Greater Greater Washington

Transit


Gaithersbungle, part 6: What else $3.8 billion could buy, more specifically

by David Alpert   •   July 29, 2009 2:26 pm

In Part 3, we looked at MARC expansion proposals, which would increase transit service in the I-270 corridor for much less than the $3.8 billion the Maryland State Highway Administration wants to spend to widen the freeway. The Action Committee for Transit came up with a more specific dream package of transit proposals, which I turned into a map.


Click to enlarge.

This map includes the following:

  • Extension of the Red Line to Germantown. The Red Line would use the I-370 and I-270 right-of-way from Shady Grove to Germantown, then end in an underground station at Germantown Town Center.
  • All-day, bidirectional MARC service to Frederick. A new station near White Flint, to serve the planned, dense, transit-oriented development in that area. And through-routing of MARC trains down at least to King Street.
  • A MARC extension to Hagerstown, using an old and abandoned right-of-way.
  • The Corridor Cities Transitway, using the less circuitous original alignment and an extension to Clarksburg Town Center. With the Red Line, riders from north of Germantown wouldn't have to ride all the way through the office parks west of Gaithersburg to get to Rockville, Bethesda or DC.
  • A streetcar along Route 355 (Rockville Pike/Hungerford Dr/Frederick Rd) from the White Flint Mall to Gaithersburg. It would stop at the various Metro stations, Montgomery College, Gaithersburg MARC, and Lakeforest Mall before turning west to a new Red Line station and Metropolitan Grove MARC, where it would connect to the CCT.
According to ACT's calculations, all of this, including light rail on both the CCT and the 355 line, would cost less than the current proposal to widen the freeway and build a bus rapid transit CCT. Plus, Maryland could build these individually instead of all-or-nothing.

Should Maryland execute this plan? It depends. If the state is intent on spending $4 billion in the 270 corridor, then this is far superior. Drivers would benefit, too, because this transit would shift enough trips off of I-270 that the existing road could handle the remaining auto trips.

However, this area isn't the best place to put so many jobs and so much infrastructure at all. Eastern Montgomery County has been waiting for its transit for a long time. There are many development opportunities at Wheaton and Glenmont, and plenty of parts of Silver Spring still eager for the promised revitalization. Matt and Reza's map showed how underutilized our existing infrastructure is in the east, especially in Prince George's County. Between the planned development at White Oak and White Flint, Montgomery could already accommodate its expected growth for the next 20 years without a lot of new jobs way up there. There's plenty of room for biotech growth in Baltimore, too, and they have an ambitious transit plan of their own.

The 270 widening is a bad idea for two reasons: it increases auto dependence, and shifts the epicenter of jobs and housing westward away from the developed part of the region and the state. An all-transit alternative would accomplish all of the mobility goals in the corridor for the same or less money. But the even smarter planning would put some of the transit and a little bit of the growth over on this side of the county, and put more in the other, better, and needier areas.

Previously:

24 comments
Tags: Corridor Cities Transitway, Gaithersburg, Germantown, I-270, Maryland, Montgomery, sprawl, WMATA
Related posts:
David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater. 

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Add a CT Ave light rail/BRT from Wheaton through Kensington and Chevy Chase Lake into the District to Van Ness or Dupont!

by Andrew on Jul 29, 2009 3:08 pm • link • report

Nice. Way better than lanes on a highway.

by NikolasM on Jul 29, 2009 3:31 pm • link • report

David, that is a nice map. This just puts a little perspective on what $4.5 billion can get us instead of highway widening.

by Cavan on Jul 29, 2009 4:02 pm • link • report

Long-time city planning in G'burg has anticipated the Red Line continuing north from Shady Grove into the city along the MARC R-O-W with stops in Old Town Gaithersburg and the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, then connecting up with MARC at Metropolitan Grove. The fairgrounds would be an ideal Transit-Oriented Development site.

by Former G'burg Planner on Jul 29, 2009 5:51 pm • link • report

Extending the red line for 2 stops is a waste of money especially with those locations anything going to Germantown may as well go to Clarksburg or even Damascus and any station along Quincy Orchard RD damn sure better be somewhat close to Lakeforest Mall

