What's fair is fair and the high toll range is not fair. How about if all of us get together and agree on a fair means of increasing transportation funding? A limitation on the ability of the State of Mayland to divert highway user fees and highway trust fund dollars to non-transportation uses would be a good first step. Don't think that it is just roads that are expensive. Right now we subsidize about 85 percent of local transit operations.

by Nancy Floreen on Dec 24, 2009 11:04 am • link • report

Everyone seems to overlook the fact that by virtue of motorists having to pay for their cars, their gas, their insurance and their repairs and maintenance, motorists are already paying a very large share of the costs involved in keeping our road transportation system operational directly out of their pockets. When someone uses mass transit vs. the road transportation system, they contribute little in the way of user fees to the actual cost of building, operating, and maintaining that system. The reason our road transportation systems have worked so well is that the motorist and the taxpayer share costs and risks involved in its operation.

by Lance on Dec 24, 2009 11:16 am • link • report

I cannot help but note that Ms. Floreen's comment doesn't actually answer the questions you raise. Did she know at the time the ICC was approved what the tolls would be? If so, why did she wait until now to object? If not, why not?

by jim on Dec 24, 2009 11:21 am • link • report

Let me add that the answers to these questions are important. If she did know what the tolls would be and waited until the road was built to object, then her current appeal for fairness is somewhat vitiated. She who comes to the court of equity, the saying goes, must come with clean hands.

by jim on Dec 24, 2009 11:33 am • link • report

Ms. Floreen,

Thanks for coming on here and posting your thoughts. You're right that transit is also subsidized; all transportation is (airports too, etc.) I'd note though that some modes are much less than others; Metrorail is pretty close to full farebox recovery, I believe.

However, all transit projects, including the Purple Line, have to undergo extensive cost-benefit analysis before being funded. Why aren't we holding our highway projects to a similar standard?

We know how much the Purple Line should cost (absent cost overruns, which affect highways too), and how many people it should move, etc. Why don't we know similar information for the ICC or 270? SHA wouldn't speculate on how many people would use the free vs. toll lanes, how fast they would move, or how high the tolls would be. I just don't see why it's acceptable to approve a road without knowing this information.

I'd love to get together with others and try to work out a fair way of increasing transportation funding.

by David Alpert on Dec 24, 2009 11:39 am • link • report

Nancy,
"What's fair is fair and the high toll range is not fair." What kind of tautological nonsense is that? How is the toll not fair? If it doesn't cover the cost of the highway, I'd say it's not fair to taxpayers having to subsidize part of the reduced commute times for all the road users and for subsidizing the increased property values for anyone owning property near the interchanges. That's not fair.

by Fred on Dec 24, 2009 11:48 am • link • report

Government money doesn't grow on trees. For every dollar that people who use the ICC do not pay in tolls, someone who does not use the ICC will pay a dollar in taxes. How is that fair?

This expensive, sprawl-generating road should never have been built at all, but making those who don't even use it foot the bill sounds like true highway robbery.

by Scott F on Dec 24, 2009 11:54 am • link • report

It's also worth noting that 'subsidies' per mode aren't a particularly useful lens to look at transportation funding issues.

As David notes, Metrorail achieves almost full farebox recovery, but in terms of the overall transportation system (roads, rail, buses, peds, bikes, etc), the total system would be better off if Metrorail were subsidized more, as it is a much higher capacity system than the roads.

http://www.rff.org/documents/RFF-DP-06-21.pdf

The abstract:

The discrepancy between transitÂ’s large share of local transportation resources and its generally low share of local trips has raised questions about the use of scarce transportation funds for this purpose. We use a regional transport model consistent with utility theory and calibrated for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area to estimate the travel benefits of the local transit system to transit users and the congestion-reduction benefits to motorists. We find that (i) rail transit generates congestion-reduction benefits that exceed rail subsidies; (ii) the combined benefits of rail and bus transit easily exceed local transit subsidies generally; (iii) the lowest-income group receives a disproportionately low share of the transit benefits, both in absolute terms and as a share of total income; and (iv) for practical purposes, the scale of the current transit system is about optimal.

by Alex B. on Dec 24, 2009 11:54 am • link • report

What's especially unfair about the I-270 project is that people who can't afford to use the toll lanes will have to subsidize those who are wealtheir than themselves. (The claim that all income levels make similar use of the toll lanes is simply incorrect.)

by Ben Ross on Dec 24, 2009 11:57 am • link • report

Subsidizing mass transit at a higher rate than roads makes sense because IN GENERAL for each additional dollar spent (subsidy plus fare) on mass transit moves more people than a similar dollar spent on roads (subsidy plus user fee). Not to mention externalities like pollution, sprawling communities, and wars fought in far off lands.

A simple example is spending on buses vs. road expansion. One bus moves 50 people while one car moves 1.25 people. Adding additional buses while sacrificing car lanes will probably improvement mobility rather than hurt it.

by Cullen on Dec 24, 2009 12:14 pm • link • report

Whats unfair is that residents in the state of Maryland who live on the Eastern Shore, and other areas will never in their lifetime use the ICC. Why should their tax dollars be spent on low tolls?

While it is fair that all tax payers cover part of the cost of any transportation project (as in theory each part of the state would then get its share of projects). It is not fair they have done so at the expense of projects in their own neighborhoods. The ICC cost so much that the rest of the state has pretty much given up their chance seeing any real transportation money for quite a while.

by Matt R on Dec 24, 2009 12:48 pm • link • report

This post is inherently biased. The ICC will drive BILLIONS in economic development at Science City and Konterra, resulting in major tax revenues to the state. The Purple Line by contrast will not do the same, Bethesda and Silver Spring are already faily built up. The ICC is a crucial component of our region's infrastructure, regardless of cost (as is Metro). It is the last component of the Biotech Triangle and will open up high paying job centers to over a million Marylanders, reducing our unemployment rate. It is outrageous to charge tolls to pay off in full one of the worlds most expensive highways. MdTa owns half a dozen other toll facilities that have been mostly paid off and some of which charge outrageously cheap tolls, others charge lower toll rates than when they were opened. Its awesome that it only costs $2 to avoid a gallon of gas of traffic jams and inmeasureable damage to your car by local streets, not to mention the elevated risk to your personal safety and wellbeing by avoiding the harbor and using local streets in Baltimore City. But this is no longer realistic. Delaware charges more to use its (shorter) portion of I-95 than does Maryland. The Bay Bridge is a bargain for the rest of Maryland that only crosses it twice a year. There is a time to raise tolls statewide to pay for the next generation's infrastruture. The time is now. Time to build a third bay bridge, build the Eastern Bypass, upgrade I-270, etc. These can all be toll financed to offset their costs but the advantage of a state-wide toll system is to distribute the costs.

