Government
Medical Center "secret plan" revealed
The Action Committee for Transit has gotten a look at Montgomery County's secret plans for the Medical Center Metro area. Maryland's Congresspeople got a $20 million DoD grant to make it easier for workers and nearby residents to walk to and from the station, facilitating greater transit use as BRAC grows both facilities. At the last minute, however, the Montgomery County Executive switched the plan without notice from a pedestrian access project into one a grade-separated interchange to speed even more traffic in and out of BRAC.
Montgomery County DOT officials are still doing everything they can to conceal their plans, knowing how unpopular it would be. They redacted the plan from the TIGER grant, calling it "proprietary business information," and have refused to answer questions from us, advocacy groups, or even irate Montgomery County Council staff. They also didn't show anything to nearby residents, who have been participating in a task force County Executive Ike Leggett set up to involve the community in BRAC plans.
Last night, officials agreed to show the plan to neighbors, but continued to try to keep it secret. They only invited a small group of people, and didn't hand out any information. Fortunately, an ACT member found out about the meeting and took some mobile phone pictures of the slides.
"It is becoming increasingly obvious that MCDOT wants to use money set aside for transit access improvements to fund more road-building, and they know their plan cannot withstand public scrutiny," said ACT President Ben Ross. "They have been hiding this design as long as possible in the hopes that by the time anyone figures out what they are up to and how much it will cost, it will be too late to do anything about it."
If the USDOT funds this proposal, the tunnel would initially only serve pedestrians and bicyclists. However, it would be over 50 feet wide, enough to eventually route traffic through the underpass. The road also forces pedestrians to take a circuitous route, walking over 100 feet north from the Metro station (on the west side of 355) before taking the underpass at an angle back toward the southeast. This is far from the most direct route, and a longer walk than the current path directly across the road.
MCDOT designed it this way in order to allow for a full interchange. Sources have told me that DoD wasn't interested in this plan, which Montgomery County didn't clear with them either. They don't want cars to and from NIH driving on their secure campus. But county officials pushed the plan anyway, designing an underpass wide enough to turn into their car-centric dream scenario at some point in the future.
If the road vision becomes fully built, as the above map shows, it would completely sever the surface pedestrian crossing on Rockville Pike, forcing pedestrians to walk under the road. That would surely reduce, at least somewhat, the number of people taking Metro to NNMC/Water Reed. Meanwhile, it would make driving even more appealing, increasing VMT to and from the site and traffic in the surrounding area.
For less money than this underpass costs, Montgomery could have built a direct elevator entrance to the Metro station from the NNMC side, saving workers several minutes a day and substantially increasing the appeal of using transit to get to work. For about the same cost as this underpass, they could have done the elevator entrance and a narrow pedestrian tunnel under the road. Instead, in secret, they decided to design something most efficient for vehicles and much less efficient for pedestrians than even the cheaper, unappealing pedestrian underpass-only option.
The most tragic part is that, if USDOT includes this in a grant, Montgomery County will have no choice but to build the vehicular-ready underpass (or forfeit tens of millions in federal money), even if the Council prefers the direct station entrance.
Update: Here is ACT's press release with more information.
 | 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.   |
Comments
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I'm having a hard time understanding where this is coming from. Who really wants this? How can this plan be pushed through without any public input?
by Anonymous on Oct 6, 2009 10:43 am • link • report
Contact the State Historic Preservation Office in Crownsville.
by Anon on Oct 6, 2009 11:28 am • link • report
One thought with this proposal is that the North west corner of the new road on the NIH side is near the new delivery truck inspection center. I wonder if there is a plan to use this one inspection center for both NIH and NNMC and let the trucks go from secure-to-secure sites through the tunnel.
by dd on Oct 6, 2009 11:43 am • link • report
by William on Oct 6, 2009 11:45 am • link • report
Didn't I just read something in the Post about MoCo thinking about doing health impact assessments for future road projects?
by Biker Mark on Oct 6, 2009 12:23 pm • link • report
by Adam S on Oct 6, 2009 12:24 pm • link • report
Can anyone draw this new road back to 270?
