Please accept our testimony on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. My organization works to ensure that transportation and development decisions in the Washington D.C. region accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas. We wish to express our

Transit advocates are going on the offensive after the Montgomery County Planning Board expressed some reluctance toward the idea of wiping out a lane of regular Rockville Pike traffic for Bus Rapid Transit-exclusive lanes. That idea, presented in Planning Staff’s Draft Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan a few weeks

In response to the Maryland Senate's vote in favor of the transportation bill (HR 1515), Coalition for Smarter Growth Executive Director Stewart Schwartz issued the following statement: "The Maryland Senate made a winning decision today for Marylanders. Passing the transportation bill means desperately needed transit projects like the Purple Line, Baltimore’s Red Line and MARC upgrades can go forward. Transit projects like these are top priorities to give Marylanders affordable transportation choices, relief from numbing traffic, and cleaner air."

As Montgomery County planners tweak wording in a draft transit master plan, some activists say prioritizing the 10 corridors and 79 miles of proposed future bus rapid transit is essential to easing traffic gridlock. The county’s planning board on March 18 rejected the first draft of the Countywide Transit Corridors

Montgomery County became the first jurisdiction in Maryland with a population of more than one million last year after gaining more than 13,000 people since 2011. U.S. Census data released this month puts the county’s population at 1,004,709 as of July 2012. Prince George’s County had the next largest population