Posts about Ike Leggett

In addition to offering an alternative when the existing escalators are out of service, it will bring the station up to modern safety standards by providing a second entrance for emergency personnel and a second evacuation route in the event of an emergency.

Sadly, Maryland does not yet have the funds lined up for its portion of the Purple Line costs, and Leggett is citing potential Purple Line delays as a reason to postpone the Metro entrance as well. From the Bethesda Patch:

"Due to the current lack of state construction funding for these projects, this reduction is not likely to cause a delay in the project," read the county release announcing the CIP amendments.

This statement is very puzzling because County Executive Leggett has been an excellent advocate for increasing transportation revenue at the state level, teaming with Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker, both counties' state delegations, and other counties' delegations.

Governor O'Malley has made it clear that a significant piece of the increased transportation revenues would go towards constructing the Purple Line. One would think that the Leggett Administration would be more publicly optimistic about future state revenues, based on its own hard work.

Further, the Maryland MTA has already stated that construction on the entrance would have to begin by 2016 in order to meet a projected 2020 start of operations for the Purple Line. Last year's budget kept the project on schedule to break ground by 2016. Any delay would put the project too far behind schedule to be open when the Purple Line begins operation, if the Purple Line gets the funding it needs.

This proposal continues the pattern with this administration of trying to defund smart growth-oriented projects while proposing lavish spending on sprawl-oriented road projects.

When the County Council restored the Metro entrance funding during the 2012 budgeting process, it deferred some wasteful new road projects the Leggett administration has proposed. Those include building Montrose Parkway East, and widening Snouffer School Road and Goshen Road in Gaithersburg. It's unclear if the Gaithersburg area road widenings are linked to the M-83 "Zombie Road" proposal that MCDOT continues to study.

The County Executive's office now wants to defer the Metro funding, though for less time than in last year's proposal, and restore many of these same road projects.

Just like last year, the County Council can rein in the county Department of Transportation's least considered road-widening impulses. It's up to us to contact them and let them know that the electorate supports smart growth and economic development projects, such as the new Bethesda Metro entrance.

While the residential part of Clarksburg's Cabin Branch development is proceeding, the future of the associated 2.4 million square feet of commercial development is uncertain since the Maryland Health Commission ended Adventist HealthCare's plans to open a hospital in Clarksburg.

Clarksburg's transit still consists of 2 weekday-only buses and a tiny MARC station 4-5 miles away.

Although the County Council recently put the next phase of Clarksburg development on hold, this was not because the Clarksburg built to date falls so far short of the 1993 Master Plan's promise. Instead, the County Council worried that construction would degrade the Ten Mile Creek watershed and further reduce water quality in WSSC's Little Seneca reservoir.

And earlier this year, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) turned down a request from Clarksburg parents to mark a crosswalk at Stringtown Road and Observation Drive. Parents in the Gateway Commons development use the unmarked crosswalk to walk their children to the elementary school that is literally within sight of their homes.

The parents persisted, asking Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett to reverse MCDOT's decision. But last week, Leggett instead supported MCDOT's denial. Why?

Because, he explained in an e-mail, the county will not install a marked crosswalk at this intersection until the county has built a 2-mile, multi-lane, divided road (Observation Drive Extended) between Germantown and Clarksburg.

It's bad enough that Stringtown Road did not include a marked crosswalk when the road opened in 2007. After all, the Montgomery County Planning Board approved the site plan for the Gateway Commons development in 2003, and the elementary school has been there since 1909.

Did nobody think that people living on the southeast side of the road might want to walk to the school on the northwest side of the road? Was the road's $8.8 million budget too small to pay for a marked crosswalk?

But Leggett's explanation actually makes it worse. The Stringtown Road construction project did include curb cuts and pedestrian refuges at the intersection with Observation Drive. The parents assumed, reasonably, that the county had included these pedestrian facilities so that pedestrians could use them.

But this assumption was incorrect, Leggett's e-mail explained. Rather, the reason the Stringtown Road project included the pedestrian facilities was "to minimize the expense and operational impacts on the roadway when Observation Drive [Extended] is constructed".

