Posts about Maryland

• A grid of streets
  
• A dense network of reliable and regular transit
  
• A mix of housing and office to keep the streets active and alive 18 to 24 hours per day,
  
• A density level that provides enough customers to support great creative retail.
  
• And finally, community amenities, parks, playgrounds, dog walks, recreation centers all built in a sustainable fashion that improves instead of destroys our environment and you have yourself a recipe for Smart Growth.

It's easy to recognize smart growth when it is done well. The struggle is how to impart these characteristics into a suburban instead of urban framework and of course how do you actually get something like this approved when almost every single regulation on the books is in direct conflict with the principals stated above.

And so that brings us to the story of White Flint.

Today, the Rockville Pike in White Flint represents the engineering and design direction that consumers demanded from the 1950s through the 1980s. Tomorrow it will become a model of how to reclaim suburbia in order to create order out of chaos. Within a half mile of Metro, White Flint will one day house 20,000 to 25,000 residents and up to 40,000 employees generating close to $7 billion of net new tax revenue for Montgomery County.

The plan includes more than 2000 affordable housing units and a sensational mix of local and national retailers. There will be a grid of streets and a dramatic increase in transit accessibility. There will be parks, community amenities, and every single building will be LEED certified and most will go well beyond that requirement.

In just 2 months, Federal Realty will break ground on our first phase of Pike & Rose, the rebirth of Midpike into a truly magical neighborhood. 900,000 square feet of development including 492 residential units a boutique 80,000 square feet office building and 150,000 square feet of new retail including an IPIC movie theater, and that's just our first phase. It is an exciting time to be working and/or living in Montgomery County.

And so how did this daring and visionary plan ultimately get approved in a county where dinner conversation regularly revolves around traffic?

It came down to civic outreach, education and engagement. People who typically have opposing viewpoints sat down together and learned about the principals of smart growth and how White Flint could be a win win for everyone. Transparency was a cornerstone of the Partnership's work and we went hand in hand with resident supporters to spread the word. We jointly reached out to the silent majority and engaged them in the political process. And the best part was that the silent majority was ready to be heard.

To provide some insight into the results of the Partnership's outreach effort, I would like to read excerpts from testimony submitted and read by two local residents.

First, from Jane Fairweather, a County resident and business person:

I am fortunate to live in the smart growth urban community of downtown Bethesda. I live at the corner of Woodmont and Montgomery Lane.

For 22 years, I lived in a wonderful stone colonial home off Bradley Boulevard where I spent my days driving.

I drove to the grocery store, the bakery, the dry cleaners and the book store. I drove to the hardware store, the drug store, the library, the gym and the hair dresser (obviously this is not my words). On the weekends, I drove to the movies and restaurants and of course to the gas station, early and often. In the suburbs, I was sleeping in my house but living in my car. And, since my neighbors were also car bound, we had very little time to interact with each other and be a part of the community we lived in.

While I knew some of my neighbors, finding time to hang out was difficult. Living in the suburbs meant that I spent at least 3 hours per day in my car and endless dollars on gas to fuel it. I clogged the streets and polluted the air, while ranting the entire time about the traffic congestion around me. I met the enemy and the enemy was me.

After 22 years, my husband and I found ourselves empty nesters and so we moved to a condo in downtown Bethesda. Now we walk to the grocery store, the bakery, the coffee shop, and the book store. We walk to the library and to the gym. I walk to the hairdresser, to 16 movie screens and dozens of restaurants that surround my condo.

Now, I laugh at the people who are sitting in their cars. I never get in my car unless I am working. If I didn't work, I wouldn't even own a car. I live, shop, recreate, relax, learn and exercise within a 12 block radius of my home. If I can't walk there, I take the Metro, which is a ½ block away.

In short—We no longer need to "drive there" because we "live there."

Isn't that just great. This is from an ordinary citizen and resulted from broad outreach and education.

The following testimony comes from someone who lives in White Flint already:

I am here to ask you to improve the exceedingly inhospitable stretches of Rockville Pike and surrounding streets of the White Flint area. For the most part, these streets could not be more hostile to pedestrians. I am speaking about this based on personal experience.

Last year, while crossing Rockville Pike at Hubbard Drive in my wheelchair, to go from Starbucks back to my apartment, I was hit by a car. Today, Rockville Pike is designed for high speed traffic. Due to the near total absence of pedestrians, the simple fact is that drivers on the Pike are not on the lookout for pedestrians.

