the master plan, JHU has immediate approval only to build the 1.4 million square feet of development left over from the 1997 plan.

Once the staging requirements are met, however, JHU's concept plans for the "Belward Research Campus" include:

• 4.6 million square feet of development,
• 23 buildings up to 150 feet tall,
• parking structures for 12,000 cars,
• 10 acres for the original Belward Farm house and outbuildings,
• 50% and 40% of floor area, respectively, for R&D/office and life sciences use,
• a road with a 150' foot right-of-way, including room for the CCT,
• no sign or mention of a wooded and fenced buffer between the commercial land use and the academic land use (if there is any).

JHU has said that its plans are consistent with the deed, because development will be limited to "agricultural, academic, research and development, delivery of health and medical care and services, or related purposes".

And surely JHU does plan to limit development to this wide range of possible uses. But equally surely, JHU's current plans are not at all what Elizabeth Banks and her relatives intended when they signed the sales contract that donated Belward Farm to JHU.

Other universities have also been sued for not using a gift as the donors had intended. In another recent case, Robertson v. Princeton University, the donors eventually settled with Princeton about the university's use of a $900 million endowment to educate students for careers in government. But Tulane University was allowed to merge Newcomb College into the university's arts and sciences college, despite Josephine Newcomb's wish to establish a women's college in honor of her late daughter.

In the meantime, Montgomery County continues with its plans for the creation of a transit-oriented, urban development that will actually be car-dependent sprawl. Sadly, JHU's planned development of Belward Farm into a "research campus" the size of a Tysons Corner Silver Line redevelopment project fits right in to this absurdity.

(Disclosures: I testified against the Science City master plan on behalf of the Action Committee for Transit. Also, I have a graduate degree from JHU.)

The Camden and Brunswick Lines offer even less service. The Camden Line's 18 trains between Union Station and Baltimore accommodate reverse commuting, but only during limited hours, and with an average headway of almost 50 minutes. The Brunswick Line's 18 daily trains, between Union Station, Frederick, and Martinsburg, are useful only for an eastward commute during normal working hours.

None of the three lines offers weekend or holiday service, although Amtrak does serve a few Penn Line stops.

Such limited service is not enough to give people a meaningful alternative to driving. And it is surely not enough to support Governor O'Malley's designation of five MARC stations as priority sites for transit-oriented development (TOD). Would TOD at Laurel and Savage, on the Camden Line, actually reduce energy use by TOD's potential of a third to a half? Would TOD at Aberdeen, with 12 MARC trains per day, be a meaningful contributor to Maryland's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020?

To address inadequate service, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) released the MARC Growth and Investment Plan (MGIP) in September of 2007. Full implementation of the plan would triple passenger capacity by 2035. It would also reduce headways to 15 minutes on the Penn Line and 20 minutes on the Camden and Brunswick Line, provide all-day, two-way service on all three lines, and add weekend service as well. The estimated capital investment cost for the whole plan is $3.9 billion.

$3.9 billion over 27 years sounds like a lot of money. But compare it to the $2.5 billion cost of the Wilson Bridge replacement, the projected $2.6 billion cost of the disastrous Maryland Intercounty Connector, and the up to $4.6 billion cost of the absurd proposed widening of I-270 in Montgomery and Frederick Counties.

Putting money towards the MGIP instead would be far more cost-effective, making rail a viable choice in the dense I-95 and I-270 corridors. It would link residents in eastern Montgomery and Prince George's Counties to the jobs in the western parts of Montgomery County and enable the development of real TOD around MARC train stations. Further, it would reduce traffic congestion, dependence on foreign oil, air and water pollution, and our region's contribution to anthropogenic global climate change.

Unluckily for all of us, however, the MTA proposed the plan just in time for the recession. As a result, MARC service was actually cut. And although a few more trains were recently added to the Penn Line, there has been no funding of the MGIP.

Until (perhaps) now.

There is new and increasing political support for raising Maryland's gasoline tax, which makes up a significant proportion of the revenues that go into the state's Transportation Trust Fund. (Note that gas is exempt from the state sales tax.) Because Maryland's gas tax has been 23.5 cents per gallon since 1992, Transportation Trust Fund revenues have not even kept up with inflation. They are now inadequate for basic maintenance of existing transportation infrastructure, let alone expansion.

In the 2011 General Assembly session, 37 Delegates sponsored a bill to add ten cents per gallon and adjust the gas tax for inflation; the Montgomery and Prince George's County executives and the mayor of Baltimore testified in favor. Montgomery County state senators Roger Manno and Rob Garagiola also sponsored legislation, and Senate President Mike Miller was in favor of the idea. The 2012 General Assembly will surely consider gas tax legislation as well.