And Montgomery County commuters should be able to take the same advantage of commuter plans as do others near toll facilities. It only costs $10 a year to cross the Hatem bridge every day instead of I-95. You only need to make two trips up I-95 to make it worth it. Are there any plans to make a year long commute on the ICC $10. I dont think so. The ICC toll plan is an inherent act of discrimination by the State of Maryland and Maryland Transportation Authority against Montgomery County. They are not charging variable toll on the Bay Bridge, whose traffic congestion would benefit from such move, nor any other facility. It is a Baltimore-centric governors excuse to suck a few more dollars from Montgomery County, which already subsidizes Baltimore's little-used rail system, its dysfunctional schools, extravagant pro sports stadiums and conference centers, and its city government, run by a convicted felon who cant think to spend her time any better than stealing from homeless children. County Council - sue the bastards!

by Cyrus on Dec 24, 2009 1:21 pm • link • report

Cyrus, that was magnificent.

I actually do have some sympathy for some of your arguments. Yes, Maryland politics are dysfunctional. It may well be that major benefits will accrue to developers in "Science City and Konterra." But these are arguments that should have been raised (perhaps a little more moderately phrased) when the ICC was up for approval and the question was asked: How will it be funded? A special tax district for the developers in Science City and Konterra could have then been proposed. Raising tolls on all Maryland toll facilities could have then been proposed. But these proposals weren't made. Tolls on the ICC users was the answer.

Raising alternatives now looks like bait-and-switch. Montgomery County got the rest of Maryland to agree to building the ICC on the basis that it would be paid for largely by tolls on Montgomery County drivers and now that it's built, you want the rest of Maryland to pay for it, and indeed Montgomery County drivers should pay less than everyone else, since they'll be using it most. Not likely to fly.

by jim on Dec 24, 2009 2:12 pm • link • report

No one who knows Montgomery County would attribute any credibility to Robin Ficker's opinions. Ficker is an energetic and entertaining activist, but it's not fair to judge us by his example.

It is as if an outsider were to judge D.C. by what Marion Barry says. Actually, it's worse because Barry has served almost 30 years in elected office in the District whereas Ficker has only served one term as a Maryland Delegate and has lost in every race since.

So by all means, go after the BS associated with the ICC. But don't assume that Ficker speaks for anyone other than himself.

by Adam Pagnucco on Dec 24, 2009 2:17 pm • link • report

Sadly, Mr. Ficker's words are representative of the county's position on this one. Our county, while very wealthy and important, is not the only one that deserves transportation investment on the rest of the state's dime.

On top of that, it wants money for the wrong project in the wrong place for the wrong reasons. Motorist convenience is not an acceptable reason to drain the state's transportation funds. How about we aim for a project that won't induce more car-dependent sprawl? How about we aim for a project that will create environmentally friendly walkable urban towns? We need more Bethesdas and Silver Springs, not more Germantowns and Olneys.

How about we stop asking the state to build us unnecessary infrastructure on their dime that will hurt us in the long run?

I find it troubling when Mr. Ficker is the most accurate voice in the county since he so rarely is.

by Cavan on Dec 24, 2009 5:16 pm • link • report

Ficker is asking to use part of the state's sales tax to finance transportation. The state already did that during the special session: http://www.mdchamber.org/legislative/special-session-recap.asp

Where was that fact in this post?

Ficker is also asking to use slots revenues to finance the ICC. Find me another politician in MoCo who is supporting him on that point.

Finally, you make this statement: "Our county, while very wealthy and important, is not the only one that deserves transportation investment on the rest of the state's dime." Do you know that over the last ten years our county has only received 15-19 cents back from the state for every dollar we have sent them? The state average was 34-40 cents over the same period.

Have some perspective. No other MoCo politicians have adopted the Ficker position on using slots money for transportation. The vast majority of them call for light rail on the Purple Line and the CCT. Can you please research the facts before writing about us?

by Adam Pagnucco on Dec 24, 2009 6:46 pm • link • report

While Metrorail comes close to full farebox recovery (something in the 80s-percent, from what I recall), I was under the impression that was for operating expenses and did not include maintenance or capital outlays.

by Froggie on Dec 24, 2009 7:14 pm • link • report

Ben Ross, You say:

"What's especially unfair about the I-270 project is that people who can't afford to use the toll lanes will have to subsidize those who are wealtheir than themselves."

This doesnt make any sense to me. Let's assume for a minute that only the rich will use the toll lane. Every time a rich person decided to enter to toll lane, that's one less car in the free lane. That means less traffic for those using the free lanes. Also, those in the free lanes are 100% subsidized, they're not giving a cent to fund the road. Their gas taxes do not cover the cost of using it. Meanwhile, those in the toll lanes ARE paying, and thus subsidizing those in the free lane.

Cyrus, there have been many discussions about charging congestion pricing on the bay bridge. In fact, there WILL be a form of congestion pricing charged next year to help fund the fixes needed until the new bridge is online. There will be a toll increase during daytime hours only.

by J on Dec 24, 2009 7:49 pm • link • report

Metrorail's operations have about 80 percent cost-recovery, metrobus about 30%, average over all operations is about 50% cost recovery. That doesn't include Metro's capital costs, though.

The key point about transit is the creation of value in the economy, none of which Metro directly captures. This includes land value, obviously, but also household income that's freed up from having to make car-related payments, etc.

The key point about road investment is that while roads also create value, they also create public obligations to fund OTHER, ASSOCIATED new infrastructure, like schools, wastewater treatment, environmental remediation, other utilities, etc. Transit does not create these new infrastructure obligations to the same degree.

It's not well established what the relative net costs and net benefits are, but to David's point, the REALLY key thought is that transit is asked to assess this, but roads never are.

by jnb on Dec 24, 2009 8:33 pm • link • report

Why is anyone surprised that is politician behaves hypocritically?

Ms. Floreen is doing what her constituans want. The road gets built and tge tolls goes down. There is unfortunately no obligantions for voters to behave rationally.

by Jasper on Dec 25, 2009 8:40 pm • link • report

This project is doubtless doomed to be controversial for so long as people drive, but sometimes it seems that things are not being discussed which ought to be in the debate.

For example: one hears very little about using the ICC as a public-transportation route. If any of the proposed Bus Rapid Transit routes are to be built along US-29 and MD-97, both are almost certain to intersect with the ICC. The ICC was never designed with BRT in mind and the bridges in most places simply aren't wide enough to make dedicated BRT an option. That doesn't mean we cannot load the ICC with buses providing connections from end to end along the ICC.