Fortunately I was not seriously injured, but I ask you to please remember those of us who cannot, or choose not to travel short distances by car. A pedestrian friendly design would enhance my personal safety, and would also result in less traffic by eliminating today's pattern of people driving literally across the street when walking would be eminently more practical.

I ask that the next time you drive down Rockville Pike you envision what it is like for me to get around. Perhaps even borrow a wheelchair and spend the day navigating between housing, strip malls, and the expansive parking lots with no sidewalks. Then think about the possibilities. You hold the power, please use it well.

Because of these voices and countless others, the Sector Plan was approved. Its ultimate success will depend heavily on a continuous drum beat of support from local activists like yourselves and a smart and engaged community.

There are still those that believe the auto should be the central and defining element of urban planning. Until such time that transit and walking are raised to the same level of importance, we will all struggle to win approval and to build great new urban places.

The only way to create an effective, affordable rapid bus network is to use existing roadway lanes more efficiently by reserving them for bus-only traffic. Unfortunately, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) refuses to modify any existing roadways that would help buses move faster than cars.

Building a successful system in Montgomery County will present unique challenges. In DC, though progress has been slow, DDOT is working with WMATA to study how to best fit bus priority into its roadways. MCDOT needs to do the same.

If MCDOT started dedicating bus lanes on priority corridors now, engineers would be able to understand the challenges and issues that arise when redesigning one of Montgomery County's roadways. They would gain knowledge and experience that would speed up future phases of BRT, saving time and money.

Outside the Beltway, the BRT task force recommends putting high-speed bus lanes in the center of roadways. This will require limiting left turns and other changes in highway operations. Dedicated lanes on priority corridors now will let MCDOT try out some of the treatments that could ultimately become part of those BRT lines.

The path to making existing streets into a welcoming environment for transit riders and pedestrians will undoubtedly involve a learning curve. The sooner that MCDOT can begin to study and learn from real world experience, the better and more cost-effective the Montgomery County BRT system will be.

Service improvements in the proposal

MARC's proposal increases service to Montgomery County, which not only contributes an increasing share of current riders but will account for still more in the future through transit-oriented developments around MARC stations.

At least one more train would stop at each of the county's stations except Silver Spring and Rockville, where all trains already stop, and Metropolitan Grove. The additional service would also benefit riders who work in Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Kensington. This is a good and needed change, and MARC should make sure it stays in the final schedule.

Also, the proposal adds a PanTran bus connection to West Virginia for the first daily westbound train. This would increase flexibility for riders from West Virginia stations who might need to go home early.

Finally, the proposal adds a third morning train from West Virginia. The train would leave Martinsburg at 6:00 am, between the two current departures.

West Virginia westbound service changes

In this schedule proposal, westbound train service to West Virginia would begin and end earlier. Instead of the 3 West Virginia-bound trains that currently leave Union Station at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 7:15 pm, there would be 3 trains leaving at 4:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 6:15 pm. The last westbound Brunswick Line train (the current 7:15 pm departure) would end in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg, and West Virginia riders would transfer to a PanTran bus.

MARC says that West Virginia riders have asked for an earlier departure, so the proposed 4:15 pm train might be an improvement. However, a bus transfer would not be a welcome change for riders who now take the last train.

In addition, riders who are not from West Virginia would have longer gaps between evening rush-hour trains because of the shift to earlier West Virginia service. This is because the 4:55 pm West Virginia train would become a 4:45 pm Brunswick train; the 5:15 pm departure would go to West Virginia instead of Frederick; the 5:40 pm departure for Brunswick would become a 5:35 pm departure for Frederick; and the 6:00 pm Brunswick-bound train would become the last West Virginia train, leaving at 6:15 pm.

For Frederick branch riders, the 85-minute gap between the trains leaving Union Station at 3:50 pm and 5:15 pm would increase to a 110-minute gap between trains leaving at 3:45 pm and 5:35 pm.

For Brunswick and Point of Rocks riders, there would be 2 evening rush trains (leaving at 5:15 pm and 6:15 pm) instead of 3 (leaving at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 6:00 pm).

And for Montgomery County riders, the 20-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:40 pm and 6:00 pm trains would increase to a 40-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:35 pm and 6:15 pm.