This is great news—but only if the money goes to useful projects. It must not be spent on building new roads, which will only increase traffic, pollution, and future maintenance costs.

Instead, much of the money must go towards maintaining existing transportation infrastructure, including mass transit, roads, and bridges. And it is crucial for the rest to go towards expanding mass transit and pedestrian and bicycle facilities, within and between Maryland's cities and towns. Not only will this benefit everybody, it will also offset the regressive effect of the higher gas tax on the people who are least able to afford driving.

Ideally, as Senator Manno's bill did last year, the gas tax will have earmarks for mass transit, including the MARC Growth and Investment Plan. The tax should go up as transportation infrastructure costs go up, either through annual adjustments or by switching from a per-gallon to a per-dollar levy. And, to increase political support, it will return some of the revenue to the counties to spend on their own transportation priorities.

Funding all-day, two-way, weekday and weekend MARC service through higher gas taxes will pay off with better mobility and a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future for the region's residents. The alternative is more cars, more traffic, more sprawl, and more pollution. Is this really such a hard choice?

I figured that this incident was a fluke.

Almost exactly one year later, another driver on the stem of the intersection drove past the stop sign and right on into our yard, running over a pine tree and the second apple tree. Again, luckily, nobody was hurt, or so we assume, given that the driver was somehow able to back out of the yard and drive away before we got home.

With no more apple trees left, I was worried that the next car would hit a family member. So I asked for a guardrail.

After a thorough and professional site visit by a SHA engineer, I received an email from Cedric Ward, Assistant District Engineer - Traffic (Montgomery County) at SHA, which said,

According to [SHA's] guidelines, a roadside barrier is warranted for only the most severe roadside obstacles.... Considering that none of the[se]...roadside obstacles are present at the subject location, a traffic barrier is not warranted at this location.

Looking at the 2006 Guidelines for Traffic Barrier Placement and End Treatment Design Ward referred me to, I learned that "the function of a roadside barrier is to shield the motorist from impacting an obstacle along the roadside."

According to the SHA guidelines, a traffic barrier is warranted only if there is a roadside obstacle that cannot be removed or relocated out of the road's clear zone, defined as "the total roadside area, starting at the edge of the travel lane, available for safe use by errant vehicles."

Thus, the guidelines allow SHA to put up a traffic barrier to protect people in cars from driving into embankments, bridge parapets, non-breakaway signs or lights, signal supports, water bodies more than two feet deep, large boulders, utility poles, drainage ditches, and/or trees.

But they do not allow SHA, in general, to put up a traffic barrier to protect people who are not in cars from being driven into. People who are not in cars are not a roadside obstacle that motorists need shielding from. And indeed, at least judging from our experience, it is not dangerous for a person in a car to drive into a yard where people, not in cars, might be.

To be fair, the guidelines concede that, on urban streets, a traffic barrier may be placed "in sensitive areas such as school playgrounds." So perhaps we might have qualified for a guard rail if the driver were likely to drive into our house, instead of just our yard.

As yet, the lack of a guard rail has not really been a big problem for us. Nobody was hurt, apple trees can be replaced, and we have installed some new, large landscaping on our property. And the SHA did put up a yellow sign with a black two-directional arrow at the intersection.

But the lack of a guard rail was a very big problem for Kelay Smith and Derrick R. "Mooky" Jones, who were killed by a driver in Prince George's County in August 2008 while they were walking along a stretch of MD Route 4 without sidewalks or guard rails.

And it should be a very big problem for the State of Maryland, which was ordered by a civil jury in March to pay $3.3 million to Smith's daughter and mother.

State traffic barrier guidelines notwithstanding, people in cars are not the only users of the road. What will it take to get the SHA to revise its guidelines to routinely take the safety of all road users into account? This is not a rhetorical question.

The parking lots are full at the Germantown Transit Center, where there is a RideOn shuttle bus to the Shady Grove Metro Station. There is also an express bus to Bethesda with a higher fare, at the nearby Milestone Shopping Center park-and-ride in Germantown.

At the Germantown MARC train station, the parking lots are also full, and expansion will probably require construction of a parking garage. The planned Corridor Cities Transitway is as yet purely notional and would not go all the way into Clarksburg, ostensibly a transit-oriented community.