Why won't anyone give any serious discussion to this? For one thing, more people on more buses on the ICC means less people in cars on and off the ICC, the end-to-end costs become individually very affordable and still the State can collect their per-vehicle multi-axle fees.

Or is the State actually hoping to maximize individual vehicle traffic, hoping to more quickly recoup its investments by increasing the per-capita transit cost?

Remember, you can probably debate this as "Lexus Lanes" versus "there's nothing more HOV than a full bus, and that has the lowest-cost per traveler".

And you have to wonder about anyone not discussing how to get the lowest cost per traveler when that solution is a bus.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 27, 2009 2:35 pm • link • report

Thomas, transit works when at least one of the ends of the route is in a walkable urban place like Silver Spring or downtown DC. It works best when all stops are in walkable places. The transit lines that both have the lowest ridership AND are least cost-effective are ones that are entirely in car-dependent places. An individual needs a safe, consistent human-scale center of activity with very little expensive parking so they aren't taking their life in their hands walking.

A mythical BRT on the ICC would be completely in car-dependent sprawl. It will go from nowhere to nowhere. It won't connect any human-scale walkable urban places. Therefore, it will be both inconvenient and expensive.

The ICC was pushed through by the Ehrlich Administration for two reasons: 1) a cynical attempt to bury the Purple Line through distraction and by bankrupting the state's transportation budget and 2) motorist convenience. It is quite a stretch to claim that this road will be beneficial to anyone except a select few motorists. The rest of the state has every reason to feel burned by the ICC. The tolls won't cover the costs o the constuction bonds so he state will be paying, regardless of whether or not they ever use it.

The big question is "what economic activity will happen because ofthe ICC?" the answer is only construction of car-dependent sprawl. That the last kind of economic activity we need.

The sad thing is that every one of he opponents' concerns has come true. Our only hope is that we learn from this mistake and tells our county to go take a hike on the 270 widening which would cost twice as much, require more state subsidies, and have even more negative economic and environmental consequences.

by Cavan on Dec 27, 2009 5:11 pm • link • report

David Alpert wrote:

> Metrorail is pretty close to full farebox recovery,
> I believe.

Your belief is incorrect.

According to WMATA's own 2009 budget document (here (large .pdf file), see physical page 51), Metrorail recovers just under 60% of its operating costs, and Metrobus recovers about 30%. And these recovery rates are over-stated, because they do not take into account employer-provided transit subsidies.

Metro's fares recover exactly zero percent of their capital costs.

by C. P. Zilliacus on Dec 27, 2009 5:25 pm • link • report

The MdTA's official position on ICC tolls, as stated by its Executive Secretary, Ronald L. Freeland, can be found in a recent Letter to the Editor in the D.C. Examiner here.

by C. P. Zilliacus on Dec 27, 2009 5:50 pm • link • report

Lol roads definitely have a higher economic multiplier than 'transit'.

by MPC on Dec 27, 2009 6:00 pm • link • report

Cavan, I should point out that I mention that the ICC is pretty much not a place where you could have BRT, mostly because of inherent design shortcomings. For example, at the Georgia Avenue crossing, having driven over the recently-completed span, it looks like they will have perhaps two travel lanes in each direction, and a median with a major bridge support pylon in the middle of it. The bridge was just built and they'd have to totally re-engineer and rebuild it to get rid of that pylon so as to put either rail or BRT down the median. But I digress, and did so only to clarify.

I don't know if you have ever driven around the area where the ICC is now being built, but it's already very well covered with lots and lots of car-dependent sprawl, with much of that sprawl having been built 30 to 20 years ago. Yet much of that sprawl is pretty well served by bus lines already, particularly the north-south axis along Georgia Avenue from Glenmont Station up to and past Olney. Olney itself is fairly well internally served by Ride-On but that's a different story. Aspen Hill has several Ride-On routes traversing it, and if the County ever saw fit to run a line up and down Arctic Avenue from Bel Pre Road to more-or-less St Jude's Church and School, that would make the whole neighborhood walkable from boundary to boundary, if you define "walkable" at least in part as "everything is within a 10-minute walk or within a 10-minute walk and a bus ride to within a 5-minute walk of the destination". But again I digress. Or do I?

Look at the westernmost end of the ICC. There is the Shady Grove Metro station pretty much right there, and it would not be hard to have a well-used bus-line connecting the Shady Grove ICC exchange to the Georgia Avenue ICC exchange. Shady Grove is already quite densified, and much of it is walkable in terms of getting from your office to a restaurant lunch. The many new commercial real-estate buildings popping up between MD-355 and I-270 are all on or within very short walking distances of significant transit options ranging from Metrorail and Metrobus to Ride-On, and MARC rail for that matter. So, why not offer a more-direct bus commuter option from Shady Grove to connections to Olney and Aspen Hill at the Georgia Avenue ICC exchange? I know for a fact that a lot of people make a grueling car commute from Olney down Bowie Mill, Muncaster Mill, and Redland roads to the Shady Grove office complexes. Why not give them a bus alternative? Only the ICC has enough lanes to do that. If you added significant bus capacity to the Bowie-Mill/Redland commuter route without adding more lanes, all that buses would do would be to further snarl traffic.

Downtown Olney is actually pretty walkable for most definitions of "walk", although its real business district is in fact the hospital and surrounding offices. More shuttle-type service buses between the hospital complex and the shopping/dining hubs at MD-97 and MD-108 might be advisable. And if there was significant Metrobus Y line service from that hub to either connections at the ICC going to Shady Grove, or have direct service between Shady Grove and Beautiful Downtown Olney. (Stop snickering, please.)

Additionally, Layhill (Bel Pre/Bonifant Road and Layhill Road) has a lot of high-density apartments and condo from Layhill right into Aspen Hill at Bel Pre Road and Georgia Avenue. Shouldn't there be a line or lines circulating through there, either heading directly to Shady Grove or making connections to something going directly to Shady Grove? Because frankly, Shady Grove within walkable distance of both the Metro station and the ICC terminus exchange is already seeing huge high-density commercial development and that's a lot of jobs, and most nearby housing is hellishly expensive (not to mention hideous). Yet most of those jobs are inherently commuter jobs. So there's no excuse for not running a bus (not necessarily as BRT) down the ICC. Lots of buses, probably, at peak rush hour.

Remember, there's already a lot of talk about running BRT from Glenmont to Olney, and there's talk about walkable development just south of ICC and Georgia Avenue, and that intersection is already well-served by small shops and very nearly walkable to Leisure World's stores which are all-ages stores and professional offices.

I can tell you that it's pretty likely that if there was a bus station to be located at the ICC underpass of Layhill Road, accessible only to pedestrians (with maybe a handicapped elevator), usage of a bus line from there to Shady Grove and back would be immense.