The magnitude of these confusing changes, the extra effort of arranging interstate connecting-bus service to the West Virginia stations, and the fact that the previous schedule proposal also had the last westbound train ending in Brunswick, all combine to suggest that ending the last train in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg is very important to MARC. Why?

Does MARC want to reduce service to the West Virginia stations because West Virginia does not contribute to MARC funding? If so, why do both proposed schedules add a third eastbound train from West Virginia?

Or does CSX want MARC trains off their tracks earlier? The last train now deadheads back to Brunswick after its 9:14 pm stop in Martinsburg. Storing the train in Martinsburg would get it off earlier. But ending the train in Brunswick at 8:58 pm, as MARC now proposes, would get it off earlier still.

Other issues

There are 3 other big issues: the end of the super-express, the absence of new trains, and the non-restoral of daily service for the first westbound train.

First, the proposed schedule would end westbound-service on the historic
super-express, which now leaves Union Station at 4:55 pm and stops only in Silver Spring, Rockville, Point of Rocks, Brunswick, and the 3 West Virginia stations. MARC explains that "with growing ridership in Montgomery County, we can no longer skip these stops when the demand exists."

Second, the proposed schedule does not add to the Brunswick Line's current 18 daily trains. MARC explains that CSX will not allow MARC to add trains until the State of Maryland builds a third track. However, MARC has nonetheless asked CSX for permission to add 1 morning and 1 evening train. CSX might even agree, given federal and state funding of CSX's National Gateway Project.

Third, the proposed schedule does not restore daily service for the first westbound train. This Brunswick-bound train currently leaves Union Station at 1:45 pm on Fridays only. Daily service ended in 2009 when the Maryland Transit Administration cut service due to budget shortfalls.

What now?

MARC has stated that "[t]here is no target date for implementation—we want to first gather further feedback from our customers."

As they did the last time, MARC has set up an on-line survey for people to comment on the proposal.

MARC will also hold "town hall" meetings in Charles Town on Saturday, May 19; Rockville on Tuesday, May 22; and Frederick on Wednesday, May 23.

In addition, MARC staff will be at Brunswick Line stations to gather feedback in the afternoons/evenings between May 1 and May 17. MTA will send out e-mail alerts with specific stations, dates, and times.

Maryland officials explained that an outer Beltway isn't a priority and conflicts with smart growth and environmental principles. But they were the only ones saying that in the original article. They got scant attention. The broadcast audio paraphrased a few objections, but in nearly every case followed up with a sentence beginning with "But," implying that the arguments against the Outer Beltway deserve only rebuttal, not serious consideration.

The idea that arguments against the Outer Beltway are inconsequential is dangerously wrong. An Outer Beltway would primarily serve the large landowners in rural Virginia who want to fill their property with more cookie-cutter subdivisions. It actually won't help current commuters. VDOT's own 2004 study showed that 92% of drivers in the I-270 and Dulles corridors travel to and from the core, or along the current Beltway. An outer crossing wouldn't serve them.

Even for those who could use an Outer Beltway, a free or subsidized road would just induce its own demand, spurring new development in current farmland and filling up the road with new drivers stuck in new congestion. A toll road would have to charge a lot of money to pay back its costs. AAA would subsequently whine, as they are doing with the ICC, that it's too expensive and not enough people are using it.

The region needs better transit solutions between Bethesda and Tysons and the Metro lines in each corridor, not the failed Outer Beltway ideas of 50 years ago. The region has turned down these highways, over and over, because they simply won't solve our transportation troubles.

AAA is not a neutral source

It's not surprising that Bob Chase and AAA are still pushing an Outer Beltway as a transportation panacea, but it is disappointing when reporters fall for their pitch. Sadly, too many transportation reporters view AAA as some kind of neutral party.

AAA's helpful press releases on gas price trends and holiday weekend traffic let reporters fill column space without doing a lot of work. There's nothing wrong with those stories, but many reporters then fail to question when the organization's press releases attack officials on policy grounds, like AAA's broadsides against Mayor Gray's traffic safety camera initiative, or Governor Martin O'Malley saying that an Outer Beltway is not the priority for Maryland.

Bob Chase has a high-powered, expensive PR firm, Dewey Square, pitching far and wide his aggressive push for more and more highway lanes at the region's edge. Nonprofit advocates voicing alternative views, like the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Sierra Club, have to make do with much thinner resources. Good reporters put pitches from PR firms in their appropriate context and realize that they represent the interests of well-funded groups, not necessarily truth.