Observation Drive Extended is not on the county's Capital Improvement Plan. But it is possible to get a rough estimate of its construction costs, if the county were to build the road today. The similar 1.2-mile extension of Father Hurley Boulevard in Germantown opened in 2011 and cost $10.9 million, or roughly $9 million per mile. So Observation Drive Extended might cost roughly $18 million.

$8.8 million for Stringtown Road plus $18 million for Observation Drive Extended adds up to $27 million that must be spent before parents and children, in a town planned as pedestrian-oriented, can cross at a marked crosswalk on their safe, convenient walk to school.

At that cost, it's no wonder that, as Leggett's e-mail said, "[t]he County simply does not have the resources to provide crossing guards or other control measures at every potential crossing location to make them as safe as possible for everyone who wishes to use them."

Instead, these parents will have to continue to choose between crossing safely at an inconvenient, marked crosswalk and crossing conveniently at an unsafe, unmarked crosswalk.

As Leggett's e-mail explains, "When in the judgment of our engineers and school transportation professionals it is better to compromise the convenience of a pedestrian...than to potentially compromise their safety, I will back that decision. Like them I believe that installing a marked crosswalk at this location may not improve the safety of those who wish to cross there."

But why must there be this trade-off between pedestrian convenience and pedestrian safety? Surely MCDOT is capable of designing a marked crosswalk at this intersection that would allow pedestrians to cross both conveniently and safely. Such a crosswalk would, however, compromise the convenience of drivers.

The Clarksburg Master Plan says that it will "carefully guide the growth of Clarksburg from a rural settlement into a transit- and pedestrian-oriented town". Ike Leggett says that he supports "mak[ing] our area more pedestrian-friendly". MCDOT says that the county supports improvements to "the walkability of our communities".

Why is it so hard to get Montgomery County to do what it says?

Since 1994, the county has become more diverse, more urban and now faces greater social and economic issues. As a result, the traditional growth-vs-no growth debate that's driven Montgomery County politics is falling apart, presenting new challenges to Duncan or any of the other contenders for county executive.

When Duncan took office, the county was still predominantly white and still had a reputation for being what former Councilmember Rose Crenca called the "perfect suburbia," save for the occasional scandal. During his tenure, the county's population grew larger and more affluent.

Meanwhile, the county's budget nearly doubled as Duncan racked up a long list of accomplishments, including the revitalization of downtown Silver Spring. The main political rift in the county was between the business community, who naturally wanted more development and backed Duncan, and civic organizations like the Montgomery County Civic Federation, which sought less or no growth.

Today, whites are a minority, with substantial immigrant enclaves in places like Germantown that were farmland a generation ago. The county is largely built out and quickly urbanizing. Rockville Pike is now known as much for authentic Chinese food and skyscrapers as it is for big-box stores.

As this shift occurs, the old guard of anti-growth civic leaders are gradually being replaced by a new, diverse group of young adults and families, minorities and immigrants, that somewhat resembles the "coalition of the ascendant" that reelected President Obama. These groups are generally open to growth, especially if it provides much-needed jobs, affordable housing or other amenities.

That's because despite being one of the nation's wealthiest counties, Montgomery County is beginning to struggle. It has created no net jobs in 10 years even as Greater Washington has added jobs, putting the county at risk of falling behind Fairfax County and a newly ascendant DC. The county faces growing poverty and social issues, while dwindling tax revenues during the recession have resulted in an ongoing budget crisis.

As a result, the pro-growth and no-growth coalitions are becoming more dynamic. In 1994, Duncan earned the support of Montgomery's business community by supporting the Intercounty Connector, which would support development on the fringes of the county, while opposing the Purple Line between Bethesda and Silver Spring, which he called "spending millions to go nowhere." He continued to fight the Purple Line as an administrator at the University of Maryland.

But today, it enjoys strong support from nearly all of the county's elected officials and a cross-section of business, environmental and civic groups, who all agree that the project can support a new generation of infill development, reduce traffic and pollution, and revitalize older neighborhoods.

Perhaps the biggest sign of how things have changed in recent years has been the tenure of County Executive Ike Leggett, who succeeded Duncan in 2006 and may run for a third term. Though Leggett ran on a slow-growth platform, he has tentatively (sometimes very tentatively) embraced a more urban future for the county.