Once again, I urge commentators to actually come out and drive around and visit through a few commute cycles before they take their stands.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 27, 2009 6:08 pm • link • report

Olney is far from walkable. A bunch of strip malls with acres and acres of surface parking is not walkable, regardless of how much one might try to claim. According to Leinburger's Option of Urbanism, walkable urbanism exists at FAR's from 0.7 and up (in a streetgrid where blocks are between 1/10 and 1/4 or a mile approximately). There is nowhere in Olney that has that kind of FAR's. You can't have walkable urbanism with huge swaths of surface parking. Wheaton, where I live, is about at 0.7 FAR. Notice how few of the businesses have their own surface parking lots. The few that do have no more than one strip, not acres. Acres of surface parking push destinations apart from each other and also make it so that there are cars everywhere. All those cars going everywhere with destinations that are separated by acres of surface parking and too-wide, too fast roads is the exact opposite of walkable.

Olney's form more closely resembles Rockville Pike between Grosvenor Metro and downtown Rockville. It's an edge city. It's not walkable urbanism.

What good would a bus station at the ICC and Layhill Road do? There's nowhere to walk once you get off the bus there. Why would any motorist park and ride along the ICC rather than just driving themselves to Shady Grove. In future decades, Shady Grove is planned to have more and better TOD. It will become a human-scale destination in its own right.

Olney is a failed attempt at TOD and was lip-service TOD without the transit. It does not resemble Bethesda or even Wheaton. It is purely car-dependent and therefore inhospitable to transit. Are there any plans to retrofit all those strip malls into a human-scale streetgrid that I haven't heard about?

by Cavan on Dec 27, 2009 8:14 pm • link • report

Cavan, just for now, can we try to not get into a spat over definitions of terminology supplied by other people outside of the discussion?

For me, "walkable" has a somewhat fuzzy definition. For instance, it's a 10-minute walk from my house to 2 shopping centers and another 5 minutes to another shopping center in the same direction, and a 20-minute walk (I take a 30 to 60 minute walk for health every day) from my house to another shopping center in the other direction.

For the last shopping center, I could be there in 8 minutes on the Ride On bus that comes every half hour. If I walk to the other 2 nearby shopping centers, I can catch two Ride On routes and various sub-routes on two different major Metrobus lines.

By my criteria, Aspen Hill is thus walkable to me, provided that the cops can keep the streets safe, and that I am not trying to tote anything too large or heavy to fit in a backpack or in the panniers of a bicycle.

Much of Olney's Central Business District ("CBD") is the same. Granted their parking lots loom like vast deserts around the oases of actual stores and offices. But you're making one classic mistake about Olney (or anywhere, almost) when you say "it is purely car-dependent and therefore inhospitable to transit". That's not strictly true; buses can travel roads no less than cars, on most modern streets. However, things that are purely transit-dependent are in fact designed to be inhospitable to cars.

Either way, Olney is there, and pretty well all sprawled out. People live there, and often work elsewhere. They should maybe abandon their homes, and in many cases the remnants of their historic family farms? Sure they might only be farming a few horses or a lot of empty turf. But there are a lot of the "sprawl-isms" -- features of a car-centric planning culture -- that could be supplied with transit and help reduce dependence on single-user motor vehicles.

I might add: you ask "[w]hat good would a bus station at the ICC and Layhill Road do? There's nowhere to walk once you get off the bus [...]" and I can tell you. There is Plaza del Mercado shopping center, the Layhill Center shopping center, the Layhill Road Center (offices), and the Trolley Car Museum once that gets rebuild.

But you're missing the point. It's not so much Destination as it is Return. There are a lot of people living there, especially within the 1.5 miles/15-minute walk range of a stop at Layhill and ICC.

It's not so much a place where people go to work, although no doubt the Giant in Plaza del Mercado alone probably has dozens of employees and the other anchor stores there do as well. Not to mention there are some really good restaurants there... but the important thing is the huge number of apartment/condo residences right nearby, already served by bus routes to both Glenmont and Twinbrook stations. Yet if you try to get from there to Shady Grove by bus, it's hard to do, and time-consuming. A lot of people who are paid in the salary ranges of low-level professionals in the Shady Grove area -- nurses, phlebotomists, lab techs, draftsmen, etc -- can afford to live in the Layhill/"East Aspen Hill" area and not much of elsewhere. Why not give them a bus-stop that's a straight shot to work? The "Layhill & ICC" stop isn't where people Go To, it's where they Come Home.

And BTW... how did you get the idea that any discussion about how to make use of the ICC to assist in getting commuter cars off the road therefor could only be viewed in the context of whether or not it was not merely "walkable" but "walkable urbanism"? You're right to state that Olney isn't walkable-urbanism, nor even urbanism, in the present state. But mass-transit connections of edge-city to core and edge-city to edge-city is essential to reduce dependence on the automobile.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 27, 2009 9:16 pm • link • report

Lol roads definitely have a higher economic multiplier than 'transit'.

True-ish up to a point.

Adding any kind of transportation to anything other than trackless waste is a matter of the marginal economic multiplier. Going from 49 to 50 lanes of traffic does not have the same economic multiplier effect of going from zero lanes to one, or one lane to two.

Generally speaking, the first marginal increments in transportation spending favors roads over transit. If there are few if any roads, chances are that the society is very low-density and ill-suited to transit. But roads (particularly adding new lanes to existing roads) are subject to diminishing marginal utility for a variety of reasons. To use but one example, the land that must be paved to build new roadway capacity is generally far more expensive than the initial wilderness, so opportunity costs to build roadway capacity increase and the property owners have more incentives to defeat your plan (and probably more resources to do it with).

At some point, the diminishing marginal utility of roads reaches a tipping point and the marginal economic multiplier favors transit. From looking at land values near Metro stations, large portions of the metropolitan area are clearly there. The Red Line, for example, gave more bang for the buck than adding more lanes to Connecticut Avenue would have. What's more, some areas that haven't reached that tipping point quite yet probably will do so in the relatively near future, and should look at introducing transit capacity while doing so can be done with a relative minimum of disruption.

by cminus on Dec 27, 2009 10:06 pm • link • report

cminus wrote, in-part:
At some point, the diminishing marginal utility of roads reaches a tipping point and the marginal economic multiplier favors transit. From looking at land values near Metro stations, large portions of the metropolitan area are clearly there. The Red Line, for example, gave more bang for the buck than adding more lanes to Connecticut Avenue would have. What's more, some areas that haven't reached that tipping point quite yet probably will do so in the relatively near future, and should look at introducing transit capacity while doing so can be done with a relative minimum of disruption.

