Posts about Prince George's

We received an email from the PR firm Edelman about a new website they are launching on behalf of Walton. The site, called "A Welcome Home for the FBI," argues that "Westphalia Town Center would provide a secure, state-of-the-art campus for the FBI within a vibrant community where FBI employees and their families can live, work and play," and that "Westphalia Town Center would be a win-win-win for FBI employees and their families, as well as Prince George's County residents and businesses."

There's even a map, captioned, "Westphalia Town Center provides many convenient transportation options." Does it, now?

While Westphalia is located next to the Capital Beltway and Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent to Joint Base Andrews, it's not on or near a Metro line, MARC train, or the planned Purple Line. I've placed a star around potential spots for the FBI that are on Metro: Greenbelt, Franconia-Springfield (Fairfax's proposal), and two suggestions from Greater Greater Washington contributors, Morgan Boulevard and Suitland.

(This map actually shows Metro in entirely the wrong place. Notice how the Orange and Blue Lines appear under the Potomac around where Smithsonian station would be. The Red Line crosses into Maryland east of DC's the northern point, not west. This map doesn't show the Blue Line out to the Beltway at all, and the southern Green Line actually runs along Suitland Parkway.

It clearly looks as though this map originally had no Metro at all, and the designers hastily slapped the Metro lines on without sizing and positioning them right. Perhaps this illustrates how much Westphalia really thinks about transit.)

Walton is so eager for the FBI that they recently offered to fund a bus line to Branch Avenue Metro. Unfortunately, a bus is unlikely to draw nearly the percentage of FBI workers that a Metro site would. The county has explored ways to extend the Green Line to Westphalia, but no serious planning has been done for it and nobody, including Walton, has any idea of how to pay for it.

As a greenfield, largely undeveloped site, Westphalia will require lots of new, expensive infrastructure whose long-term costs will get pushed onto the public. That spending will ultimately weaken pressure to build in existing communities where there's already underused transportation infrastructure, at the Metro stations. Those communities, however, don't have PR firms to push the government to put jobs there.

Putting the FBI in Prince George's County is the right move. The east side of the region has not gotten its share of federal or private jobs, forcing people to travel long distances from east to west. The FBI wants a large security fortress, which is incompatible with potential locations in central DC.

An site that is short walk from one of Prince George's 15 Metro stations, however, could house a large high-security complex and also catalyze walkable transit-oriented development closer to the station. This would maximize the value we get from our existing regional transportation network. With so many available Metro-accessible sites in Prince George's, Westphalia is not a good spot for the FBI.page/2

Engineers from the State Highway Administration say that many segments of University Boulevard carry fewer vehicles today than 20 years ago, while elsewhere traffic levels are about the same. With a few changes, the street can carry as much traffic in 4 lanes as it does with 6 lanes today.

While the street will have to be widened to make room for station platforms, the MTA won't need as much room as they did in their previous plan to keep all 6 lanes and add the Purple Line. With less space needed for car traffic, only 8 businesses will be displaced, compared to 25 before.

Reducing the number of car lanes on University Boulevard will cut speeding, meaning that a street where pedestrians are now frequent collision victims will be transformed into a safer and more welcoming place to walk or bike. There will be room for wider sidewalks and possibly even a cycle track, and there will be bike parking at each of the three Purple Line stations along the corridor, at Piney Branch Road, the future Takoma-Langley Transit Center and Riggs Road.

Meanwhile, key intersections will get traffic lights and turn lanes. This will not only make the street safer to cross, but allow trains to move more smoothly, reducing potential collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians.

These upgrades will help the Purple Line fulfill its economic promise. Both Montgomery and Prince George's counties want to transform the aging strip malls along University Boulevard into an urban corridor akin to downtown Silver Spring. Making University Boulevard a safer and more attractive place to walk will support that goal.

This design change is also good news for Montgomery County's bus rapid transit initiative, which proposes a countywide network of dedicated bus lanes. In dense, close-in areas like Bethesda, Silver Spring and Takoma Park that have the most potential ridership, existing pavement is often the only place new bus lanes can go. However, plans to repurpose traffic lanes for buses have met resistance from residents and county officials alike.

If transportation engineers say we can give car lanes to transit on University Boulevard, it can work elsewhere in the region as well. Hopefully, the Purple Line in Langley Park will serve as an example to the Montgomery County Planning Board and County Council as they consider the BRT plan this year.

