Posts about Maryland

BRT creep and RTV's success

The Task Force's report emphasizes the most important requirement for success: separated, dedicated transit lanes throughout the system.

Buses would ideally have dedicated lanes in both directions, but this only appears feasible for part of the system. Most of the RTV lines will have a dedicated lane going in the direction of rush hour traffic (south or west in the morning, north or east in the evening). Vehicles running in the opposite direction will have to operate mixed with other traffic.

It is unclear whether such buses running in mixed traffic will receive any signal priority or other preference.

Earlier plans had called reconfiguring the medians of many arterial roads for RTV. While the final report still calls for this on some routes, space and right-of-way issues make it difficult elsewhere. On most other routes, a lane in the off-peak direction will likely be taken away from cars and allocated exclusively to RTV.

For instance, on a 6-lane road with 3 lanes each way, one lane will be devoted to RTV and 3 to cars, all running with rush hour traffic. The remaining 2 lanes would run counter to the rush hour traffic.

While these compromises are not ideal, they are far superior to the existing situation where buses are completely mixed with cars.

Another danger is that other parts of the RTV system could be degraded in order to save money or get the system operational more quickly. Montgomery County already has a pretty good bus system. If the extra features of RTV are diluted too much, then the entire effort will simply duplicate what already exists, and will be a waste. For the system to perform as promised, it cannot be watered down.

Transit advocates should keep apprised of all aspects of RTV planning as it develops, to make sure it retains the benefits of a true BRT system as much as possible.

Although large parts of the business, government, planning, environmental, and transit communities have come together around the RTV idea, Montgomery County does not have a great record with putting transit first. If citizens are promised a "gold standard" system that is comparable to light rail and something less is delivered, it will make future transit projects less likely.

Managing parking and traffic

Another factor that might impact RTV services is its effect on traffic and parking. While RTV is intended to reduce traffic, its success might draw more cars from outside the county, since relatively empty roads often fill up with drivers hoping to take advantage of uncongested lanes. Could a successful RTV system actually induce some traffic in a kind of rebound effect?

One way to avoid this is to limit the number of parking spaces near transit stations. Although the Task Force's report did not address this issue, Dale Tibbitts, Chief of Staff for Marc Elrich (the County Council member who pioneered the RTV system), has clarified that a separate public parking committee will address this issue.

Elrich hopes to lower the amount of parking required for office buildings on transit lines. This will boost ridership on the RTV, save office owners on the costs of providing parking, and reduce the need to use valuable land for parking garages.

Route planning

The choice of routes will also affect RTV's success. The report proposes maximum protection for Montgomery's agricultural reserve, and includes strong east-west links that were absent in earlier versions of the proposal.

These east-west links would encourage balanced growth, allow for stronger infill development in east county, and possibly spur links to Prince George's County. However, some might be more useful than others.

Instituting an RTV line along the wide and underutilized Intercounty Connector (ICC) would be easy, but it would go through relatively low-density areas and would be one of the least useful connections in the network. It probably makes sense for this line to be included in the plan, but does it belong in Phase 1, as proposed?

By contrast, the Randolph Road and Viers Mill east-west connections would immediately see tremendous usage, so it is very appropriate to include those lines in Phase 1. The University Boulevard route would also be more useful than the ICC, although it is scheduled for Phase 2.

It might also make sense to combine the University Boulevard and Veirs Mill lines into a single route, since they form a single cohesive corridor from Langley Park to Rockville.

Meanwhile, The Wisconsin South and Georgia South routes should also be prioritized and potentially extended into the District.

On the other hand, the Midcounty Highway extension section does not make sense; it would require a new highway in a part of the county already dense with roads. With I-270, Great Seneca Highway, Frederick Road, Clopper Road, and Snouffer School Road already providing a grid of north-south connections between Gaithersburg and Germantown, Midcounty Highway should not be a priority.

Affordability

While core urban areas are best served by streetcars and light rail, the realities of funding mean we cannot afford to build rail everywhere, especially in more suburban areas. The latest cost estimates for the light rail Purple Line are $120 million per mile, compared to $54 million per mile for the BRT Corridor Cities Transitway, and $10-$20 million per mile for the proposed RTV network.