Alrighty now, we've re-discovered "the Law of Diminishing Returns".

This is one of the side-points I was hoping some others would infer.

The ICC is all built up around it, and it's at the point where you aren't likely to ever see lane additions to it; the constrictions of the bridges over it are a major impediment. You'd have to rebridge overpasses along the length to add lanes. Thus, if you cannot alter the road itself, you can try to alter the traffic on it.

In any case, we've got the current conceptual war of "lexus lanes" versus reduced fees but more traffic for "discount lanes". But if that's the way it's going to be -- HOV paying more for running in the high-flow lanes --- then make the HOV actually very-HOV: Buses.

Leaving aside traffic-pattern disruptions of buses having to merge into the center lanes, and merge out to get to the exits -- or to bus-stations on the outer margins -- still this puts the most people per vehicle, at least theoretically. And we can certainly leave out of the discussion the fact that for most of the alignment east of Georgia Avenue, this road doesn't much benefit Montgomery or even Prince George's County. It's just yet-another Annapolis-Oriented highway. Extend the whole thrust of the road eastward, and it terminates at Annapolis. Yet the "feng-shui" of transit hereabouts isn't between South Gaithersburg and Annapolis, but rather between North Rockville and Central Laurel.

Ideally the ICC should have been the present route from Shady Grove to Georgia Avenue, and a total reconstruction and straightening of the present alignment of MD-28/MD-198 from Norbeck to Burtonsville, done a bit off to the side in parallel to run a limited-access toll highway mostly dedicated to heavy freight and transit next to the existing historic community-serving roads.

Yet eventually that, too, would come up against the Law of Diminishing Returns. But by that time, we should have seen redesign of a lot of residential facilities into "walkable urbanism" areas. As much as I hate the idea, exceptionally massive population growth will inevitably occur -- absent military action -- in Montgomery County's Council District Four. If we're not to be crushed by it, we need to get transit in place before the growth process becomes an Emergent System and then devolves into a chaos far less organized than what we would get from foresightful planning.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 27, 2009 11:24 pm • link • report

Thomas Hardman wrote:

> Ideally the ICC should have been the present route
> from Shady Grove to Georgia Avenue, and a
> total reconstruction and straightening of the
> present alignment of MD-28/MD-198 from Norbeck
> to Burtonsville, done a bit off to the side in
> parallel to run a limited-access toll highway
> mostly dedicated to heavy freight and transit
> next to the existing historic community-serving
> roads.

No, no, a thousand times no!

You are suggesting a variant on the old (and discredited) "hybrid" option that was suggested by then-Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Bill Hussmann back in 1997. It was studied as part of the environmental impact study started in 2002 as "Corridor 2" and ultimately rejected.

Such suggestions (of deviating from the ICC's master-planned route) have been raised, over and over and over again (mostly by residents of Aspen Hill), but are incredibly unfair to residents of the Cloverly and Fairland Master Plan Areas - many residents in these areas made home purchase decisions based on where the ICC was to be built (or not built).

Additionally, such alternatives are environmentally unacceptable because they would encroach into the WSSC's T. Howard Duckett Reservoir watershed, a source of drinking water for Prince George's and Montgomery Counties (the drainage divide between the Anacostia River watersheds (no drinking water use) and the Patuxent River watershed runs along Md. 198.

by C. P. Zilliacus on Dec 28, 2009 8:33 am • link • report

just for now, can we try to not get into a spat over definitions of terminology supplied by other people outside of the discussion?

For me, "walkable" has a somewhat fuzzy definition. For instance, it's a 10-minute walk from my house to 2 shopping centers and another 5 minutes to another shopping center in the same direction, and a 20-minute walk (I take a 30 to 60 minute walk for health every day) from my house to another shopping center in the other direction.

For the last shopping center, I could be there in 8 minutes on the Ride On bus that comes every half hour. If I walk to the other 2 nearby shopping centers, I can catch two Ride On routes and various sub-routes on two different major Metrobus lines.

By my criteria, Aspen Hill is thus walkable to me, provided that the cops can keep the streets safe, and that I am not trying to tote anything too large or heavy to fit in a backpack or in the panniers of a bicycle.

Thomas, I'm confused. Cavan proffered a technical definition of elements of walkability (density ranges, FARs), and you're the one calling this a 'fuzzy' definition?

The thing about definitions is that we need them, or else everyone ends up talking about their own thing and talk right past the other person. Personally, I don't find your definition of 'walkable' useful at all.

Walkability isn't just about the ability to walk - I can walk lots of places that I wouldn't call walkable. Walkability is really a proxy for urbanism, and urbanism can probably be most easily encapsulated in the Three D's - Density, Diversity, and Design.

Density - Cavan hit on this already - you need a base level of density to support the businesses that make walking trips worthwhile and within a close enough radius. But that's not enough.

Diversity - you need a diversity of land uses (residential, commercial, retail, etc) within that walkable radius. You also need a diversity of price points to spur economic development, and you can make the case for a need for social diversity as well.

Design - walkable places have to be nice to walk in. You note the "vast deserts" of parking lots - sure doesn't sound like it's designed well for walking to me.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that a discussion of terminology is vital to any discussion of the issues. It's a huge part of planning at all levels - communicating concepts and the relationships between them to the public. All that discussion is worthless and not constructive if people are simply talking past one another and using their own definitions.

by Alex B. on Dec 28, 2009 9:04 am • link • report

Bel Pre Road & Leisure World Boulevard are the centers for dense, affordable housing in the area, not Layhill. A stop at Layhill & ICC would not be within walking distance for many - they would require distributor buses or would commute to it by car.

If you really wanted to make a 'network'... what do you guys think of Metro connecting to ICC-BRT & a bus station at Norbeck & Georgia's park-and-ride lot instead? It's completely suburban & non-walkable, but as a commuter park'n'ride, BRT, & bus connector it could be worthwhile, since it hits Aspen Hill first. There's even space for another Metro train yard south of where the ICC is going in.

by Squalish on Dec 28, 2009 2:12 pm • link • report

Alex B wrote, in-part:
[ ... ]
Thomas, I'm confused. Cavan proffered a technical definition of elements of walkability (density ranges, FARs), and you're the one calling this a 'fuzzy' definition?

The thing about definitions is that we need them, or else everyone ends up talking about their own thing and talk right past the other person. Personally, I don't find your definition of 'walkable' useful at all.

Walkability isn't just about the ability to walk - I can walk lots of places that I wouldn't call walkable. Walkability is really a proxy for urbanism, and urbanism can probably be most easily encapsulated in the Three D's - Density, Diversity, and Design.
[ ... ]

Define "FAR". Then be kind enough to tell me who exactly decided that this is the sole useful metric criteria. Cavan, like so many others, has a tendency to adhere to academic standards which don't precisely reflect actual usages, which is comparable to a concurrent tendency to mistake the map for the territory. You need feet on the ground because aerial photography doesn't convey experience, only metrics.