The main complicating issue is that highway shoulders are usually too narrow and not free enough from obstructions to immediately open them up to buses. Interstate highway standards call for 9-foot shoulders, but you need at least 10 feet for a bus, and really 11 feet is preferable. So a typical highway shoulder will have to be beefed up in order to be used as a bus lane.

That's a lot easier, and cheaper, than just about anything else you could do. But it's still a construction project that needs to be planned and funded.

Minneapolis has an extensive network of over 300 miles of shoulder bus lanes on highways. But it's taken them over 20 years to get there. They have a continuous program that adds a few miles each year. They started with the low-hanging fruit, and have worked up to more complicated stretches.

That's the idea behind Virginia's pilot project on I-66. At first, the section allowing buses will be short. It won't be a busway so much as a spot where buses can jump ahead of a queue of cars. But over time VDOT could lengthen the segment and provide a larger benefit.

For safety reasons, buses are usually only permitted to go 35 miles per hour when using shoulders. Still, that's enough to get by the worst congestion. If traffic is moving faster than that, buses just stay in the regular lanes.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Ivy Lane is a short street between Kenilworth Avenue and Cherrywood Lane, near the Greenbelt Metro station. It passes through a suburban office park, but because it connects Old Greenbelt with the Metro and Greenbelt West, it is very popular with cyclists.

As I crested the hill on Ivy, I began to pick up speed. About this time, a platoon of cars released by the light at Kenilworth Avenue began to pass me. Most gave me a wide berth, moving into the left-turn lane to pass me, even though I was in the bike lane.

The first of the cars in this platoon was a silver sedan, and as we approached the entrance to 6404/6406 Ivy Lane, the car signaled and turned right without first moving into the bike lane. That car was about 2 car-lengths ahead of me when the driver turned. The second car continued straight ahead.

Then the third car, a maroon Ford Explorer, began to pass me. As the rear wheel was even with my handlebars, the driver initiated her right turn into 6404/6406. I jammed on the brakes, and swerved toward the curb. I missed colliding with her vehicle by less than 6 inches.

As it happened, the security guard who patrols this office park was waiting to turn out of the same driveway. As I was avoiding the collision, I yelled loudly, and having witnessed the near miss and hearing me yell, the guard quickly turned around and went after the motorist. I followed.

When I caught up to the guard, he had flagged down the driver and was talking to her. As I biked up, I heard her say, "I didn't hit him." I responded, "You only missed me by about 6 inches."

Her response stunned me, and probably goes a long way to describing the plight of cyclists in this country. She said to the guard and me:

I had my signal on. You were supposed to stop for me.

In the first place, this is completely inaccurate. When driving on a street with bike lanes, the bike lane is considered a regular lane. You always have to yield to cyclists in the bike lane if you need to turn across it.

And the appropriate maneuver is to first merge into the bike lane before turning right. In this case, she should have merged behind me, since she did not have room to pass first.

In the second place, because she initiated the turn before she passed me, I really had no way of knowing that her signal was on anyway. Yes, cars have signals on the front, too. But as the front of her car passed me, I was focused on watching the car in front of her, because I did want to be right hooked by that driver either.

The woman told the security guard, "I really need to go. I don't have time for this." And I said, "I'm happy to let you go, but first I want to make sure you understand what you did wrong. You could have seriously injured me or killed me."

I explained that she should have moved into the bike lane first. I also said that if she didn't believe me, that she should look up the law for herself.

She said "sorry." (By her tone, she clearly wasn't).

I told her that I didn't want her to be sorry. I wanted her to not do this again.

At this point, we both went on our ways. But I thought about the experience for the rest of my ride.

I wondered whether I should have acted differently following the near-miss. I did not call the police. I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that since there was no contact, they wouldn't consider it worthy of followup. But a friend of mine who has had experiences like this in Greenbelt says that the GPD will follow up to educate a driver if a cyclist or pedestrian reports a tag number after an infraction.

It's clear that the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration doesn't do enough to educate new drivers about how to interact with cyclists.

But the State Highway Administration and local jurisdictions could also do more. The woman who almost hit me was probably in her late-40s. No amount of improvement to the driving test would have captured her.