Over the past 6 years, Leggett's administration has pushed an ambitious, if flawed plan for the redevelopment of downtown Wheaton, while his Smart Growth Initiative will relocate county facilities to make room for a new neighborhood at the Shady Grove Metro station. In an interview with Rockville Patch, he stressed the need for infill development that can grow the county's tax base.

At the same time, Leggett's administration has often held the county back, suggesting that an old-school Montgomery politician can only bend so far. He tried to strip funding for the Purple Line from this year's budget and spent most of 2011 promoting an controversial and ineffective youth curfew. Though he supports a countywide bus rapid transit network proposed by Councilmember Marc Elrich, Leggett and his Department of Transportation have been reluctant to do anything that would take road space away from drivers.

Shortly after Duncan was first elected, the Post gushed that "Montgomery County finally has a chief executive who looks as prosperous as Montgomery County." While the county may be ready to prosper again, Duncan's past record doesn't really fit where the county's going.

It remains to be seen whether he, or any of the other candidates for county executive, will be able to transcend the old debates over growth and move the county forward.

Both Georgia and Randolph are part of all versions of the county's BRT proposal. But the underpass will get in the way of the future bus network. Buses on Randolph, unable to use a tunnel that gives them no place to stop, will have to slow down for a traffic light that cars can bypass.

To avoid the buses stopping in the turn lanes, the stops will have to be located on the far side of the light. Riders connecting to the other BRT line will have to double back on foot and wait for the light a second time.

Yet the county, which has already thrown $14 million of its own money at this project, urges the state to plow ahead with the underpass. It has not asked for a redesign to accommodate BRT. And, through its adequate public facilities ordinance, it blocked transit-oriented development around the Metro station until the underpass got funding.

Just this week, the County Council reaffirmed the adequate public facilities ordinance. It toned down some of the worst features, but the basic principle remains in place: it assumes that if only the county built the right road infrastructure, all traffic would flow freely. Almost a century of road building has proven that's not the case, but that truth hasn't yet penetrated into the policy.

Indeed, the two elected officials who initiated the county's turn toward BRT, Councilmember Marc Elrich and County Executive Ike Leggett, are also the strongest partisans for what Elrich calls "free-flowing highways." That's a contradiction, because if highways actually could flow freely, buses would move at full speed, and Bus Rapid Transit wouldn't be necessary.

In recent decades, the county has accomplished much while building rail transit and new roads at the same time. The Red Line has been a stunning success, and the Purple Line promises to match it. But rail lines are expensive and transportation budgets are getting ever tighter. Montgomery's leaders have chosen to de-emphasize further expansion of rail beyond the Purple Line.

The county switched its preference for the Corridor Cities Transitway from rail to bus and has found no room among its transportation priorities for the state's plan for all-day service on MARC. Many see the BRT network as a way for transit to keep growing in an era of fiscal stringency.

BRT simply won't work if we pretend that we're still in the 1950s and keep trying to move more cars at higher speeds (a strategy that is doomed to failure in any case). It requires rebuilding roads and neighborhoods for a more livable urban future, where people rank ahead of automobiles. Striving after two contradictory goals on the same roadways is a recipe for failure.

The decision ends a long and often acrimonious debate over how to spark the redevelopment of downtown Wheaton. In February, Leggett's administration claimed that there wasn't enough money to pay for revitalization in Wheaton and a new Metro entrance in Bethesda, pitting supporters of both projects against each other.

When the council found funding for both projects, the conversation turned to the merits of Leggett's proposal. While County Council analyst Jacob Sesker wasn't opposed to building atop the Metro, he created the alternative proposals because he felt it wasn't feasible in the immediate future. Meanwhile, the Coalition for a Fair Redevelopment of Wheaton has expressed concerns about local businesses, calling for a more substantial town square or a community benefits agreement.

These questions led to accusations that the council was being meddlesome and was opposed to making Wheaton better. After the vote on Tuesday, resident Henriot St. Gerard wrote a scathing blog post on Wheaton Patch calling it a "show of disrespect" to the community.