With Maryland still paying for the ICC and unable to pass a new gas tax, the RTV may be the only viable option.

Effects on Montgomery County and the region

Although BRT is less ideal than a rail system, the RTV network does have the potential to transform Montgomery County and the DC region. It will bring unprecedented transit access to all of the major mixed-use areas of the county. For the first time it will become easier to travel around many parts of Montgomery via transit than via car. That would be a profound change.

But as impressive as the RTV concept may be, there's more to do. The system should be integrated with the entire region, especially Prince George's County. The same things that make RTV a practical choice for Montgomery are also true for all the suburban areas around the Beltway, and even for some corridors in DC. With many local jurisdictions considering BRT or streetcar networks, it would be a shame for them all to end up with different branding and fare structures.

The first phases of the RTV system are projected to start in 2016, with the entire system built within a 9-year time frame. That's extremely rapid. The report emphasizes the need to get the whole system working together quickly, since a major benefit of a network like this is that the lines all complement one another.

If built as proposed, with dedicated busways, in a short timespan, the RTV idea can be a real winner for Montgomery County. If it's expanded to neighboring jurisdictions it can also be a real winner for the region. But if that's to happen, the pratfalls of BRT creep and putting automobile capacity first must be avoided. Montgomery can do it, but it won't be easy.

It also got approval from the Hearing Examiner, Lynn Robeson, who basically serves as a judge for the county's zoning code. Then it went to the County Council, but they rejected the zoning change due to opposition from residents only want single-family homes in their neighborhood.

The County Council asked EYA to come back with a new proposal, and they did, which was just approved by the Hearing Examiner. The examiner's office released this 111-page report detailing how they came to their conclusion.

The site will now be zoned RT-12.5, which still allows townhouses, but at a lower density. There will be only 64 townhouses, instead of 77 as EYA first proposed, while the number of county-mandated moderately-priced dwelling units will drop from 13 to 8. The houses will be placed further away from Springvale Road to appease residents of that street, while a private street for the new development has been moved.

Because of these changes, half of the site is set aside as open space, including wider courtyards between townhouse rows and a larger park at the corner of Springvale Road and Pershing Drive. There's also more open space around the historic Riggs-Thompson House, which was built by the founder of Riggs Bank was originally going to be saved in the first proposal.

Neighbors continue to oppose townhouses

Nonetheless, some neighbors weren't satisfied. No fewer than 6 civic associations opposed the project, including the adjacent Seven Oaks-Evanswood Civic Association (SOECA), but also Lyttonsville and South Four Corners, both of which are several miles away from the site.

Residents complained about the loss of large trees, while others questioned that EYA's traffic studies showing no increase in nearby congestion. SOECA president Vicki Warren said there wasn't enough open space around the Riggs-Thompson House, though historic preservation planner Judith Christensen said she could "live with" what was provided because the county's Historic Preservation Commission would have a say in how it was used.

Many complained that the project's layout resembled military barracks, though the "alternative plan" submitted by Kenneth Doggett, SOECA's "expert land planner," looks much like EYA's proposal, but with fewer houses.

In response, EYA tried to show how Chelsea Court fit into the local context. Vice president Aakash Thakkar displayed a model of Clarendon Park, a project they built in Arlington with a similar layout, and noted how the end houses were designed to look like single-family homes, helping them blend into the neighborhood.

Miguel Iraola, a planner at Hord Coplan Macht who's designing the project, offered several precedents throughout Silver Spring, Wheaton and Bethesda that are similar in design or density to their proposal. Neighbors Maria Schmit and Tom Anderson claimed that they weren't comparable to Chelsea Court, but Robeson agreed with Iraola's conclusion.

With the hearing examiner's approval, the new Chelsea Court proposal will now go before the County Council once again, and I hope they approve it as well. EYA has worked hard to meet the neighborhood's concerns, crafting a project that not only respects the site's history but its current surroundings.