So much for the bad news. The good news, at least potentially, is that the MARC train station in Boyds could help meet the growing regional demand.

Boyds is a county-designated historic district, a few miles west of Germantown and south of Clarksburg, in the Agricultural Reserve. Trains have been stopping there since 1873.

In 2006, the Maryland Transit Administration tried to close the Boyds station, along with another station on the Brunswick Line and two stations on the Camden Line. But community protest and emergency legislation introduced by State Senator Rob Garagiola kept all of the stations open. Three eastbound and four westbound trains now stop at Boyds daily.

At the moment, the parking lot has room for only 19-20 cars and is often full. The nearest bus stop is over a mile away. And pedestrians and bicyclists face high-speed commuter traffic on dark, winding roads with no shoulders.

But the county government could fix these problems with a few relatively simple improvements to bicycle, transit, and car access.

Improvements for bicycle access could include:

• Installing a bike rack. (MARC only allows folding bicycles on the train.)
  
• Adding bike facilities to MD-117 between the Boyds train station and the Germantown Community Center, consistent with the County bicycle master plan.
  
• Extending the planned bike paths along MD-121 in Clarksburg south from West Old Baltimore Road to MD-117.

Improvements for transit access could include:

• Extending RideOn bus #71 or #78 from western Germantown to the train station. (Indeed, there are already Boyds MARC riders who live in the neighborhoods served by these buses.)
  
• Extending RideOn bus #75 from Clarksburg to the train station, when the planned commercial and office space at Cabin Branch is built. This would connect Clarksburg residents to the Boyds train station, as well as people who live further west along the Brunswick Line to jobs in Clarksburg.

Improvements for car access could include:

• Leasing spaces in a church parking lot 500 feet south of the station. However, people would have to walk along a narrow, dark road on which a sidewalk is not allowed.
  
• Buying or leasing a vacant quarter-acre lot next to the station (once occupied by a house a freight train derailed on in 1986) and/or a vacant half-acre lot across the tracks (where the station was until the 1950s).
  
• Leasing land for parking on the future site of the Boyds Local Park, 500 feet east of the station. The lot would be integrated into the park, if the park were developed. In addition, putting in a bicycle/pedestrian crossing at the intersection of MD-117 and MD-121, as well as a sidewalk from the intersection to the station. This crossing would also improve the Hoyles Mill trail connection from South Germantown Recreation Park to Black Hill Regional Park, next to the future Clarksburg development at Cabin Branch.

Parking lot expansion would include a bus turnaround, as well as pervious surfaces because Boyds is in the Agricultural Reserve. Also, as a historic district, Boyds probably could not accommodate more than 75 parking spaces. This emphasizes the need to improve non-car as well as car access.

Yes, there would probably be objections that Boyds would no longer be a "home in the country," that people should just drive 5 miles west to the Barnesville station or 3 miles east to the Germantown station, that stopping at Boyds makes the trip from Brunswick or Frederick longer, and that small stations are inefficient and take away from service to the big stations.

However, the current and planned future growth in Clarksburg and Germantown will inevitably make Boyds less rural, regardless of train station access. If people can get to the train more conveniently, more people will choose the train. Stopping at Boyds adds only a minute or two, which is not a meaningful difference for a 90-minute trip. And future expansion on the Brunswick Line will allow MARC to improve service to both big and small stations, by running more expresses and locals.

Of course, these small improvements by themselves cannot solve the big problem of insufficient regional transit in the upper county. But, together with lots of other small improvements, they would be a good start.

As a result, passengers on the earliest afternoon Brunswick Line train waited at the station for almost an hour and a half after their scheduled departure, and four other Brunswick Line trains left the station late as well.

To reduce delays in case of another power outage, CSX has installed two additional high-speed fax machines and a new high-speed printer in the crew room at Union Station. CSX is also discussing expanded power back-up capabilities with Verizon, Westbrook said.

On June 8, three morning trains on the Camden Line were disrupted when a disabled CSX freight train coming from Selkirk, New York, blocked access to Baltimore's Camden Station from the Riverside Yard facility, where MARC stores the train equipment.

CSX will consider adjusting the schedule of this daily freight train, said Rob Surgeoner, CSX Director for Passenger and Commuter Operations in Baltimore.

In addition, in the future, if MARC is unable to get the train equipment out of the yard, MARC will not cancel the trains, said John Hovatter, director of MARC Train and Commuter Bus Services. Instead, MARC will end northbound Camden Line trains at Dorsey, turn the equipment back for southbound service, and run a bus bridge between Dorsey and Camden Station.