In my experience biking in this section of Greenbelt, the right hook is probably the most common issue.

It seems that drivers need to be better educated about how they're supposed to behave around cyclists. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices does include sign R4-4, which applies when a right turn lane is present to the right of the bike lane.

But the MUTCD does not seem to include any signage for when there is no right turn lane. I created a modified version of the R4-4, which could serve in situations like this. But it will likely take a while for anything new to make it into the MUTCD.

Local jurisdictions, though, could have a freer hand in situations like this. Ivy Lane, after all, is a Greenbelt city street.

The Greenbelt Police Department does have a history of doing targeted driver education and enforcement, so that's another way the city could work toward resolving the issue.

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And Friday morning, three pedestrians walked into a car driven by Richard Phillips, 38, who was passing through a crosswalk in Germantown on his way to work. Phillips was unhurt, but according to a police report the car's recently-polished grille sustained minor smudges from one pedestrian's bag. The pedestrians all walked away from the scene and have not been charged.

In an interview, Delegate Mills credited the Washington Area Drivers Association (WADA) for the idea. "Helmets will protect drivers from collisions, making it safe to allow drivers on all roads throughout the state," she said. She quoted a study from the Maryland Department of Transportation that found that helmets are the "single best way to avoid head and face injuries."

Driving activists are unsure about the bill's merits. Rental-car agencies note that travelers from out of state rarely pack a helmet, while even members of WADA have distanced themselves from the legislation.

"Studies in Australia show that when helmets are required, driving declines by 35%," said WADA president Penny Farthing. "MDOT is quoting junk science."

In Prince George's County, officials welcomed the proposed legislation. Bai To Hitachi, director of the Department of Public Works & Transportation, noted that cars clearly do not belong on roads meant for pedestrians. "DPW&T cares about public safety and is concerned when members of the community ... knowingly commit acts of high-risk behavior as a mechanism to achieve a public action," Hitachi said.

Hitachi called for additional legislation to require helmets for drivers in parking buildings, where heavy pedestrian traffic puts them in danger. "I'd feel safer walking on the Capital Beltway than driving in the parking building at the New Carrollton Metro Station," he added.

Community leaders look forward to the institution of more helmet laws for any and every situation. "Fifteen years ago I wound up in the intensive care unit of the Georgetown University Hospital neurology department," said Montgomery County Councilmember Flora Noreen. "I don't really know what happened, but I do know that I was not wearing a helmet."

The bill remains in committee and with one week to go before the General Assembly adjourns, opponents of the bill are optimistic that the session will end without action.

In the meantime, police advised drivers in a recent press release to stay alert while crossing sidewalks; to drive cars in bright visible colors or even in reflective paint; to always use controlled intersections; and, before driving, to look left, then right, then left again to check for any pedestrians.

"Parents are the most important models of proper driver behavior for children," said the press release. "Remember, be an engaged driver. It may save damage to your car."

Both bills appear to have broad support among the council members, although they appear to address the same topic in meaningfully different ways. Eight of the nine council members have signed on to Olson's bill. Councilmember Mary Lehman (District 1) has not yet expressed her support for CB-6. Six of the nine council members have signed on to Franklin's bill. The three who have thus far declined to support CB-12 are Olson, Lehman, and Obie Patterson (District 8).

Unlike the case with Franklin's TOD bills during the 2012 legislative session, these two bills are coming earlier in the session and do not (yet) appear to be on a fast track. Instead, these bills seem to be proceeding at a normal pace through the typical three-step process for passing legislation in Prince George's County:

1. the first reading (or "presentation") of a bill, where a bill is assigned to a committee for further hearings;
2. the second reading (or "introduction"), when the amended bill comes out of committee; and
3. the third reading, after which the committee's bill is debated, perhaps further amended by the full council, and then either put to a vote or referred back to a committee.

CB-6 and CB-12 are both at the initial stage of the process (presentation), so there still should be time for the public to provide meaningful input into the process.

CB-6: Simple and straightforward streamlining—but needs tweaks

The primary goal of CB-6 appears to be the elimination of costly, time consuming, and duplicative development review procedures that apply to certain zones currently in use around Metro stations. In some zones, such as the Mixed-Use Transportation-Oriented (MXT) Zone around the New Carrollton Metro Station, developers have to submit and obtain approval for both a conceptual site plan (CSP) and a detailed site plan (DSP) before building permits can be issued.