I understand that people in Wheaton are impatient for change. I grew up in East County and started blogging six years ago because I wanted to see the kind of amenities that residents of Rockville or Bethesda enjoy right in my own backyard. But I too have had to grapple with a few uncomfortable truths:

Jobs are concentrated on the west side of the county and will remain there for a long time.

In 2010, there were 506,000 jobs in Montgomery County, 70% of which are located along the I-270 corridor. Bethesda alone has 87,000 jobs, more than Silver Spring, White Oak and Wheaton combined. Plans for additional employment growth in White Flint, the Great Seneca Science Corridor, and Germantown ensures that the west side will continue to remain the county's job center.

Companies located in East County aren't sticking around.

Last year, defense contractor BAE Systems moved a branch office from Aspen Hill to Rockville. The empty building added to an already high vacancy rate in the Kensington-Wheaton area, where nearly a quarter of all office space is empty, compared to just 11 percent countywide. Lee Development Group, which owns the building, will replace it with a Walmart because they concluded that the area was "a retail destination, not an office center."

Companies already located on the west side aren't interested in going east.

The county is planning to create a research and development center in East County called the White Oak Science Gateway around the Food and Drug Administration's new campus. Though the area enjoys the lowest office vacancy rate in the county, with just 6 percent of offices sitting empty, it's unclear who will fill them.

A recent report from planning consultants surveyed research and development firms located at the county's existing Life Sciences Center in Gaithersburg and found that wouldn't move to White Oak because they appreciate the proximity to other R&D firms along the I-270 corridor.

Officials are more concerned about keeping jobs in the county than where they specifically end up.

In addition to planning for future job growth on the west side, the county also gave subsidies to one company in exchange for moving there. Next year, Choice Hotels will move their headquarters from Silver Spring to Rockville with $4.3 million in loans and grants from the county, state and City of Rockville and additional tax credits.

Choice Hotels wanted to be closer to a Metro station, so having them move to Wheaton would've met both their needs and Leggett's goals. But after seeing firms like Hilton Hotels and Northrup Grumman pass up Montgomery County for Northern Virginia, county leaders were surely relieved that they decided to stay here at all.

Wheaton has many strengths: stable neighborhoods, diverse population, and a compact downtown well-served by both transit and major roads. But as a potential job center, it competes with larger and more established places like downtown Bethesda, the I-270 corridor, and others throughout Greater Washington. That's why earlier recommen­da­tions for redeveloping Wheaton, both from the public and planning experts, focused on housing, retail and entertainment in the short term, with offices coming later if demand warrants it.

Residents are both eager and worried that redevelopment will turn Wheaton into a place like Silver Spring or Bethesda, but we shouldn't be limited to those examples. Skeptics of Leggett's proposal don't lack faith in Wheaton's potential. They recognize that Wheaton's constraints and strengths, if properly harnessed, will let it grow into something else entirely.

Last night, in the straw vote, the council unanimously agreed to defer 3 road projects which Cavan Wilk argued aren't necessary right now: Montrose Parkway East, Goshen Road South, and part of Snouffer School Road.

Marc Elrich (at-large) joined in, but not without a few complaints. The Examiner wrote:

"It's becoming harder to tell when you're entering Montgomery County and leaving another jurisdiction," said [Elrich], saying that the difference in road quality between Montgomery and neighboring counties used to be obvious.

Repairing roads is important, but perhaps instead of spending lots of money just to make sure Montgomery's roads are even better than perfectly usable ones in neighboring jurisdictions, the county could invest in signs to help people know when they've crossed its borders.

The vote repudiates Leggett, who argued in a letter that those 3 projects are absolutely necessary because of growing population and congestion. One point he ignores, however, is that the Bethesda entrance and Purple Line also respond to growing population and more severe congestion.

The entrance makes sense on its own as well

The Purple Line is the primary reason for building this entrance, but there is ample reason to push ahead with the project even ignoring the Purple Line. Since before the station opened, people have bandied about the idea of adding a second entrance. There are many reasons to build it.

It would reduce crowding: Bethesda is one of Montgomery County's densest job centers, and it continues to grow. New housing, offices, and retail mean increasing demand for the station. Already the third busiest Metro stop in Maryland, ridership will grow, and the station needs improved accessibility to accommodate this growth.