Any plans with adding new stations anywhere near 355 or 270 should be maditory that they be part of a new line or require adding 2 additional tracks each way for it otherwise your just making the red line worst than it currently is; instead of extending the RedLine a new line could be proposed to from Montgomery/Fredrick County Line down 355 or 270 connect to Shady Grove and then east toward Olney or somewhere.

by kk on Jul 29, 2009 5:56 pm • link • report

I-270 is destined to be a parking lot regardless of what's done. This is an interesting alternative. I'm less sure about the value of adding a couple red line stops than the MARC and light rail proposals. An intermodal hub at White Flint would make sense if Metro could be induced to run all trains there instead of Grosvenor.

by Rich on Jul 29, 2009 8:33 pm • link • report

What's the cost of this 'bungle'? $10 billion? Are you aware of the fact that transit is only 3% of all trips? Does all transit have to be rail? Why not BRT using express toll lanes? That way, motorists pay for the widening of the roads to accommodate buses.

by JR on Jul 29, 2009 9:02 pm • link • report

Haha, JR, I think there's a flowchart anticipating exactly your response:

by J.D. Hammond on Jul 29, 2009 10:18 pm • link • report

In addition, if express toll lanes are so effective, why not toll the lanes that are already there?

by J.D. Hammond on Jul 29, 2009 10:22 pm • link • report

First of all, 270 is not destined to be a parking lot no matter what is done. In 2030 it will be moving much better than today (with some of the most heavily congested areas today moving at free-flow speeds at 55mph or so with the widening that is proposed). It is all right there in the 270 corridor study. Please, before any of you go prattling on about this drivel, take the time to do your homework and know the facts.

It seems that some of you are not interested in facts, and are approaching this very real problem on a purely ideological and uninformed level, but before you get too far along on this fantasy ride (and that is all this is), know this: MTA, the Planning Board, and others have studied all this before. Every time, extending Metro and MARC service here has been rejected because it is not even close to being in the ballpark in terms of new riders per dollar spent to get the funding for any of this to be built. In short, no study has ever shown this is viable.

ACT doesn't know this because they never bothered to do their homework before taking this position (which is flatly contraditory to the position of the CCT Coalition and all of their supporters in our legislative delegation and in the community. Perhaps ACT has been so focused on the Purple Line and their own Takoma Park neighborhoods they havn't had time to get up to speed. It is no excuse. If they had ever bothered to read more than a decade's worth of transit studies on these very options, they would not be advancing this absolute lunacy.

Those of you who posted above who think this is great, please just take the time to look at the numbers. Yes, the map is "pretty," but I will give a thousand bucks to anyone who can show me a valid traffic study that shows this can EVER be funded and built, or that it will provide any real benefit in terms of meaningful relief to 270 as the widening and CCT have been shown to do. Just talk to the transportation staff at Park and Planning, or anyone who served on any of the task forces who have looked at this over the years.

So let's all stop dreaming and come back down to the real transit options that are on the table for this corridor: (1) We can build the CCT and add express bus service on the new lanes on 270 (which cuts congestion 61%, cuts transit travel times by 40% and auto transit times by 55%), or (2) we can do nothing but sit in deep level "F" congestion on 270 with 200,000 people wasting tons of fuel and spewing added pollution from sitting in bumper to bumper traffic at 5 mph for a good part of the day. Those are your options, folks. Deal with it, and stop wasting everyone's time.

by Richard on Jul 29, 2009 10:33 pm • link • report

Good post. Amazing to see the contrast on what you can do with $3.8B. One observation and two questions:

First, the observation: If (big if) the Lakeforest property were redeveloped inline with TOD at some future time (which the system depicted in the map could support) then that property is almost the exact same size as the Belward Farm property. So I would propose it, along with a redeveloped Shady Grove Metro property, as an alternative site for Science City. (To boot, I bet if the intensity were set correctly it could still support just as much retail but at least it would be interesting...)

Question 1: How much would it cost to add more metro stations along the existing red line? (I heard, maybe on this blog, that a MoCo council member brought it up as something worth investigating as an alternative to all of the street widening on Wisconsin Ave due to the BRAC changes in Bethesda...)