That being said, you are arguing apples to oranges. When you quote me talking about vast parking lots, that's Olney which we all agree is far from the "walkable urbanism" ideal. When you quote me about my definition of "walkable", we are discussing Aspen Hill. If you're going to call me to task over not talking past one another and using different dictionaries, try to not do it yourself.

Aspen Hill, for example, does have Density, Diversity, and Design, at least at the core. Try looking at this map. The density is provided by the extensive apartment and condominium communities you will see in the upper-right quadrant, along Georgia Avenue north to Bel Pre Road and east along Bel Pre Road to Layhill. Additionally, high density (if not high-rise) housing is found along Hewitt Avenue. Within a 10-minute walk of the Aspen Hill core shopping centers are some 3000 units of R-60/R-90 housing, most of which have become (legally or otherwise) multi-family rental units. Additionally, the Lees own the soon-to-be-vacated "Aspen Hill Office Center", some 230,000 square feet of commercial real estate alternatively zoned C1 or R-90 which is also in the heart of Aspen Hill, for now it's BAE Systems and was Vitro Building 4 at one time.. Right across the street from that is the SunTrust Building and right across the other street is the Aspen Hill Office Building and at the far end of the Aspen Hill Shopping Center -- and nicely integrated to the shopping center and the neighborhood behind it -- is the Aspen View Professional Center.

So, we have Diversity in the form of housing as apartments, condos, R-60/R90 (60 or 90 units per square mile) housing designed as single-family-detached-residential, we have the Matthew Henson State Park and its new hiker-biker trail, there are significant parks nearby though only the MHSP and trail can be considered "walkable" to the core of Aspen Hill.

What Aspen Hill does not have is something near and dear to the heart of so many urbanists, and that is grid connections. That same map will show you why; the varying time-frames of development in Aspen Hill meant that one tract of land would be planned and developed without much connection to neighboring development tracts. Long farm fencelines became long backyard fence lines of circumference (or boundary) streets for a development tract, and only later were minimal grid connections made, partially because the street lines were laid out according to the geometry of the development tract, not the greater neighborhood.

But look at the
Harmony Hills neighborhood, which is generally a terrible place if you're car-centric, in terms of getting from there to the nearest shopping center. Yet if you walk, you get to the shopping center with ease through access points that are pedestrian-only. Yet I can't stress enough how much problem the lack of vehicular access from stores to neighborhood has caused the police. They're car-centric, you know.

Comparably with the Hewitt Avenue neighborhood, and part of the Strathmore-at-BelPre neighborhood. They have excellent pedestrian access to the Aspen Manor Shopping Center by cutting through a corner of the Gate of Heaven Cemetery property. However, the police have to deal with the same sort of problems there. Either they can go there on foot and in force or not go there at all.

In some places, absent either tactical changes in police, or strategic design in planning and retrofit, "walkability" becomes a trap, and a breeding ground for crime.

In any case, a lot of these issues may become moot due to the intentions for Aspen Hill expressed in the Planning Board's "Georgia Avenue Study" which intends to remake the Aspen Hill core as a New Urbanist Walkability Paradise. Now if only they can condemn the Aspin Hill Pet Cemetery they can totally grid-connect Harmony Hills and the surround, and leave that as the R-90 zone adjacent to the mixed-use high-rise to be built at North Gate Shopping Center, speculatively seeing ground-breaking around 2018.

This will approximately double the population of Aspen Hill and in local considerations at-least octuple the density within a 1-km radius circle.

And perhaps they will need more mass-transit, though already several Metrobus and Ride-On lines cross each other at the 'triangle' of major roads surrounding North Gate Plaza. Some of that transit might connect with the ICC if the ICC has buses running on it.

Running for office I supported the ICC, restricted to one must-have proviso: mass transit running on it.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 28, 2009 2:22 pm • link • report

Squalish wrote:
Bel Pre Road & Leisure World Boulevard are the centers for dense, affordable housing in the area, not Layhill. A stop at Layhill & ICC would not be within walking distance for many - they would require distributor buses or would commute to it by car.

If you really wanted to make a 'network'... what do you guys think of Metro connecting to ICC-BRT & a bus station at Norbeck & Georgia's park-and-ride lot instead? It's completely suburban & non-walkable, but as a commuter park'n'ride, BRT, & bus connector it could be worthwhile, since it hits Aspen Hill first. There's even space for another Metro train yard south of where the ICC is going in.

I think I exactly covered all of this?

South of the ICC there are already plans for a Winchester Homes development.

BRT from Glenmont to Olney (or even to Brookeville) is certainly getting lively discussion in Council and Planning circles, if not exactly being discussed in concrete planning terms. It's on the table, but not in the process, if you make the distinction.

Leisure World does indeed have dense "affordable" housing, but it's age-restricted. It's a retirement community. Try to not make decisions based on maps when you don't have feet on the ground.

Distributor buses already run to within about 100 yards of the Layhill overpass of the ICC. At rush hour and at school rush hour those buses run at capacity. I've ridden them frequently enough. Feet on the ground, not maps. At least 3 Ride On routes serve most of the length of Bel Pre Road and others connect from Layhill and Bel Pre Roads down Layhill to Glenmont Metro. Additional bus capacity will have to be added after completion of the very large SPRAWL development at Indian Springs, now under construction, despite the economy.

Keep in mind that all of the sprawl problems in this area are due to the County's massive oversubscription to the ideal of "corridors and wedges" and an intentional and mandatory omission of considerations of grid connectivity.

In Aspen Hill, for example, as of the 1996 Master Plan we saw explicit abandonment of extension of Oriental Street across Rock Creek to Twinbrook Parkway, which would have increased grid connections and pedestrian access to the Twinbrook stores and other facilities for people living in SW Aspen Hill, the most unwalkable part of the neighborhood aside from the Flint Rock cul-de-sac.

Many of the communities bounded by Norbeck Road, Layhill Road, Bel Pre Road, and Georgia Avenue are not accessible to each other because the county will not authorize even pedestrian small-stream bridging. And with the construction of the ICC through Longmead Crossing, even more cul-de-sacking (so to speak) will be imposed.

Meanwhile, Georgia and Norbeck is a failed intersection at most times other than midnight. More buses, please.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 28, 2009 2:40 pm • link • report

I have lived in this area my whole life. Retirees use transit too, they just don't commute quite so much. There are a *lot of them* living at Leisure world, particularly since the high-rises started going up. Some Leisure World residents (the one in my family, for example) have particular problems driving, and would welcome the same type of transit connections you're aiming at the workforce.