Unfortunately, we've seen several cases of journalists falling short on balanced coverage of late. WAMU stepped over the line recently with a brief morning story that only quoted AAA, and no pedestrian safety advocates, on traffic cameras. Reporter Armando Trull adapted an AP story which unquestioningly repeated the slant from The Washington Times.

AP reporters don't sign their articles, so we don't know who broadcast this biased story out on the wires without thinking. Besides WAMU, Fox5's Will Thomas also rewrote the traffic camera story, and the Washington Business Journal aggregated it, both without questioning its one-sided premise.

There's nothing wrong with opinion journalism—our articles are all opinions—but people know it. The Washington Times is mostly opinion, too, and so is anything from AAA, but many reporters and others mistake both. Running editorials on the Outer Beltway is one thing, but news reporters can and should stop regurgitating AAA's line on policy questions, and should look more critically at other outlets' stories when they don't.

WAMU worked to fix its mistake

After getting an earful from myself and a number of environmental and smart growth advocates on Friday, WAMU agreed with the criticism. Metro Connection Editor Tara Boyle told me on the record, "In looking at story a second time, we think the critique that we needed a bit more balance is real, and there is merit to these critiques."

The reporter, Martin Di Caro, spoke to Stewart Schwartz of CSG and myself, and added a section to both the audio and text versions with quotes from both of us. Di Caro has written many other, good-quality transportation stories in his 2 months at WAMU thus far, and I look forward to many more from him.

During our discussion, Di Caro mentioned that he's currently working at WAMU thanks to a grant. Their former transportation reporter, David Schultz, was also only at WAMU for a short time. It's terrific that WAMU is getting money to cover transportation issues, but it would be far better if they could rustle up more consistent funding to keep a single reporter more permanently. Transportation is not a trivial subject, and it's very helpful to have reporters able to develop some expertise in the beat. When a reporter is new, they're more likely to fall victim to AAA-itis or the related affliction, PR-rep-itis.

Meanwhile, WAMU deserves praise for looking at the story, recognizing that it was one-sided, and taking steps to do better with coverage now and in the future.

Formulas for Bethesda and Silver Spring won't work countywide

Parking minimums like these did not impede the county's first wave of transit-oriented development, centered on the expensive downtowns of Bethesda and Friendship Heights. Rents and condo prices there are high enough to cover the cost of underground parking even if it goes unused.

In Silver Spring, where rents are lower, the county lifted the parking burden off developers' shoulders by building massive garages at taxpayer expense.

But the county can't afford to endlessly replicate the vast subsidies that went into downtown Silver Spring. Nor can the Bethesda model of luxury housing and expensive retail be copied everywhere. It would drive out current residents, and in any case there are only so many places where the market would support it.

The county needs a new model of revitalization, one that upgrades existing neighbor­hoods without displacing their population. This will not happen as long as off-street parking requirements make anything but luxury residences too expensive to build.

Decaying strip malls illustrate the problem. Planners hope that the strip malls can be rebuilt in a more urban style, with stores that open onto the sidewalk, a few floors of apartments above, and a parking garage behind the buildings. A row of duplexes, facing the single-family homes across the street, could complete the back side of such a development. Duplex housing, now very rare in the county, is more affordable for both the tenant and the owner (the rent helps pay the mortgage).

But under the zoning code, a developer cannot sell a duplex unless it has 4 parking spaces of its own. The cost of building 4 spaces in a parking garage is over $100,000—enough to put an otherwise affordable home far out of reach for a middle-class buyer.

Parking minimums serve a different purpose in single-family neighborhoods

Regardless of whether parking minimums are good policy, planners have sound political reasons for keeping them in Montgomery's single-family zones. They preserve the bargain that underlies the county's land use policy: keep single-family neighborhoods the way they are while promoting smart growth near transit.

Parking requirements serve a different purpose in suburban neighborhoods than in cities like DC. While the District's debate over minimums revolves around "spillover" that deprives residents of places to park, Montgomery homeowners would have space to put their cars with or without minimums because of two other laws.

The minimum lot sizes in the zoning code guarantee that every house has at least 60 feet of curb space. That is more than enough room for two cars, if there were no driveway. The resident parking permit program ensures that outsiders cannot park in those spaces.