Question 2: How much would it cost to extend the Purple Line south over the Potomac and connect to the Silver Line?

by Ingemar on Jul 29, 2009 10:54 pm • link • report

Richard, they said exactly that about the last expansion. They will say this about every highway expansion until the end of time, and less than a decade from now all of the ostensible "savings" are going to be consumed by additional traffic. You don't think more people will take more trips on 270 as a result of this project? Just like they've done on every other new or expanded highway in the history of such projects?

Why does everyone have to repeat themselves here?

by J.D. Hammond on Jul 29, 2009 11:12 pm • link • report

How can you do all of this for 3.8B, yet Metro to Dulles is something like a 15 billion dollar project?

by Matvey on Jul 30, 2009 12:37 am • link • report

@ Matvey- the Dulles Line is 26 miles of brand new heavy rail including very expensive aerial structures through an already developed corridor. Most of the above proposal would be built along existing corridors or would be a much cheaper mode (like light rail or street car),

But I think we're all missing the point here. For $4 billion, I'd rather have the development occurring INSIDE the Beltway. The induced land use from increased transportation capacity will lead to more congestion on roads AND rails, no matter what mode is built out there. Yes, rails will induce better land use, but why do we want MORE development that far away from the primary social and economic center?

I am willing to bet that better transportation inside the Beltway and on the Baltimore-Washington corridor would ease traffic on I-270 passively by taking cars off the road at the choke points entering the city.

by Dave Murphy on Jul 30, 2009 1:23 am • link • report

@Ingemar --

Re your Q #2, Personally I would love to see some other rail alternative across the Potomac instead of having to struggle with the American Legion Br., but it would have to be a heavy rail like metro, not a light rail like the purple line. Also, the purple line is not a metro line, it will be run by MTA/State of Maryland. I've always cursed the fact that VA Rt. 28 ends at Rt. 7 in Sterling and doesn't go across the Potomac up into Montgomery, but I can understand why the farm owners in that rural section of Montgomery resist at all cost---it is a nice rural area to escape to from the fray of DC.

by Matt Glazewski on Jul 30, 2009 7:48 am • link • report

Mr. Alpert, this sort of post is why Greater Greater Washington is increasingly not taken seriously by our state and county governments. You are reporting a press release by Action Committee for Transit as if it is gospel truth. These projects have not had any Draft Environmental Impact Statements drafted for them. No one, least of all ACT, has any idea how much they would cost. No one, least of all ACT, has any current cost effectiveness estimates to determine if they would be eligible for New Starts funding. Finally, you do not inform your readers about the differences in the funding processes between highway and transit projects. Four billion dollars funded in part by toll-backed bonds will not be diverted dollar for dollar to transit. How can you issue toll-backed bonds for a project that does not collect tolls?

When you report facts, I respect it. When you report fantasy as fact, you not only lose my respect, you lose the respect of the decision-makers in Maryland.

by Adam Pagnucco on Jul 30, 2009 8:30 am • link • report

To follow on the heels of Adam's comment (which to a degree I kind of agree with), I have been stepping through creating a blog which does function as a sort of "hypothetical transit planning playground". The format is horrid... I'm still trying to get the hang of this newfangled "blogging" thing. So to complete this shameless plug:

http://philatransport.blogspot.com/

by Bossi on Jul 30, 2009 9:43 am • link • report

Adam: Do you actually think this package would cost more than $4 billion? Just because SHA didn't study it doesn't mean it's not true; we already know SHA was set on road widening options from the start. I'd love to see SHA study this in more detail, and the many other options that have been seriously suggested. Then we can have an actual discussion of priorities instead of having the County Council boxed into a decision between more lanes and more lanes.

by David Alpert on Jul 30, 2009 10:10 am • link • report

David, I don't know how much it would cost or - a better question - how we would pay for it. I think the debate in Maryland is most appropriately framed not as transit vs. road expenditures, but on how we can finance everyone's needs. The state has been cutting its transportation funding and will probably do it again. That is the wrong path. They should employ some combination of a gas tax hike, gas tax indexing, congestion pricing and GPS-tracked mileage taxes to raise revenues to meet the transportation needs of every part of the state. I would love to say, "Forget about FTA approval - let's just build the transit." But that is not going to happen unless we get lots of new state money and a political agreement in Annapolis to spread it around equitably. I hope that Greater Greater Washington would support such an initiative if we can make it happen.

by Adam Pagnucco on Jul 30, 2009 11:36 am • link • report

Adam - You are correct that these projects* have not had an Environmental Impact Statement. That's exactly what ACT is asking for, to have them analyzed in the Environmental Impact Statement.