I was not very familiar with what the County had planned for the area - thanks for the info.

It's a solid kilometer from Bel Pre to where the interchange will go. All I was saying is that whatever BRT/express bus goes in, in order to provide useful Aspen Hill - Shady Grove commuter transit it needs to hit Bel Pre corridor bus routes directly.

Georgia and Norbeck is not a pedestrian intersection at present - simple as that. There's no residential density within walking distance of there, except for the hundred or so people living behind the gas station, crossing Norbeck to go to the cheap strip-mall restaurants - which they tend not to do.

by Squalish on Dec 28, 2009 3:16 pm • link • report

Mr. Hardman,

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm merely noting that your initial dismissal of Cavan's point did nothing to further the discussion. Despite your riposte to me, the substance of your reply is quite helpful (thought I might disagree with the conclusions).

For the record, FAR is floor-area ratio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floor_Area_Ratio
No one is suggesting that it be the sole metric to be used, but it is one measure of density and is often used in discussions because it's already in the lexicon of zoning codes and thus part of a developer's vocabulary. Indeed, I hope my discussion of the Three D's was an indication of the broad concepts at play here (each with multiple metrics available, such as FAR).

That said, just from looking at the aerial photographs of the Aspen Hill area, I do see a lot of vast surface parking lots, and I don't see a ton of density, either. Hence, I appreciate your detailed description, but I would probably disagree with your conclusions as to the urbanity and walkability of the area.

In some places, absent either tactical changes in police, or strategic design in planning and retrofit, "walkability" becomes a trap, and a breeding ground for crime.

Well, planning to retrofit these kinds of suburban strip malls is exactly the kind of thing smart growth is about. You can't just create walkable, urban places from places that are not without actually changing things.

The comment about being a breeding ground for crime, however, is baseless.

by Alex B. on Dec 28, 2009 4:08 pm • link • report

Thomas,

In this website and in most every public forum on urban planning, WALKABILITY = TRADITIONAL TOWNS/CITIES. I know you live in Aspen Hill. It's a small edge city. It's a baby Tyson's Corner. IT'S NOT WALKABLE. Olney is a bigger edge city. IT'S NOT WALKABLE.

I don't get very riled about this stuff much because it's not personal. I've had many genteel disagreements with Purple Line opponents in person. You can look to my June 2009 post about redundant transit networks and see how I kept that thread polite and let the Purple Line opponents post their links and then kept the thread on the subject of of the post.

However, your complete disregard for anything I wrote in your replies to my previous comment is just frustrating. I'll repeat it to you yet again... BETHESDA=WALKABLE, WHEATON=WALKABLE, DC'S L'ENFANT CITY=WALKABLE, OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA=WALKABLE. TYSONS CORNER /= WALKABLE, GERMANTOWN /= WALKABLE, LARGO/=WALKABLE, OLNEY/=WALKABLE.

As I said before in my previous comment:

According to Leinburger's Option of Urbanism, walkable urbanism exists at FAR's from 0.7 and up (in a streetgrid where blocks are between 1/10 and 1/4 of a mile approximately)

You completely ignored what I wrote and then posted more comments that are longer than most of the main posts on this blog. I know you're familiar with Wheaton. I'm quite familiar with Aspen Hill and Olney since they're not too far from my house. Walk around those three places and then play "which of these is not like the others?".

You'll notice that Wheaton is the odd duck of the three since it has a continuous (though gnarly) streetgrid, little surface parking, blocks that are between 1/4 and 1/10 of a mile, a mix of uses (though it should be much more diverse than the current 1990 sector plan allows for), and a mixture of different aged buildings. Olney and Aspen Hill have none of those qualities. They are both large single-use, single-owner car-dependent places. Just like Tysons Corner.

I enjoy disagreement. I would not contribute to this site and be active in the community if I couldn't deal with it. However, it is very infuriating when someone you're having a conversation with ignores everything you say.

by Cavan on Dec 28, 2009 4:48 pm • link • report

And no, Thomas, walkability is not a breeding ground for crime. I'm sorry to hear that you drank the early 1960's Highway Lobby-sponsored kool-aid.

By your reasoning, Bethesda would have more crime per capita than Aspen Hill. Something tells me that's not the case.

By your misguided reasoning, it should have been impossible for DC (especially in the L'Enfant City and Georgetown) to see the drop in crime that it did during the 2000's even though it retained and enhanced its walkable urban form.

Never let the facts get in the way of your preconceived notions, right?

by Cavan on Dec 28, 2009 4:55 pm • link • report

Okay, look. Here we go.

Cavan: Olney is definitely not walkable, unless of course you're one of the people who lives in the part that is walkable, which is to say the apartment complexes and other housing types that are within walking distance of the stores there. Granted that it's very easy to say that Olney is "not walkable" because it's so big as a town, and so little within the bounds is withing walking distance of the center.

But it's just as easy to say that Wheaton is definitely not walkable, because Wheaton as a town is exactly as is Olney, too far from the CBD (central business district) to be considered walkable, and definitely not on much of a grid. So, let's not compare apples to oranges, if we're going to compare the walkability of Wheaton and Olney, let's compare the walkability of their CBDs. In that case, Wheaton definitely wins, if only because of the mass-transit connections. Outside of either town's CBD, it's still suburban sprawl.

Now about preconceived notions, you make yet-another apples-to-oranges statement comparing DC's drop in crime to Bethesda's consistently low crime rate.

Do you even recall that until Congress started throwing lavish piles of money at the District, after forcibly replacing Marion Barry, one of the biggest causes of a high crime rate in the District was the fact that in early 1997, only one in three police cars had a working radio, their information systems were a mess, and the Medical Examiner's office was the only thing more broken than the police Evidence Storage facilities. Simply stated, the District was effectively unable to fight crime in any meaningful way until roughly late 1998, and a lot more systems came online by about late 2000 which all contributed, as did a massive and rolling shakeup of police management. I have documented that elsewhere quite well at the time.

Also: Bethesda, like downtown Wheaton, grew organically from a horse-and-walkers town. Aspen Hill was pretty purely a creation of 1960s thinking, where nobody walked who didn't have to walk.

Much of the District evolved the same way, though obviously it had the original of all Master Plans. Yet almost none of the District was designed in such a way as to preclude vehicular access, and aside from the so-called "Exorcist Stairs" in Georgetown, there are few places that people can go and a vehicle cannot. The same cannot be said of the places under discussion in Aspen Hill.