Instead of guaranteeing space for cars, the rules effectively ensure that on-street spaces will usually be empty. Except in a few older neighborhoods where houses don't have driveways, mostly around Takoma Park, that's what housing subdivisions have always looked like in Montgomery. For many homeowners, car-free curbs are an essential element of their neighborhoods' suburban character, and the county has promised to preserve that for single-family zones as it becomes more urban elsewhere.

But minimum parking rules apply to commercial and apartment zones as well. There, off-street parking requirements are counterproductive. Left to its own devices, the real estate building and lending market will provide all the parking that is needed and more. The planning department should abolish parking minimums for mixed-use and multifamily residential zones, as DC is doing.

Diverging diamond: Faster traffic, worse for pedestrians

Diverging diamond interchanges (DDIs) are designed to move cars more efficiently by reducing the number of signal phases at interchanges and allowing cars on freeway on- and off-ramps to move freely without waiting for signals.

To accomplish this, the surface street lanes (not the freeway) cross to the opposite (left) side of the center line as they to pass through the interchange.

Pedestrians have to cross to the median and walk between concrete walls, forcing them to cross half of the through lanes at each side of the bridge. In the case of the Greenbelt Road/Kenilworth Avenue interchange, that would mean crossing 3 or 4 lanes (depending on the final configuration of the design) at each side of the bridge.

Alternatively, the design could accommodate pedestrians the outside of the roadway, but then they must cross the free-flowing left turn on- and off-ramps where drivers will be focusing on making the turn fast rather than looking for people crossing.

Incompatible with walkable vision for the corridor

What's most troubling is that the planning department is actually trying to create an urban, pedestrian environment immediately west of the interchange, yet they still proposed this design which does the opposite.

Early on in the presentation, planners showed before and after renderings of their visions for a walkable urban node where Beltway Plaza is today. They showed a suburban arterial transformed into a narrowed street with wide sidewalks, street trees, pedestrian lighting, and bike lanes. At previous meetings, they talked of building a street grid, of filling in parking lots with development, and making it easier and safer to walk in these new urban nodes.

They also talked of finding ways to link the different neighborhoods of Greenbelt that have been separated from each other by the various freeways in the area. They specifically mentioned finding better ways of linking the Golden Triangle office park with the Beltway Plaza area—two neighborhoods that are currently separated from each other by Kenilworth Avenue and its interchange with Greenbelt Road.

But planners are approaching rebuilding the Kenilworth/Greenbelt with the objective of moving more cars, faster. They are not thinking about creating a pedestrian-friendly environment in that space. They are not thinking about making cyclists feel welcome on the road.

And encouraging drivers to speed up as they approach what planners hope to be a walkable node is asking for trouble.

The cure is far worse than the disease

Today, Greenbelt Road crosses above Kenilworth Avenue at an interchange built in the 1980s. Most would agree that the intersection has its problems, mostly from the way the northbound ramps are offset and the close spacing of the north- and southbound off-ramps.

But the solution the county planners propose would be far worse than the current setup, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.

It is questionable why the county wants to focus on this intersection to begin with. It's not "failing" by traffic engineer standards, and in terms of driver delay, it's not even the worst intersection in the corridor, according to a study conducted in conjunction with the Sector Plan. But of course, highway engineers like to "fix" things whether or not they're broken.

Strong Towns executive director Chuck Marohn narrated a video about a DDI in Springfield, Missouri. A traffic engineer involved in the design created the video, touting how a pedestrian can walk through the interchange, but Marohn points out how absurd it is to say that this is actually pedestrian-friendly.

Marohn notes that while a DDI provides a path for pedestrians and cyclists, it's nothing like the kind of interchange one would design if the goal from the start were to make a space friendly to people walking and biking.

Building walkable communities and complete streets has to be more than an engineer running down an accommodation checklist. If we're trying to create a neighborhood where walkability is a primary goal, then pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users have to be a top priority, not just get the leftover road space and the bare minimum listed in the design guide.

The nascent urban districts at White Flint and Tysons Corner are transforming from suburbs to more walkable spaces. And like the Beltway Plaza area, pedestrians in those areas face barriers in the form of interchanges. Prince George's can't simply get rid of their interchanges, but they don't need to make the pedestrian condition worse by recommending converting an interchange to one that's sole purpose is to move cars more quickly.