Also, you say new money is needed for transportation. I agree. You also say that money cannot be transferred from highways to transit. How can you say that if the law providing the money has not been passed? Congress and the state legislature can allocate money as they choose. Currently, state transportation trust fund money and federal highway money (except for bridge maintenance and interstate highway maintenance) can be transferred without limitation to transit.

Toll revenues from I-270, under DEIS Alternative 7, will be a negligible source of revenue - maybe not even enough to pay the cost of collecting them. Toll revenues from other MdTA projects such as the Bay Bridge could be used here - they are budgeted to repay borrowings for the ICC and I-95 toll lanes - but under the law they too can be used to subsidize either transit or roads.

* Exceptions: The CCT has a DEIS, and some of the incremental MARC improvements may not need one.

by Ben Ross on Jul 30, 2009 12:02 pm • link • report

Ben, there is a reason why toll-backed bonds are issued to support new toll projects and are not paid off with existing toll revenues: there is not a lot of existing toll revenue to go around.

The Maryland Transportation Authority's FY 2008 annual report indicates that MdTA collected $402 million in operating revenues, spent $277 million on operating expenses and recorded operating income of $125 million that year. Even if all of that operating income could be diverted to transit, it would fall far short of the cost of light rail on the Red Line, Purple Line and CCT combined.

But there is more: the toll revenues on seven of the state's biggest toll facilities, including the Bay Bridge, the ICC and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, are pledged to pay off the bonds supporting those projects. MdTA will not default on its bonds to send money to transit projects.

You guys have lots of legitimate arguments against I-270 widening: environmental issues, induced demand, neighborhood destruction and others. But the "shift money to transit" argument is really weak, especially since I-270 proponents say that running rapid buses down the new toll lanes will provide at least as much transit impact as the CCT.

Furthermore, take it from me: I do not know a single office holder in the state who believes that all new road spending should be stopped so that only new transit projects will be financed. If that is your position, you will not move it through Annapolis.

by Adam Pagnucco on Jul 30, 2009 12:49 pm • link • report

Adam, where is the $3.8 billion coming from to widen I-270? You keep saying there isn't money for transit, but then why do you think there's money for highways? Please tell me specifically where the $3.8 billion is coming from, and then we can have a rational discussion of whether it can - and whether it should - be used for transit instead.

by Ben Ross on Jul 30, 2009 1:15 pm • link • report

Ben, that is an excellent question. The state's silence on the financing structure for the I-270 project is interesting. I suspect they don't have the money to finance anything that is not supported by toll-backed bonds. I also suspect that they don't have the money to meet the state's share of funding for any of the three transit projects. Worst of all, I think they know this and don't want to talk about it.

If I were an ACT official, I would not bother asking the politicians whether they support transit projects. I would ask them how they intend to pay for them.

And here is the dirtiest secret of them all: the Transportation Trust Fund is in such terrible condition that it may not be able to finance any new projects of any kind. It may not even be able to maintain our existing infrastructure. That is just one reason why we need a revenue increase to pay for all of our transportation needs regardless of which kinds of projects you support.

by Adam Pagnucco on Jul 30, 2009 1:37 pm • link • report

Ben, do you mean to tell me that it is OK for ACT to ask the State to include a new option in the EIS for this project while at the same time vilifying the Town of Chevy Chase for asking the State to optimize an alternative they already had on the table for the Purple Line? And, while your data and proposal comes from armchair transportation "experts", ours came from internationally recognized transportation experts.

Pat Burda

by Pat Burda on Jul 31, 2009 12:15 pm • link • report

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