Category: Montgomery County

BRT Supporters Have Different Views As Plan Heads To Council

Posted on by Andrew Brown

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Bus Rapid Transit supporters are split on the Master Plan the county’s Planning Department will likely send to the County Council next week on the new transportation system.

Some are still worried language inserted into the plan that would require “a thorough traffic analysis” before any BRT system is implemented severely waters down the plan and contradicts the basic point of making roads move more people instead of more cars.

Meanwhile, the Coalition For Smarter Growth, which is lobbying for a BRT network that would include a controversial transitway on Rockville Pike/MD 355, praised the Planning Board for taking “a major step forward.”

“This plan is one of the most extensive and progressive transportation plans of any suburban community in our region, and is in keeping with Montgomery County’s record of innovation in land use transportation and housing policy,” CSG Executive Director Stewart Schwartz said in a statement.

The Action Committee for Transit wrote a letter to the Planning Board before a worksession on the plan last Thursday urging it to reconsider the “thorough traffic analysis” language.

ACT is concerned a traffic study from county transportation planners at time of facility planning would make it more difficult to dedicate existing lanes to the buses in the BRT network, thus reducing the amount of all-traffic lanes.

At the Thursday worksession, the Planning Board amended the language by saying the thorough traffic analysis “should be performed” instead of “must be performed,” and only “where lane repurposing is recommended.”

Planning Board Chair Francoise Carrier advocated a plan that would ease concerns from drivers worried about how fewer lanes would affect their commutes. On Thursday, Carrier said the Board should consider how the repurposing lanes debate would play out before the County Council, which is expected to take up Bus Rapid Transit in September.

“There is a tension between sending up a plan that’s easier to adopt or sending up the plan thats bolder,” Carrier said.

Planning Commissioner Casey Anderson made it clear throughout the process he’s in favor of a bolder option that would include repurposed lanes where needed. Planning staff has said a lane each way on MD 355 would need to be repurposed through downtown Bethesda and Chevy Chase because there is no room to build an additional lane.

There has already been much opposition to the idea of repurposing lanes from neighborhood groups in Silver Spring and Chevy Chase and residents in Bethesda.

“It’s almost like you’re a dog that’s been beat too much and you’re afraid you’re going to get hit again when you start talking about, ‘Oh, don’t worry. We’re not going to do [lane repurposing] everywhere,’ before you even get started,” Anderson said.

Kelly Blynn, an organizer for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said while the plan is a break from thinking that often shortchanged transit in favor of single-occupancy vehicles, the group is still concerned about new language from the State Highway Administration.

“However, Blynn expressed concern that other new language in the plan, pressed by the State Highway Administration, would place too high of a standard on moving cars through without considering a more proper standard of what approach would move the most people,” read the group’s press release.

Photo courtesy of Montgomery County Planning Department.

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Montgomery Rapid Transit System Takes Major Step Forward with Planning Board Approval

Posted on by Andrew Brown

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 12, 2013

CONTACT: Alex Posorske, (202) 675-0016 ext. 126

Montgomery Rapid Transit System Takes Major Step Forward with Planning Board Approval

A new county-wide rapid transit system in Montgomery County took a major step forward yesterday when the Montgomery County Planning Board unanimously approved a master plan for the system.

Transit advocates hailed the Planning Board’s decision, noting that with Montgomery projected to add more than 200,000 people in the coming decades, it is critical to invest in new transit infrastructure now.

“This plan is one of the most extensive and progressive transportation plans of any suburban community in our region, and is in keeping with Montgomery County’s record of innovation in land use transportation and housing policy,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

“Rapid Transit represents Montgomery’s best, most affordable option for providing needed traffic relief to residents,” Schwartz said. “The old model of building ever more and wider roads for cars has not worked; we have to figure out how to move more people, more sustainably, with the infrastructure we have and Rapid Transit will do that.”

The plan lays the groundwork for a high quality transit network, based on successful bus rapid transit systems around the country, which would connect the County’s key economic and commercial centers, many of which are not currently served by Metro. The service would operate like Metrorail on county roadways, including features like dedicated lanes, comfortable stations, off-board fare payment, and frequent, speedier service to provide commuters relief from some of the longest commute times in the nation.

After reviewing hundreds of public comments, the Board spent many hours making edits and additions to this long range plan. One key change was the inclusion of a “performance standard” that would help ensure the County commits to a high level of transit service.