It would provide an alternative during escalator replacement: The escalators at Bethesda Metro station are scheduled to be replaced in 2014. Considering the depth of Bethesda station, closing escalators will potentially be very disruptive. A second entrance would ultimately make replacing escalators a much safer and easier proposition.

The entrance will take years to build, so it may already be too late to build it in time for the scheduled 2014 escalator replacement. However, if Montgomery started on the second entrance soon, then it might make sense for Metro to push the escalator project back a couple of years.

At Dupont Circle, Metro is currently replacing the escalators at the 19th Street entrance. Luckily that station has a second entrance, but Metro trains still bypass the station if anything goes wrong with the north entrance.

It would put more of Bethesda within walking distance of Metro: A new southern entrance would greatly expand the area of Bethesda that is within walking distance of the Metro stop. Properties further south along Wisconsin Avenue would come into easy walking range, while those already in range would have their access to transit greatly enhanced.

Additionally, the new southern entrance could provide a direct connection to the Capital Crescent Trail, one of the most popular multi-use trails in the region.

If delayed, it might not be ready for the Purple Line: Deleting funding from the six-year Capital Improvement Plan would push construction of the new entrance back to 2018 at the earliest. The Purple Line is scheduled to open in 2020. Pushing back funding might mean that the new entrance wouldn't be ready for the start of service on the Purple Line.

Without that direct connection, riders will face a walk of several blocks to change trains. Such a disincentive would have a strong negative effect on ridership.

The Maryland Transit Administration, which is building the Purple Line, says that construction on the second entrance must start in 2016 at the latest in order to be ready to open with the Purple Line. Pushing construction back 2 years is a bad idea for that reason alone.

Under Leggett's proposed timeline, there is no room for error. Any additional delays would result in the Metro entrance not being ready for the Purple Line. Not having a southern entrance to Bethesda station on the Purple Line's opening day would severely reduce the light rail's utility, and might even delay the opening of Purple Line altogether.

The design can be ready: One argument for waiting is to make sure the design is right. The entrance will open onto the Purple Line station in the Bethesda tunnel, and the county needs to decide the elevation.

Under initial plans putting the Capital Crescent Trail into the tunnel, engineers would excavate the floor of the tunnel to place the Purple Line below the current grade. If the trail doesn't go in the tunnel, as MTA now recommends, the station would be at the level of the floor today.

The County Council's Transportation and Environment Committee recommended last week to construct the Purple Line without deepening the tunnel.

While the full council hasn't yet voted on a final decision, that will come soon, and final design for the station can move ahead.

Montgomery County needs to fund the second entrance to make sure it's ready for the Purple Line, and improve mobility in Bethesda. The county is committed to getting the Purple Line built, but even if the Purple Line never opens, Bethesda residents and commuters will benefit greatly from an alternative to the current entrance.

Bethesda generates much of the employment and tax revenue for the county to pay for schools and other services. The new entrance and the Purple Line benefit all residents, even those who might never ride the Metro to Bethesda or take the Purple Line.

Actually, it can, easily. And it can afford $12 million for the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which Leggett also cut from the current capital budget. All the county has to do is defer some of the $359 million in new highways in the 6-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP). That $359 million is all for new capacity, over and above the necessary cost of maintaining the county's existing roads and bridges.

The projects include widening Goshen Road, which costs $129 million, but the justification in the CIP suggests it's not needed until 2025. Building Montrose Parkway East, for $56 million, will further despoil Rock Creek Park, while the completed western portion has already created a "Berlin Wall" that will hamper a future walkable, mixed-use neighborhood growing north of White Flint.

Widening Snouffer School Road and Snouffer School Road North, 2 projects costing $45 million, would meet "demands of existing and future land uses" in an area which "is experiencing growth with plans for future residential and commercial development."

Why does the County Executive claim that it doesn't have enough money for the Bethesda Metro, a necessary step for the Purple Line in the part of the county that generates the most tax revenue, and Wheaton, a prime spot for new mixed-use growth and an already-thriving community right on top of another Metro station, but can spend money on new roads in car-dependent areas which may grow in the future?