Or this is a plot by Big Assphalt.
by shy on Oct 6, 2009 12:29 pm • link • report
There would be regular ID-check stops for cars at multiple locations, but all trucks would need to go through the truck inspection site.
Just to be clear, even if I might have a point, the actual design looks crazy and speeding up and centralizing truck inspections for the sake of inconveniencing thousands of daily pedestrians is insane. I'd love a list of all representatives I could write to complain.
by dd on Oct 6, 2009 12:42 pm • link • report
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/dot/dir/comm_docs/dotorganizationchart.pdf
by JB on Oct 6, 2009 12:59 pm • link • report
by Miriam on Oct 6, 2009 1:57 pm • link • report
by Matt Glazewski on Oct 6, 2009 2:20 pm • link • report
by Bianchi on Oct 6, 2009 3:24 pm • link • report
There is no secret tunnel or secret meeting as either of the two MSM reporters that were in attendance at yesterdayÂ’s meeting could attest to. The concept of a multimodal tunnel has been openly and publicly discussed both yesterday and three weeks ago at a BRAC Implementation Committee meeting attended by many members representing surrounding communities. The exact drawings depicted in Mr. RossÂ’s press release belong to Clark Construction and, unfortunately, the County is not at liberty to release them. However, it is important to understand that these drawings do not necessarily depict what will be constructed. The design and construction for any multi-modal tunnel would be bid through our careful and legal procurement process. All construction firms would have an equal opportunity to compete for the project.
There are no diverted funds. In fact, no funds have been allocated by any entity for any improved Metro access that we are aware of. Funds have been requested, including the TIGER grant request that we briefed the community on both yesterday and three weeks ago at a BRAC Implementation Committee meeting. But there are no existing funds to be diverted and the grant programs that may fund this proposal are not in any way, shape or form limited to transit programs or the proposal favored by ACT.
Indeed, the TIGER grant specifically favors multi-modal proposals, which the County ExecutiveÂ’s proposal clearly is. Had we submitted the proposal favored by ACT (a more expensive, single-mode proposal, with long-term operating costs), we would almost assuredly not receive any funding under the TIGER grant. The total dollar value of proposals submitted for the TIGER grants nationwide is $57 billion -- for a pot totaling only $1.5 billion. Given those odds, a multi-modal proposal is clearly our only shot.
How ACT can possibly interpret the proposal as “secret” when the concept has been publicly discussed on at least two separate occasions is perplexing. How ACT can assert that this concept is detrimental to transit riders when it provides clear pedestrian access to Metro riders, as well as bicyclists and potentially inter-campus vehicular traffic, is also perplexing. How ACT can oppose a concept that has a significantly better shot of being funded and therefore, a better shot at serving transit riders, than any of the previous proposals is even more perplexing. This concept also links more seamlessly to the more comprehensive network of sidewalks and bikeways that the County and State are funding as part of our efforts to reduce the influx of traffic. This is a goal that we believe ACT shares.
The County Executive is committed to working with the community, the State and the Federal Government to try to minimize the inevitable disruption from the move of Walter Reed to Bethesda. He has worked tirelessly getting input from the community and communicating our needs to the State and Federal Government, including the Navy. Clearly part of the effort to meet the communityÂ’s needs includes improving the ability of pedestrians and transit riders to reach both NIH and the Navy installation. The ExecutiveÂ’s proposal would accomplish this goal in a cost effective manner that maximizes the ability to receive very scarce Federal funding. ACT understandably has transit as their single issue. While Mr. Leggett agrees with the importance of transit as a mode of transportation, there are a variety of other factors that he must also consider.
Patrick Lacefield
Director
Montgomery County Office of Public Information
by Patrick Lacefield on Oct 6, 2009 4:44 pm • link • report
Why does it have more chance to get funded if it's more expensive than the options that were actually studied?
Why was a plan that is at odds with the county's Smart Growth policies adopted without public input? How a study on pedestrian access to transit end up being a vehicular tunnel?
