District residents living in the city’s densest and most parking-scarce neighborhoods will soon be able to apply for a free visitor parking pass, D.C. transportation officials announced last week. The surprise move has raised neighborhood concerns about possible abuse and further erosion of curbside parking for city residents. In recent years, the District’s transportation department has mailed free passes to all households in some neighborhoods as a pilot project. Under the new program, households in all areas where residents are required to purchase a permit to park on the street will be eligible to request a free visitor pass. The free passes will not be sent to individual households unless a resident requests one.
Author: Elena Sorokina
Will Montgomery County Fall Into the Zombie Highway Trap?
There ought to be a statute of limitations on highway plans, because chances are, if a transportation project was conceived of at a time when rotary phones were the norm, it is just as outdated.
But these zombie highway projects from another era still hold a powerful allure over public officials, even in places where they really ought to know better.
Montgomery County, Maryland, has a reputation for being pretty forward thinking on transportation, but an undead highway is clawing its way out of the grave.
At Greater Greater Washington, Kelly Blynn reports that local officials are under the spell of a 1960s vision called the Midcounty Highway Extended, or M83. Worst of all, they seem to be settling on the most costly intervention, fiscally and environmentally:
Last night, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers held a public hearing at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown regarding whether they should grant a joint permit to impact wetlands and streams in the highway’s path. Dozens of highway opponents from the Transit Alternatives to the Midcounty Highway Extended (TAME) Coalition, many of whom have fought the project for years, turned out in force to testify against the project.
MCDOT originally evaluated 11 alternatives, and has since narrowed the field down to just 6, including a no-build option. Alternatives 4, 8, and 9 are the most controversial and involve the most new pavement and right-of-way through environmentally sensitive areas and existing neighborhoods. They also happen to be MCDOT’s preferred alternatives. MCDOT estimates that Alternative 9 would cost $350 million to build, though local activists say it could be double that.
Alternative 2, the cheapest option, would make improvements to Route 355 and use transportation demand management (TDM) to give travelers other ways to get around, while alternative 5 involves widening it. MCDOT did not look at any transit alternatives. Their report contains a footnote saying that the community requested a transit alternative, but says that the county’s Bus Rapid Transit plan is still too nascent to be considered.
The county leaders will decide soon whether to include the money for this project in next year’s budget. Blynn says, “It remains to be seen whether the County leaders will continue their progressive planning tradition by investing scarce local dollars in transit and smart growth, or whether they sink hundreds of millions into a 1960′s-era sprawl highway.”
Elsewhere on the Network today: Mobilizing the Region sheds light on some of the perilous situations faced by pedestrians in south Jersey. Cap’n Transit theorizes that two schools of thought on transit planning emerge from two difference conceptions of the city and suburbs. And I Bike TO criticizes the Toronto police department’s decision to stop tracking “dooring” crashes.
RELEASE: Bi-County Parkway Would Increase Congestion and Damage Manassas Battlefield
VIRGINIA — Today, a coalition of conservation, preservation, and smart growth organizations strongly questioned the overall benefit of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s (VDOT’s) proposed “Bi-County Parkway” in Loudoun and Prince William counties. The groups released an analysis of the controversial new highway’s impact on the amount of travel and congestion — comparing it to a proposed package of projects that would improve transportation in the area. The analysis shows that the alternative projects would be more beneficial to the region than the Bi-County Parkway would be.
REPORT: Rethinking the Bi-County Parkway
The Virginia Department of Transportation’s (“VDOT”) own traffic modeling data reveal that the proposed Bi-County Parkway (“BCP”) would worsen, not relieve, traffic congestion. The same model shows that the comprehensive alternative offered by our coalition (termed the “Substitute Vision” by VDOT) will better address congestion in the study area, and better serve the dominant need for east-west traffic capacity—now and in the future.
ADVISORY: Rethinking the Bi-County Parkway
A coalition of five historic preservation, conservation, and smart growth organizations will be releasing a report on Tuesday, July 16 assessing the performance of the proposed Bi-County Parkway compared to a set of alternative investments. The authors and their traffic modeling consultant will brief interested members of the media during a 10:00 am conference call.
Columbia Pike Streetcar Fact Sheet
The Coalition for Smarter Growth supports the streetcar as a key element of bringing new life to Columbia Pike. The streetcar is a good idea. Here’s why:
Economic Development: Streetcars outperform regular buses in spurring economic development, a key need in Columbia Pike. The permanence of streetcar infrastructure has already boosted developers’ confidence in investing in the corridor.
Maryland Transportation Authority Report Glosses Over Shortfall in Future Predicted Trips
The Maryland Transportation Authority issued a press release today about a report done with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and promoted time savings and traffic relief as a result of the Intercounty Connector.