The MARC Riders Advisory Council meets on the third Thursday of every month at 4:30 pm, at the Hall of the States near Union Station. Meetings are open to the public.

At the Smithsonian Station, the only elevator I could find was blocked—no explanation, no phone number, nothing. I pressed a call button, but no one came down. Finally, as I was crying in frustration, a nice couple located a guard, who explained that there had been a fire. He got my wheelchair and me up the escalator.

Unfortunately, this trip is typical of the problems faced by people who use wheelchairs and want to travel by Metro.

At Dupont Circle's south entrance, for instance, there are no directions from the escalators to the nearest elevator, 2 blocks away. At L'Enfant, getting from the Blue/Orange platform to the Green/Yellow platform or the street requires 3 elevator rides. At Fort Totten, the elevator is broken, so Metro runs shuttles from two stations, lengthening the trip time for riders who need the elevator.

It took a court order for Metro to routinely include elevators in the station design, and the elevators in the retrofitted stations are not necessarily conveniently located.

And when the elevators break, they often stay broken for a long time. The same is true for the escalators, of course, but at least a broken escalator can still be used as stairs by people who are able to climb stairs. A broken elevator, on the other hand, takes you nowhere.

Metro is fixing some of the problems. All of the stations opened in 2004 or later have (or will have) redundant elevators (2 elevators for each necessary ascent). Rosslyn station is currently getting a bank of mezzanine-to-street elevators. And plans are underway for redundant elevators (and new escalators) at Union Station.

But there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Ms. Larsen concludes her letter,

I would be very grateful if just one Metro executive went through the system in a wheelchair. Just once. That is all it would take.

How about it, Metro executives? Any volunteers?

In 2005, Clarksburg residents discovered a string of site plan violations that led to the appointment of an ombudswoman and the resignation of the Planning Board chairman.

Clarksburg Town Center still doesn't have its Town Center retail district, and there's a new working group to help figure out who will pay for the roads and parks in the parts of Clarksburg that have already been built.

Nonetheless, some 14,000 people now live in Clarksburg, and they need services nearby. Daycare is an obvious priority among these services, and so a planned day care center and after school program, at the intersection of MD 355 and West Old Baltimore Road, just north of Germantown, is welcome.

Unfortunately, it might not get built, due to the recent Planning Board decision which effectively prioritizes the needs of future Clarksburg residents for wider roads over the needs of current Clarksburg residents for nearby day care.

The reason for this backward logic is the Local Area Transportation Review (LATR) part of Montgomery County Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO). The LATR is based on "critical lane volume" (CLV), a measure of the number of vehicles moving through an intersection's through or left-turn lanes in an hour.

The logic of the Planning Board's decision goes like this:

1. The Planning Board has already approved a lot of new housing in the area. (The Planning Board staff report does not name the approved developments, but they probably include Miller & Smith's "Gallery Park" and Winchester Homes's first development at Cabin Branch.)

2. When this housing has been built and people move in, they will drive through the intersection next to the site of the proposed day care.

3. When they drive through the intersection, it will become unacceptably congested.

4. Therefore, if the day care wants to operate at capacity, it needs to "improve" (i.e., widen) the intersection to account for one and a half times the number of car trips the day care will generate. The widening is to consist of three turn lanes: a southbound right-turn lane on MD 355, a northbound left-turn lane on MD 355, and an eastbound right-turn lane on West Old Baltimore Road. And it may cost $360,000.

Ross Flax, the owner of the day care, points out that day care providers are not experts in road construction and that the day care will account for only 20% of the total additional trips the day care, plus the approved but unbuilt developments, will generate. He has therefore offered to put 20% of the costs ($72,000) in escrow to fund later construction.

But the LATR guidelines say that "improvements" must be "permitted and bonded, under construction, or under contract for construction" before building permits can be issued. Therefore, the day care must pay the whole cost, now. Miller & Smith and Winchester Homes will pay their shares back to the day care later, when they begin building.

However, the day care cannot afford the whole $360,000, Flax has told the Gazette. And operating at half capacity, as would be allowed without the turn lanes, may not be economical. As a result, it is "likely" that he won't open the day care at all unless the Planning Board reconsiders the decision.

In short, the Planning Board first approved large housing developments, whose residents must drive everywhere. Then, they approved more large housing developments, whose future residents will also have to drive everywhere. And now they're requiring a day care, which is intended to serve the current residents, to pay for the wider roads all those extra cars will need.

Memo to the Planning Board: There must be a better plan.