They also have a good track record for creating quality infill projects, which many neighbors recognize. "Based on EYA's National Park Seminary [in Forest Glen], I am convinced this new development will be attractive—just as attractive as our existing neighborhood and perhaps even more so," wrote SOECA resident Leslie Downey in a letter to the Planning Board last year.

Many Silver Spring residents say they want to support local businesses, are upset about traffic congestion, and are concerned about safety. Yet they are often the same ones who oppose projects like Chelsea Court, which would generate more customers, allow more people to walk, bike or use transit instead of driving, and provide more "eyes on the street."

We could do far worse than this. Chelsea Court has been fully vetted and dutifully revised, and now it's time to get it built.

Richard Hoye writes,

I pointed out that the 100 bike racks the Bethesda Urban Partnership approved for the CBD streetscape and funded by Honest Tea violated basic design standards for bike racks. [Seth Goldman of Honest Tea] didn't even know there was a codified body of knowledge on bike tack design and, it appears, neither did BUP.

I asked Tom Robertson, retired bike planner for the County Planning agency, who now works for Transportation Solutions in BUP's offices about this collaboration. Even he was not consulted on the project.

This style of bike rack was very common decades ago, and you still see them in some places, often college campuses. But they don't work well for locking. They're not designed to get the bike's frame close enough to the rack to allow locking the frame, wheel and rack all together.

On many racks like this, people instead lift the bicycle up and place it so that the wheel goes over the rack and the rack's top bar sits behind the wheel. This rack seems to make even that difficult, as the top bar is much thicker and square.

Section 7.2.9 of the draft new zoning rules for Montgomery County specifies bike rack standards:

Where required bicycle parking is provided via racks, the racks must meet the following design and dimension standards:

• The bicycle frame and one wheel can be locked to the rack with a high security lock;
  
• A bicycle can be securely held with its frame supported in at least two places;
  
• Racks must be offset a minimum of 30 inches on center;
  
• The rack must be durable and securely anchored; and
  
• The locking surface of the rack should be thin enough to allow standard u-locks to be used, but thick enough so the rack cannot be cut with bolt cutters.

Montgomery County DOT has also created a fact sheet detailing how to best design and install bike racks. Many cities have very thorough manuals, like Toronto's.

It's not that unusual for well-meaning people to install bike racks entirely wrong. Someone installed 9 "inverted U" racks at HD Cooke Elementary in Adams Morgan, but put them too close together and too close to a wall to be usable. DCPS subsequently relocated the racks.

Hopefully Honest Tea and the Bethesda Urban Partnership can go back to the company that sold them these noncompliant racks and switch them for something better.

Montgomery County is growing, and residents need to be able to travel around without worsening traffic. But there isn't room to keep widening arterial roads, and that's not a sustainable approach in any event.

Outside the dense Silver Spring-Bethesda area and along the existing Red Line corridors, there isn't the density or the density isn't linear enough to make rail worthwhile. Maryland needs to build the Purple Line, but the future of transportation elsewhere likely lies in high-quality bus transit.

What is a "world class" system?

The report calls for this to be a "world class" system. They've set out a clear principle in the report that the service must run in dedicated lanes, and even call it "the most important principle":

To the maximum extent possible, having physically separated, dedicated RTV lanes THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, so the system's RTVs would not become commingled into mixed general traffic.

The question will be, where does the space for these lanes come from? The report also says, "This preference for, and weight given to, RTV use within the maximum potentially available right-of-way should not be interpreted as being hostile to the on-going requirement for effective automobile use ... The Task Force does not advocate for the elimination of a large percentage of current automobile lane use."

But what about a small percentage? Will Montgomery dedicate some car lanes for buses even in some places? That remains to be seen, and could be a critical factor in whether the countywide RTV system succeeds. The Montgomery DOT has been reluctant to change even a single car lane thus far.