“First, it’s not surprising that some people experience time savings from using the high speed ICC over local roads, but how many trips out of the hundreds of thousands of daily trips in the area encompassing the Beltway, I-270 and I-95? ” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. ” The real question is whether the fact that a small percentage of trips save time was worth the $3 billion cost of the ICC (more with debt costs), as compared to a wide range of other investments.”
Public-Private Toll Deals Have Taken Control of Public Process and Ignore Local Concerns
“Every Virginia resident should be concerned about how the Public Private Transportation Act is distorting transportation decision-making and shutting down objective public review and debate,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Today, the McDonnell administration announced their pursuit of a Public-Private Transportation deal for a HOT lanes project on I-66. This announcement comes on the heels of a vote by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, protesting the decision to exclude rail transit options as priorities for the I-66 corridor and asking for reconsideration of the plan. The Commonwealth Transportation Board voted in May, just a few weeks after public comments on the I-66 proposal.
Walking tour explores Fort Totten’s present and future
Development at Fort Totten has been slow despite access to 3 Metro lines, its close proximity to both downtown DC and Silver Spring, its access to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, its green space and its affordability. But as demand increases for housing in the District, this previously-overlooked neighborhood could become a hot spot.
Photo by tracktwentynine on Flickr.Last Saturday, the Coalition for Smarter Growth concluded their spring walking tour series with “Fort Totten: More than a Transfer Point,” a look at future residential, retail and commercial development near the Fort Totten Metro station. Residents and visitors joined representatives from WMATA, DDOT and the Office of Planning on a tour of the area bounded by South Dakota Avenue, Riggs Road, and First Place NE.
Today, vacant properties and industrial sites surround the station and form a barrier between it and the surrounding area. Redeveloping them could improve connections to the Metro and make Fort Totten a more vibrant community.
There is a significant amount of new residential, retail and commercial development planned within walking distance of the Metro station. But Saturday’s tour began with the only completed project, The Aventine at Fort Totten. Built by Clark Realty Group in 2007, the 3-building, garden-style apartment complex consists of over 300 rental units as well as ground-floor retail space.
The Aventine at Fort Totten, the newest apartment complex in Fort Totten. All photos by the author unless otherwise noted.Visitors were ambivalent about the success of the Aventine due to its small amount of retail space and lack of connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods. While residents noted that it created more options to live close to Metro, representatives of the Lamond Riggs and North Michigan Park civic associations agreed the development differed from the original vision for the project.
They called it an example of the need to continually engage real estate developers and local government agencies to ensure that new development is of a high quality and responsive to the local context. Throughout the tour, residents said that future development proposals should adhere to DC’s urban design guidelines, improve pedestrian access and have a plan to mitigate parking concerns.
Between South Dakota Avenue and the Metro station, the Cafritz Foundation will redevelop the old Riggs Plaza apartments to build ArtPlace at Fort Totten. When finished, the 16-acre project will contain 305,000 square feet of retail, 929 apartments, and 217,000 square feet of cultural and art spaces, including a children’s museum. Deborah Crain, neighborhood planning coordinator for Ward 5, noted that ArtPlace will include rental units set aside for seniors and displaced Riggs Plaza residents.
An ad for ArtPlace at Fort Totten at its future home.As one of the largest landowners near the Fort Totten Station, WMATA has a huge stake in future development around the station. They own approximately 3 acres of land immediately west of the station along First Place NE that is currently used as surface parking lot for commuters. Stan Wall, Director of Real Estate at WMATA, discussed the great potential for development on the current parking lot mentioned that the agency will solicit proposals for development of the area in the near future.
Parking lot at Fort Totten station.Anna Chamberlain, a DDOT transportation planner, talked about how streetscape improvements could calm traffic, making streets around the Metro station more pedestrian- and bike-friendly. DDOT is also working to improve connections to the Metro, as some areas lack clearly defined walking paths. The agency will begin designing a path connecting the Metro to the Metropolitan Branch Trail within the next few months.
New sidewalks and street trees on Riggs Road.The final stop on the tour was Fort Totten Square, a joint effort by the JBG Companies and Lowe Enterprises to build 350 apartments above a Walmart and structured parking at South Dakota Avenue and Riggs Road. DDOT has completely rebuilt the adjacent intersection to make it safer for pedestrians and more suitable for an urban environment, replacing freeway-style ramps with sidewalks, benches, crosswalks and improved lighting.
Jaimie Weinbaum, development manager at JBG, says they’re committed to working with the city and residents to make Fort Totten Square an asset to the community. They’ve promised to place Capital Bikeshare stations there and would like to have dedicated space for Car2go as well.
With help from the private sector and public agencies like DDOT and WMATA, Fort Totten could become a model for transit-oriented development, but much of the new construction won’t happen for a long time. Until then, residents eagerly await the changes and continue to work with other stakeholders toward creating a vision that will benefit everyone.
Photos courtesy of Greater Greater Washington