Your comment, while verbose and eloquent, does not answer any of these pertinent questions. The fact that these questions even need to be asked is quite galling.
by Cavan on Oct 6, 2009 4:55 pm • link • report
What is "multimodal" about this project? As best we can understand it from the information that has been released, it is a roadway with a sidewalk next to it. Yes, this accomodates several modes of transportation (walking, bicycling, and driving), but is it such an innovation that it will give us an advantage in seeking federal funding?
Other issues here would best be resolved by the county making all relevant documentation public, including a description of what it was that Clark Construction proposed to the county and how the drawings now under discussion fit in. In the meantime, I encourage readers to follow links in our press release for documentation of what we say.
by Ben Ross on Oct 6, 2009 5:56 pm • link • report
I emailed officials in MCDOT to ask for more information about this plan several weeks ago (when I wrote the original articles), including the width of the proposed roadway and the distance between the Metro station and the entrance to the roadway. I received no response. In the future, I will include you on such requests.
Others involved with the TIGER grant I spoke with, from other jurisdictions and agencies, knew little or nothing about this change. If Montgomery had been open about this change, then we wouldn't have most of the decision makers about the TIGER grant ignorant of the substance of the change they agreed to make.
The argument about a "multimodal" tunnel being more likely to get grant funding does not hold water. It's part of a much larger grant that has a variety of projects. That grant is multimodal. This change has made the project primarily about car traffic, as most of the money is going to car infrastructure (all of the difference between the price tag of this and the price tag of the pedestrian-only underpass in the Metro study).
by David Alpert on Oct 6, 2009 6:54 pm • link • report
And if so, why?
by Douglas Willinger on Oct 6, 2009 7:15 pm • link • report
From my understanding of a bidding process, the governmental organization puts forward a specific request and companies bid on how to complete it. In this case that would seem to mean the request for bids would start with a tunnel from a specific point A to B like in the Clark picture.
Saying, "we want a tunnel" and having different companies put forward bids with completely different starting and ending points would seem to me very unusual. Is this what you are saying would happen in a bid process for the construction project assuming it is funded?
by dd on Oct 6, 2009 9:33 pm • link • report
That "BRAC community outreach" meeting was on the date after the TIGER grant was submitted. That does not count as community outreach when you are just telling people that you submitted something with information that they never say before. "The Committee members that they had not been consulted on the new design," as to quote the BRAC meeting notes.
Even more from the 9/15/09 meeting notes (this is after the deadline from the TIGER grant):
MC-DOT did not receive renderings of this plan under Sept. 3....
Edgar noted that a meeting is set for this Thursday, Sept. 17, with the Navy staff and state and county transportation agencies to go over the design in more detail.
So the TIGER grant was submitted with a plan received 12 days prior and also was not reviewed in detail by the agencies that would be affected by it?
by Peter on Oct 6, 2009 10:14 pm • link • report
by Tim on Oct 7, 2009 2:57 am • link • report
Then there's the blatant attempt to railroad this through with no public comment or even any public knowledge.
by Cavan on Oct 7, 2009 11:31 am • link • report
less construction, a billion times cheaper, would improve things for bikers/peds and turning traffic wouldn't have to wait as long for the peds to get out of the way.
i'd rather have that than some super out-of-the-way tunnel that takes a year to build and makes my commute (walking south on east side of 355 and crossing to metro) worse.
by Chris on Oct 7, 2009 2:07 pm • link • report
by Tim on Oct 8, 2009 1:46 am • link • report
I live in Arlington and have a car and use it maybe 4-5 days a week. But more than half of my friends in Arlington and the District do not own one.
In any case, the question shouldn't be limited to how people live now, but instead how we build for the future. The region is growing and more people will be coming to the Naval Hospital. It's a given that we'll have to invest in infrastructure, but the question is what kind of infrastructure to build. Spending scarce resources on transit that can move many more people in more efficient modes (which encourage more practical living arrangements) is considerably more economical in the long run than putting those scarce resources into roads which will induce more suburban construction, more driving, and more traffic.
by Joey on Oct 8, 2009 2:41 am • link • report
by David on Oct 9, 2009 12:39 am • link • report
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