The report also calls for "unique branding" to further emphasize that this system is "world class" and not just a bus, and sets out a number of other distinguishing factors as absolute "must haves":

• RTVs must be sleek and stylish.
• RTVs must have multiple wide doors on both sides of the RTVs.
• RTVs equipped with WiFi capabilities and electronic real-time messaging.
• Stations must be of a consistent and distinctive style.
• Stations must be safe, wide, and weather-protected.
• Stations must have level platform boarding with handicap accessibility.
• Stations must be equipped with real time data and with user-friendly maps.
• Stations must provide off-vehicle fare collection.
• Peak-peak period frequency of 3-5 minute headways.
• Off-peak period frequency of 5-7 minute headways
• Lanes with intersection improvements and coordination with other modes of transportation.
• Multi-modal integration (pedestrians, bicycles, Zipcars®, taxi service, Ride-On and Metrobus, shuttle buses and neighborhood circulators).

Other factors, like stations set slightly away from the road, late-night service, and photo enforcement are also recommended but less critical.

Do we call it a bus? Does it matter?

These elements come directly from ITDP's report on BRT where they try to define a LEED-like rating system to classify BRT systems as "gold," "silver," etc. That's because the term "BRT" has often gotten watered down in jurisdictions that skimped on one or more elements in what Dan Malouff calls "BRT creep."

It's gotten so bad that this report actually disavows the terms "BRT" and "bus" as well. "We are not building a bus system, we're building a transformational transit system," said task force member David Hauck at today's press event. The report states,

These systems are frequently referred to as bus rapid transit ("BRT") systems. However, the Task Force has deliberately elected to refer to it as an RTV [Rapid Transit Vehicle] system because the nature, appearance and performance of the system will be qualitatively different from what is typical of BRT systems in the United States or abroad, which do not offer transformative qualities to be considered transportation solutions of choice.

This is a little ironic because the term "BRT" originally was supposed to distinguish these high-quality systems, similar to light rail only without the tracks, from regular bus service. Whatever they call it, Montgomery County will have to make a strong commitment to avoid its own BRT creep, or RTV creep.

BRT system could set standard for other cities

If the county can build it, the system could be both transformative and groundbreaking. No US metropolitan area has such a large system; others are generally a small number of lines in smaller cities. If it succeeds, other metropolitan areas that mix lower and higher densities might be able to start meaningfully expanding transit.

Montgomery is also a wealthy enough county to be able to afford to build the system and create a model for others. The report acknowledges that little federal money is possible, given both cuts in support to transit, the failure to raise the gas tax, and higher priorities for state money like the Purple and Baltimore Red Lines and Corridor Cities Transitway.

The report suggests a fairly modest increase in property tax, focused around areas near the lines. Supporters have built a strong coalition with businesses, neighborhood activists, and transit advocates.

They all agree that, coupled with the light rail Purple Line, this could be Montgomery County's future. There will be many challenges and disagreements to make it a reality, but there's really no other option.

Global Solutions President and CEO Dr. Maya Rockeymore, speaking at a panel after the screening, responded to the stark numbers presented in the film. In Baltimore, residents of the Inner Harbor have a life expectancy of 62 years while residents of North Baltimore have a life expectancy of 82 years. "Context controls choice," she said. People need access to parks, transit, safe walking and bicycle routes, and full-service grocery stores to even have the choice to be healthy.

Low-income communities and communities of color have higher rates of obesity and chronic disease. The physical neighborhood of the Inner Harbor contributes to the health disparity in life expectancy. While designed as a walkable community, the neighborhood suffers from vacant houses, streets in need of maintenance and lack of destinations to meet basic needs such as a grocery store. When the physical environment deteriorates, safety becomes an additional issue in neighborhoods.

In the United States, 66% of adults are overweight or obese and nearly 20% of children are obese. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of chronic diseases such as hypertension, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and asthma in both adults and children.

Pamela Creekmur, the Acting Health Officer and Director of the Prince George's County Health Department, explained that Prince George's obesity and physical inactivity rates are higher than other jurisdictions in the greater Washington region. Though Prince George's faces a bigger challenge, all the region's communities have seen a rise in obesity rates, which range between 18 to 34 percent for adults throughout the region.