I might add that much of the drop in the crime-rate in the District is due in part to the vast flooding of the District with the wealth from Congress and the wealth from unparalleled economic expansion in the timeframe. Why rob when you can just pick money up off of the streets? Less risk, more profit, easy choice. Much of the rest of the drop in crime rates is due to interjurisdictional cooperation which effectively didn't exist prior to 1999 and which continues to evolve in a regionalist approach to law-enforcement and crime-control.

Bethesda would never have a higher per-capital crime rate than Aspen Hill, not until and unless Bethesda has a comparable per-capita poverty rate. Bethesda is rich by any standard, no motive to street crimes, certainly no desperation there. Aspen Hill's worst recent crime wave was people robbing day-laborers after they cashed their day's check at the check-cashing place. Urbanism or lack thereof is outside the discussion when other factors are far more likely explanations.

As to not letting facts get in the way of preconceived notions, from 2001 onward, I have worked closely with police and property managers and civic groups in Aspen Hill and I kept trying to preach "walkability" to all of the above. The police, in particular, adamantly opposed any notions of increasing interconnectivity between communities, especially if that interconnectivity was not vehicular as well as pedestrian. Indeed, they will tell you that any drop in crime in Aspen Hill has come more from improved fencing than from any other thing. Once fencing holes cut between apartment/condo projects had been mended, pedestrian criminal flight found it much harder to elude vehicle-based police pursuit. Don't believe me? Ask Capt Gillespie, Capt Patricia Walker, or Lt Edward Harhai. They may or may not much like me personally, but they will tell you that I was there at these meetings for years suggesting improving pedestrian access, and that this was official policy: pedestrian access that excludes police vehicles is something they do not want because their belief is that it enables criminals while making it difficult or dangerous for police officers.

Again, don't think that I'm arguing to the general when I'm arguing to specifics, please.

@Alexb: Note that I said absent either tactical changes in police, or strategic design in planning and retrofit as regards walkability being a breeding ground for crime. Do you think that Ellsworth in DTSS would have as low a crime rate as it does, did they not flood the streets with cops on foot patrol backed up by vehicular patrols and fast-response teams?

You also suggest that there's no "high-density" here. There may not be high-rise apartment/condo blocks, but there are a lot single-family homes converted to massive boarding houses, illegally or skirting illegality, I might add.

Aspen Hill is not Urban. It is definitely Urbanizing, and the neighborhood has many features such as a lot of transit that makes it close enough to "walkable" to be discussed as such. The more transit, the more transit-oriented redevelopment or retrofit/infill will occur, and the more New Urbanistic it will become. Doubtless you people all know that, so why would anyone knowing that argue against more and better transit, that happens to be envisioned to run on the ICC?

That's all, I don't see any need for any of us to pick so many nits, or throw out remarks that invite others to pick nits. I'll try to play more nicely with others where possible.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 28, 2009 6:01 pm • link • report

Squalish wrote:
I have lived in this area my whole life. Retirees use transit too, they just don't commute quite so much. There are a *lot of them* living at Leisure world, particularly since the high-rises started going up. Some Leisure World residents (the one in my family, for example) have particular problems driving, and would welcome the same type of transit connections you're aiming at the workforce.

Probably some of the younger ones would, of that I am certain. And certainly so would many of the non-retiree employees who may outnumber their clients by about 5 to 1 during business hours.

Note, please, that there are busloads of elderly folks making the rounds of nearby shopping centers... but those buses are run by the Leisure World management corporation, and they transport only the elderly clients and perhaps a related companion or a friend or two. Security is provided as well.

I was not very familiar with what the County had planned for the area - thanks for the info.

You're quite welcome. This isn't written in stone, but usually when the Planning Board releases something like the Georgia Avenue Study, something very like that will come to pass, eventually.

It's a solid kilometer from Bel Pre to where the interchange will go. All I was saying is that whatever BRT/express bus goes in, in order to provide useful Aspen Hill - Shady Grove commuter transit it needs to hit Bel Pre corridor bus routes directly.

The bus-routes coming closes to it could easily be given a slight detour. For example a turnaround in nearby Layhill Park could be established practically overnight, the surface and parking-lot features there are already pretty close to a bus-route turnaround. There's plenty of time to think this through.

Note that at least one of the Ride On routes comes to the intersection of Layhill Road and Longmead Crossing Drive. Note that with some route addition or diversion, a crossing over/under the ICC to the roundabout intersection of Wintergate/Park Vista Drive and Longmead Crossing Drive could add capacity and usage from the nearby neighborhoods. Indeed, the more I look at it, the more I think that this intersection might in fact be the best place for a bus-stop transferring to/from ICC routes to distributor routes in the neighborhood.

Georgia and Norbeck is not a pedestrian intersection at present - simple as that. There's no residential density within walking distance of there, except for the hundred or so people living behind the gas station, crossing Norbeck to go to the cheap strip-mall restaurants - which they tend not to do.

I am guessing that you didn't follow the link to the planned Winchester Homes project. Also, not yet showing up on google-maps, but there nonetheless, is significant infill along Muncaster Mill Road near Norbeck Road, as well as the upscale McMansionish housing along Thistlebridge Dr, etc. But you're right, it's certainly far from what a New Urbanist would call "walkable".

Note, however, that after redesign of the Georgia/Norbeck intersection, addition of another security gate in the Leisure World fencing, for pedestrian usage, could open up all of those stores to one large part of Leisure World.

And I am still waiting for anyone to step forward and tell me exactly how opposed they are to MoCo's "corridors and wedges" policy, as after all it's the main reason that we don't have even the possibility of significant grid connections out here in Suburbia Hell.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 28, 2009 6:24 pm • link • report

Thomas:

The police can't get out of their cars?

by O-Dawgg on Dec 30, 2009 4:37 pm • link • report

Evidently not.

At least in the timeframe under discussion here, Montgomery was significantly understaffed in terms of sworn officers. Lot of staff overseas meeting Reserve and Guard obligations, etc. Thus most officers are single person per car.

Also, for reasons that should be obvious, for most of the crime types in this area, the job is a lot easier when they can just call in the tags on a motor vehicle and have a pick-up team waiting at home. The alternative would be to have two officers per car and have one ready to bail out and do a foot pursuit and coordinate by radio with the squad car and backup as they arrive, or dedicate a team of cars to cover all possible pedestrian exits.

Also, for reasons I have yet to be able to figure out, having people able to cross from community to community without having to walk the long way around out on the boundary streets is just plain wrong (in the minds of some bureaucrats). I think it might build a sense of being part of a bigger community. The kids get that at school, but the adults basically meet the adults in their complex, but not so much the adults at the neighboring complexes. Go figger. It's not like they're going to get to talking and then up and go register to vote Republican.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 30, 2009 5:24 pm • link • report