In theory, the CSP is supposed to be more preliminary in nature and general in substance than the DSP. For phased projects, the CSP is supposed to outline all of the various proposed stages that a developer anticipates. As a practical matter, though, the CSP and DSP are often extremely duplicative of each other—particularly for development projects that are proposed in only one phase.

And because the CSP and DSP both call for full public adjudicatory hearings before the Prince George's County Planning Board of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), with all the attendant rights of administrative appeal and review before the District (County) Council and judicial review by the courts, it can take an incredibly long time for developments to get approved.

This, in turn, can create a disincentive for developers seeking to build around Metro stations. After all, time is money—and wasted time is...well, you get the picture.

CB-6 would alleviate some of this burden by dispensing with the CSP process for "TOD priority projects." Eligible projects would go through only one round of DSP hearings before the Planning Board. The legislation also calls for other agencies, such as the Department of Public Works and Transportation, to expedite TOD priority projects around Metro stations.

The public would have the same full panoply of rights to advance notice and a public adjudicatory hearing that they currently have with respect to DSPs now. Items or issues that would ordinarily be discussed in a CSP (such as overall phasing plans) would be wrapped into the DSP.

CB-6's targeted streamlining approach is generally a good thing. However, the bill needs slight tweaks to ensure that adequate urban design standards are in place to require the type of compact, walkable mixed-use development that should exist in a transit zone. In particular:

• The bill should apply only at Metro stations where a recent sector or area plan has prescribed specific, form-based building envelope and site standards, along with other architectural and open-space standards applicable to urban areas. Without these standards, the bill's directive that TOD priority projects should "use the best urban design practices" has no real teeth. Generally, any Metro station area plan that was enacted after January 2008 should incorporate these types of standards.
• The bill should apply not only in Transit District Overlay Zones, but also in Development District Overlay Zones, Comprehensive Design Zones, and Mixed-Use Zones. Given the clunky and non-user-friendly way that the Prince George's Zoning Code has developed over the years, there are multiple types of zones that currently exist around the county's 15 Metro stations. This legislation should reach all of these different zoning types currently in use.

  (The county's form-based Urban Centers and Corridor Nodes Development Code, approved in 2010 and also known as Subtitle 27A, has its own set of expedited development review procedures and should not be covered by CB-6. Currently, however, no Metro station area is covered by Subtitle 27A.)

CB-12: Better than last year's bill, but still problematic

It's clear, from reading CB-12-2013, that Councilmember Franklin has made some attempt to respond to some of the public comments in opposition to last year's bill, CB-79-2012.

For example, similar to Olson's bill (CB-6), CB-12 would require only a Detailed Site Plan review for "expedited TOD projects" constructed within ½ mile of a Metro, MARC, or Purple Line station. (Franklin includes MARC and Purple Line stations that exist at the time the development proposal is submitted.) Additionally, contrary to last year's bill, CB-12 would incorporate a public comment process into the expedited DSP review.

The problem is that CB-12's expedited DSP review process would not facilitate meaningful and informed public participation. Additionally, elimination of an interested party's right to a public adjudicatory hearing before the Planning Board in connection with proposed development projects is likely contrary to state law.

Under CB-12, a developer proposing an expedited TOD project would file an application with the Planning Director (not the Planning Board). The Planning Director or a staff member designee would schedule a "pre-application conference" with the developer, at which time members of the public could appear, hear a presentation from the developer, and offer oral or written comments on the "preliminary project plan" filed by the developer.

The preliminary project plan would be made available to the public via M-NCPPC's website, but only seven days after the scheduled pre-application conference. If you want to see it before the conference, the only option appears to be making a trek out to the Planning Department Office in Upper Marlboro, the county seat.

Nothing about the preliminary project plan is binding on the developer or M-NCPPC. The actual Detailed Site Plan filed by the developer could differ dramatically from the preliminary project plan discussed at the pre-application conference. M-NCPPC staff would post the actual DSP application on a website and accept additional written comments, but would hold no further in-person conferences with the public. Nor would there be any opportunity provided for a formal adjudicatory hearing before the Planning Board.