Part of the cause of this obesity epidemic is physical inactivity. There has been a 300 percent increase in driving to work since 1960. As the documentary explains, in 1969 almost 50 percent of kids walked or biked to school while today only 13 percent of kids do the same.

The lack of exercise by children extends beyond just commuting to and from school. The documentary shows a mom who takes her children to a parking lot because it is the only open space they have to play. This environment isn't hospitable to the kind of physical activity a good park encourages.

Whether it's questions of commuting or questions of parks, transportation and planning professionals make decisions that affect travel and open spaces every day. These decisions need to be viewed as public health decisions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal agency charged with health promotion and disease prevention, agrees. It has recognized that transportation policy, street-scale improvements, and access to places suitable for physical activity matter to our health. Among the CDC's recommendations is to participate in Safe Routes to School initiatives and adopt Complete Streets policies.

The Guide to Community Prevention Services, written by an independent group of public health and prevention professionals appointed by the CDC director, outlines several more environmental and policy approaches to provide opportunities for people to be physically active. These include the connectivity of sidewalks and streets, providing places for physical activity such as trails, and street-scale improvement such as street lighting and traffic calming. Such urban design features have been shown to improve some aspect of physical activity by 35 percent, not to mention the accompanying benefits of reduced crime and stress.

Of course, these improvements do not come overnight. After the screening, an elected official and audience members noted that such changes are not easy. After all, parks do not generate tax dollars.

But that does not mean that our environments must stagnate while our health deteriorates. Local communities can bring about change even when the federal government or state government seems stuck. Port Towns Youth Council President Erick Vargas talked about how his group took matters into their own hands by doing an audit of the streets and reporting the problems.

Prince George's County is taking action through a partnership of towns within the county. The Port Towns Community Health Partnership has a policy development team focused specifically on the built environment and nutrition policy to improve options for active living and healthy eating.

The group, which includes the towns of Bladensburg, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, and Edmonston, included a community health and wellness section in the Port Towns sector plan with the goals of providing safe places to walk and exercise and access to nutritious foods. The group is following through on sector plan recommendations to formalize a wellness opportunity zone as part of the zoning code. This would include changes in the built environment, access to healthier foods, and improved environmental stewardship.

Across the Potomac, the Fairfax County Health Department established the Partnership for a Healthier Fairfax, a group of community members and organizations concerned with public health. The Partnership created an environment and infrastructure strategic issues team as one of five teams who will make recommendations for improving health in Fairfax County. The first focus is a on local policy. The team is doing a scan of policies, including transportation and land use, that could be modified to promote a healthier and safer physical environment.

In the Washington region, better transportation and planning decisions can improve our health by increasing our access to efficient transit and space to run, bike, and play. We also create a healthier context for our environment—and as Dr. Rockeymore said, context controls choice. Throughout the region, local groups are working to give more of their neighbors the choice to live healthier lives.

Rob Pitingolo has done a lot of research on which places have more or fewer people with college degrees. DC has the fourth most college degrees per square mile of any city in the nation, but that doesn't apply everywhere in the region or everywhere in DC.

Rob created these maps that show the locations of people with and without college degrees aged 25 and over.

There seems to be a fair amount of mixing in Virginia, but in DC and Maryland, the divide is starker. East of the Anacostia, blue dots are very few; west of Rock Creek and in the central city, they overwhelm the pink dots.

A lot of news stories talk about the DC region in terms of the division between black and white. The city's history of racial segregation has left a legacy of educational and socioeconomic inequality. As a result, many commentators use race as a simplistic shorthand for conflicts that are really about college educated versus not, or wealthy versus poor, or young versus old.

Race is immutable, but other characteristics are not. If our divisions are really about black versus white, they're not going to change unless some people move out of the city, and that's not what we want to happen. But education levels can change, and it's good for everyone if we can help all people in our region access better education.

Being in downtown Silver Spring less than a mile from the Metro, the 2½ acres the police station sits on are very valuable. Perhaps a better use for this site would be a mix of studio space and artist housing, not unlike Renaissance Square and the Mount Rainier Artist Lofts, two apartment buildings in the Gateway Arts District, or the Brookland Artspace Lofts, a building in Northeast Washington. All three buildings rent apartments and live-work units at subsidized rates to people who earn their living making art.