These new road projects would increase traffic congestion through induced demand, offer no economic development, and destroy irreplaceable Chesapeake Bay watersheds. Montgomery County has already agreed, through long public debates, to make the Purple Line, the Metropolitan Branch Trail, and growth in Wheaton top priorities. But Leggett's budget does not reflect this.

This is an unfortunate pattern with this County Executive. The Leggett administration consistently cries poverty when it comes to smart growth-oriented projects like these, or making Rockville Pike a boulevard in White Flint. However, it seems that no sprawl-oriented road project is too expensive to fund.

Whether it's putting up roadblocks to BRT, pushing harmful skybridges and underpasses, or a bizarre focus on resurrecting bad "zombie road" proposals from the 1960s, the County Executive's decisions do not embody Montgomery County's and Maryland's stated smart growth policies.

Fortunately, it appears the County Council does not share the County Executive's misplaced priorities. A council committee has since voted to restore funding for the Bethesda Metro entrance, and the full council will consider it soon. The council should also restore funding for the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

Despite claims to the contrary, these worthy projects need not compete with each other. The council can simply choose the least valuable of the plan's many expensive road projects and use the money to ensure Wheaton, Metro riders at Bethesda, the future Purple Line, and a valuable bicycle connection from Silver Spring to DC get the attention they deserve. Our county, state and region cannot afford more delay.

Trail advocates, neighbors, and the governments of DC and Montgomery County have vetted plans and agreed to a common vision for a continuous, safe, off-road trail connecting multi-modal transportation hubs in Silver Spring and the District.

But this year, the Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett's budget cuts all construction funding for the MBT for the next 6 years. This breaks the county's promises to complete the trail.

Empty words don't define a county's priorities. Budgetary commitments do. The County Council must ensure that the county respects the community's efforts to reach this shared vision by restoring the funding for the trail.

Meanwhile, the District's portion of the trail faces its own challenges. DC rightly pushed ahead to build the southern portion of the trail on its own. The existing segment from Monroe Street to M Street is a gem. However, until it connects all the way to Silver Spring, the trail won't draw as many riders as it promises.

Without that activity, the trail remains somewhat isolated and needs police attention to maintain safety. Police officials have periodically told trail advocates and neighbors that they are increasing patrols, but this commitment remains reactive and inconsistent.

Several community groups have worked diligently to bring more activity to the trail. Groups like the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, Rails to Trails Conservancy, and Kidical Mass have run programming on or near it to keep eyes on the trail. But special events only do so much.

Two weeks ago, a trail user was mugged and shot. But I have seen no increased police presence nor heard any new communication on trail safety, either to in my professional capacity as executive director of the region's largest association of bicyclists or in my personal capacity as a trail neighbor. Last week, I was trailside for nearly 6 hours over 2 days giving out bike lights and trail safety information. In that time I did not encounter a single law enforcement officer on the trail.

We need better. Safety is as much a part of the larger vision for this trail as the laying of asphalt. The lack of safety can undermine this community resource just as easily as a capital budget cut or construction flaw.

The vision is clear. The plan is complete. DC and Montgomery leaders: It is time for you to get serious about funding, building, maintaining, and protecting this long-awaited amenity in the eastern portions of your jurisdictions, just as you funded and built the Capital Crescent Trail decades ago, and ensure that it is a safe, usable place for cyclists, runners, and pedestrians.

Tomorrow night at 7 pm, the Montgomery County Council will host a public hearing on the proposed budget and its capital plans. This is the community's chance to testify in support of the trail, and to ask councilmembers to keep the MBT a priority keep the county's commitments. If you are unable to attend and testify in person, you can send an email to the Council here.

On the District end, we must continue to push MPD to understand the importance of this trail and the need for a real maintenance and public safety plan. Construction is not the end of the work involved in making a trail succeed. It is just the beginning. We must continue to push DDOT, DPW, and MPD to live up to their responsibilities to the trail and its users. That push will come through ongoing dialogue, communication with trail users and residents, and push for accountability led by those of us who value the trail and its success.

Trail supporters need our leaders in both the District and Montgomery County to be accountable to the full vision of the trail, and we must do our part to remind them of that vision and keep them aware of the greater goal. The next major opportunity to do so is tomorrow night in Rockville.