Kelly Blynn, Montgomery County Transit Organizer for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, highlighted that piece, noting that it was a break from the thinking of the past that often unfairly shortchanged transit.

“In order for this plan to be successful, we must be willing to place transit on equal footing with cars, and dedicate car lanes to transit where it can move more people than individual vehicles can,” Blynn said.

However, Blynn expressed concern that other new language in the plan, pressed by the State Highway Administration, would place too high of a standard on moving cars through without considering a more proper standard of what approach would move the most people. “It’s something we will be monitoring,” said Blynn.

In addition, the Board increased the size of the network, adding a critical connection on the map to Clarksburg, a planned community in need of transit options. Upcounty activists cheered the move.

“The Upcounty is the fastest growing region of Montgomery County,” said Upcounty Citizens Advisory Board member Beth Daly. “The extension of Rapid Transit north on 355 is a step in the right direction to for Clarksburg residents, offering them an express transit option to get to Shady Grove Metro and work centers quickly.”

The Board will now send its recommendations, officially known as the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan to the County Council, who will review the plan starting in September. The plan will most likely first be reviewed by the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee, and then move to the full Council.

 

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington D.C. region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies needed to make those communities flourish. To learn more, visit the Coalition’s website at www.smartergrowth.net.

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Elrich Thinks Parts Of BRT Will Get Built In Next 4 Years

Posted on by Andrew Brown

The Montgomery County Councilmember who is credited with first proposing a Bus Rapid Transit network for the county is optimistic parts of a BRT system will start being built in the next four years.

Councilmember March Elrich (D-At large) also said he thinks ridership projections in the Master Plan for BRT before the Planning Board might actually be too low. Many opponents of a plan to include Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue as a BRT corridor have claimed the ridership numbers in a study by Planning Department staff are inflated.

Elrich talked about where BRT stands on a County Cable Montgomery interview show earlier this month.

“You really can’t predict what ridership will be in the future if you replace the non-choice system with a system might choose to use,” Elrich said, comparing existing Ride On bus service to a potential BRT network. “They might make different choices if a bus ran every six minutes in rush hour and didn’t stop for lights because they had a greenway to go through.”

The “rapid” component of BRT is that the buses in the system would move faster than typical buses because the buses would have exclusive lanes.

That has caused a stir with communities and residents in Bethesda and Chevy Chase, where some don’t want to lose a lane of regular traffic to a bus-only lane. The Master Plan for BRT projects between 44,000 and 49,000 daily riders for a southbound MD 355 system and between 22,000 and 34,000 daily riders for a northbound MD 355 system by 2040.

It is projected to be the busiest of the 10 proposed corridors.

The Planning Board is working through its Master Plan on the system with the hopes of transmitting it to the County Council on July 22. The fourth and final planned worksession is July 11.

Meanwhile, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a D.C.-based advocacy group is pushing for signatures on a pro-BRT petition. The Coalition’s executive director testified in favor of the BRT Master Plan at the Planning Board’s public hearing on it.

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Wheaton seeking development proposals

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Two days before the release of a request for developer’s ideas for Wheaton, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett joined County Council President Nancy Navarro and others Saturday for a tour of the area where redevelopment has long been discussed.

“This is Wheaton’s time, and we’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it right,” Leggett said to the tour group including state and county officials as well as area residents.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (front, right) talks with Montgomery County Deputy Director of Transportation Al R. Roshdieh Saturday during a walking tour of downtown Wheaton to gather ideas for redeveloping the area to be more walkable. The tour was organized by the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee and The Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (front, right) talks with Montgomery County Deputy Director of Transportation Al R. Roshdieh Saturday during a walking tour of downtown Wheaton to gather ideas for redeveloping the area to be more walkable. The tour was organized by the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee and The Coalition for Smarter Growth.

The request for proposals, posted on the county’s website on Monday, asks for developers to come up with a plan that includes a headquarters building for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, a town square, residential and/or retail space, and public parking.

The plans can encompass up to four sites, including the Mid-County Regional Services Center, Parking Lot 13 and Parking Lot 34 in Wheaton and the current park and planning commission site at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring.

Developers have until July 31 to submit their proposals.

As of Monday afternoon, the county website listed four companies who had downloaded a copy of the solicitation.