These buildings, which are each 100% occupied, offer artists who often have low incomes a quality place to live. According to the Census, the median rent in below-the-Beltway Silver Spring is $1206 a month, but actual apartment listings suggest that's only enough for a one-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, a one-bedroom in the Brookland Artspace Lofts with studio space rents for $970, while a two-bedroom is just $1,205.

We could turn the police station into an arts center as proposed, but also build low-rise artist housing around it. A smaller community garden could be built, or it could instead be located in any of the 46 other parks in below-the-Beltway Silver Spring and Takoma Park. The lawn in front of the police station could still become a small public space for the neighborhood.

This proposal would cost more to build and may require public money. The Brookland Artspace Lofts in the District, developed by the same company that built the apartments in Mount Rainier, received $11 million in construction funding and tax credits from the DC Department of Housing and Community Development. If a funding source is found, however, artist housing could provide more customers for local businesses while developing a more substantial and diverse arts scene.

When I suggested this to Karen Roper and Steve Knight, two of the residents leading the push for the Station Arts Center, they were skeptical. "It's a little more unstructured and bohemian," Knight says. "I know one of the artists we talked to, she's married and has a house and a family." He wants to know "how strong of a need" there is for artist housing in Silver Spring.

"My neighbors ... bought their houses cheap" decades ago, says Roper. "They're looking for studio space." She notes that "two, possibly three" buildings with subsidized apartments will be built on Fenton Street in coming years, while a developer wants to renovate the Eagle Bank building at Sligo Avenue and Fenton Street into "microlofts," or small apartments geared at single adults.

One of the reasons the county may support the current Station Arts Center proposal is because of their experience with the new police station in White Oak. Plans to sell extra land around the station to build a mix of affordable and market-rate housing in 2009 were met with intense community opposition before they eventually backed down. Whether the county uses the old police station property to meet its affordable housing goals or make money by selling it to a private developer, dealing with angry neighbors will be inevitable.

That's why Roper and her neighbors are trying to start the conversation about development. "We wanted to get out there and make our pitch before somebody came in and did the same old, same old," she says. "I would like to see some imagination in this county. It's not about how much you develop, it's about how you develop."

Roper wants the Station Arts Center to distinguish Fenton Village from the rest of Silver Spring, calling it the "only thing that represents us and who we are."

As I've written before, having spaces for making art makes our community stronger. Even if I don't agree with every part of the Station Arts Center concept, I'm glad that neighbors are being proactive about what they'd like to see in their community.

That said, Karen Roper might be okay with a few more apartments if they allowed the neighborhood to keep its artistic flair. "I'd rather live in a dense, crowded place with artists and musicians," she says. "When you take that character away, you just have a bunch of crap next to each other."

WMATA is trying to encourage more people to bike to their stations, and providing a secure place to park is an important aspect of achieving that goal. By 2020, the agency hopes to triple the number of people cycling to their stations.

Parking costs 5 cents per hour during the day and 2 cents per hour overnight. Riders gain access to the facility and pay for parking with an access card from a company called BikeLink. There are no annual fees, only a one-time $5 fee for customer ID verification.

BikeLink will manage the facility for WMATA, and has the incentive to encourage bicycling to the station, since they take home the revenue generated by the facility. WMATA will win by getting additional rail and bus fare revenue from those who chose to College Park because of the facility.

WMATA chose College Park for the pilot program because it's already one of the top stations for cycling. In the 2011 bike parking census, it came out in third place systemwide. Additionally, the space in the garage was available, and a third of people parking at the station come from three miles away or less, which means many are already within biking distance.

Also demonstrating their commitment to bicycling, Kissal, Assistant General Manager Nat Bottigheimer, and several other WMATA employees biked to College Park from the WMATA headquarters near Judiciary Square.

This facility is a great addition to the Metro network and promises to be the first of many similar secure bicycle parking areas around Metro.