Within 20-50 days, the Planning Director or a staff member designee would prepare a staff report and final recommendation and file it directly with the District Council. Within the next 25 days, the Council could elect to review the recommendation, or an interested party could file an "appeal" of the Planning Director's recommendation with the District Council. (The word "appeal" is somewhat of a misnomer in this context, since there was never a hearing before M-NCPPC to begin with.)

If an appeal or review is filed, a hearing before the District Council would be scheduled within 30 days, and a final decision would be issued within 15 days thereafter. Barring any appeal or review, the Planning Director's recommendations would become the final decision of the District Council within 25 days after they are filed with the District Council.

The above procedure eliminates altogether the involvement of the Planning Board in evaluating DSPs relating to expedited TOD projects. It also eliminates the public's right to a formal adjudicatory hearing before the Planning Board relating to the DSP—including the right to cross-examine the developer's witnesses under oath, introduce evidence of one's own, and have a decision rendered on the basis of the record developed at the hearing. Although that certainly speeds up the development review process and otherwise makes things easier for developers, it's also quite likely unlawful.

Under a 2012 amendment by the Maryland General Assembly to the Regional District Act (the state law that establishes the M-NCPPC as a bi-county commission covering Prince George's and Montgomery counties), Prince George's County is prohibited from withdrawing its previously-delegated authority to M-NCPPC to decide DSPs unless it is doing so for purposes of re-delegating that same authority to a municipality within the county. Because CB-12 seeks to withdraw the Planning Board's authority to hear and decide DSP cases in the first instance, it probably runs afoul of state law.

Show up at Wednesday's meeting if you can

Whatever your feelings about CB-6 or CB-12, the County Council needs to hear your voice. All too often in Prince George's County, legislative committee meetings are held during normal business hours, thereby depriving most working-age citizens of the opportunity to participate. The result is that those meetings are typically filled with developers, county planning professionals, and occasionally retirees—hardly a representative sample of the community.

This time, however, PZED chair Mel Franklin has made good on his promise to hold an evening meeting on these bills, given the high public interest in the issue of Metro station transit-oriented development. Let's honor Councilmember Franklin's decision by turning out in great numbers this Wednesday, March 13, 6 pm, in Room 2027 of the County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro, MD.

A mix of at-large and districts has many benefits

Districts do have an advantage. If all councilmembers were elected at large, they could easily all be from one part of the county. There would be no guarantee of diversity or adequate representation for all parts of the county.

DC also has a mixed system, with 8 wards, 4 at-large members and one chairman at large as well.

All 5 of Arlington's members are at large, and despite this they end up representing many parts of the county. However, Arlington is a much smaller county in land area—the "geographically smallest self-governing county in the United States," in fact.

Districts ensure that each part of the county will have a representative on the Council. But it also tends to make a council more parochial. Each member has his or her own little fiefdom that the others leave alone. Districts also give each councilmember less incentive to worry about things that affect only other districts.

Does this system hold Prince George's back on growth?

Prince George's County has lagged behind the rest of the region in building transit-oriented development and fostering economic development.

It's become clear that while Prince George's has learned to talk about TOD with the right terms, it hasn't learned that it has to make choices in order to make TOD work.

The Greenbelt Sector Plan, which was just adopted by the Council, is a perfect example. The plan seeks to lay the groundwork for building transit-oriented development at Greenbelt station and transforming the shopping centers at Beltway Plaza and Greenway Center into walkable, mixed-use nodes.

But the plan also calls for widening the roads that go through the middle of those nodes. Widening the roads is not necessary because of traffic that comes from the planned development; rather, they allow for continued development in the suburban and rural parts of the county east of Greenbelt.

Furthermore, the county continues to approve projects like Konterra and Westphalia in the suburbs, which take retail demand away from the urban parts of the county inside the Beltway. One reason that TOD at Greenbelt station has been so difficult to get going is because Konterra has sucked up a lot of the retail demand.

As long as the Council is more interested in making sure that development comes to each district rather than making sure it goes where the infrastructure exists to handle it, the county will not get the TOD it so desperately needs. And any economic development that comes along will be spread inefficiently and unsustainably across the county.

Restructuring the council to include several at-large members would give the council a greater stake at making all of Prince George's better, rather than just their district.

And it would make each citizen a constituent of a majority of the council. That should make government more responsive, something sorely needed in Prince George's.