Leggett stressed to Saturday’s tour group that the redevelopment process will include community input and that the county wants Wheaton to be a community that “you are proud of.”

“This is not the end, this is simply the beginning, an opportunity for the public to weigh in, to be part of this process,” Leggett said. “Without the public’s involvement, whatever we do will not be successful.”

Navarro said that, for the first time, the county has money in the budget for Wheaton’s redevelopment and that the current approach will allow community members to participate.

“It allows all of you, all of those people who have been involved for so long, to see how we can maximize this opportunity,” Navarro said.

Saturday’s walking tour — run by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee — highlighted several of Wheaton’s existing sites, including the MetroPointe apartments on Georgia Avenue — a mixed-income community — Wheaton Veterans Park, and the Wheaton Triangle area’s small businesses.

Henriot St. Gerard, chair of the urban district advisory committee, said a main goal of the event was to help people think about Wheaton in a broader sense than just the redevelopment of the Parking Lot 13 area and about its potential as a walkable community.

“It’s not just a focus on this centralized location in the urban district, we’re thinking about everyone outside of that,” including restaurants, entertainment venues and small businesses, St. Gerard said.

Speakers, including those from the coalition and the Wheaton advisory committee, discussed how the area could become more walkable through factors such as improved lighting, signage and pedestrian access.

Ash Kosiewicz — communications and advocacy director for the Latino Economic Development Center and lead organizer of the Coalition for the Fair Redevelopment of Wheaton — shared some of the concerns the area’s small businesses have voiced in light of redevelopment, including a loss of parking and their ability to pay rent.

With the release of the request for proposals, Marian Fryer — president of the Wheaton Citizens Coalition and member of the urban district advisory committee — said as she walked on the tour that there have been “many starts and stops” in Wheaton’s redevelopment process, but that she is now feeling optimistic.

That sense of optimism, she said, comes from “the fact that we now have an opportunity to get some good proposals, creative proposals, responsible development proposals and go from there and, hopefully, now that the money has been put in place, we won’t have to start over again.”

Del. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington, who attended the tour, compared the Wheaton area — where he said he grew up — to Silver Spring.

“People forget how many false starts there were in Silver Spring, and that’s okay,” Waldstreicher said. “There are going to be false starts and now Silver Spring is a great place to have dinner, raise a family, and the same thing will happen in Wheaton.”

For Andy Wexler, of Silver Spring, the tour was a source of information on the community he and his wife are considering moving to and have already visited for years to shop and eat.

“I hope that [redevelopment is] done very carefully,” he said. “There’s so many issues involved and if those issues aren’t dealt with in a very thoughtful and sensitive way, it can cause a lot of damage to a community.”

Photo courtesy of Greg Dohler and The Gazette

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Transit Initiatives Boosted by Employers

Posted on by Andrew Brown

It’s been clear for several years that more people than ever support public transit. In vote after vote, people consistently say yes to taxes for transit creation.

In 2012, 79 percent of transit ballot initiatives were approved. That’s good news for everyone. For every $1 billion investment in transit, 60,000 jobs are created, making transit one of the best job generators in our economy.

A recent study by Good Jobs First, covered this week in Politico, showed that key support for transit is coming from employers in metro areas. Called “Bosses for Buses,” the study says that support from the heads of universities and hospitals explains why state and local ballot initiatives for transit consistently win.

“The remarkable local support for transit demonstrated by so many employers is truly heartening,” Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First and lead author of the study, told Politico. “But the lack of a unified corporate voice on federal transit issues is equally disheartening.”

The study profiles outstanding networks and companies that have supported ballot initiatives, like Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Cleveland’s two largest employers, The Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals of Cleveland, were involved in a campaign for the HealthLine, one of the nation’s most successful Bus Rapid Transit lines. In Phoenix, a spinoff of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce developed a “Transit Means Business” campaign. And in the D.C. area, a coalition named “Purple Line Now!” is working with community groups like the Coalition for Smarter Growth and PRISCM to gain a sorely needed arc-shaped light rail line that would connect inner-ring suburbs and four subway “spokes” in the Maryland counties that straddle D.C.

The whole country is standing up for transit. What’s up with Congress? Hopefully, the newly organized bi-partisan Public Transit Caucus that Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) have created will make a difference with their fellow legislators.

For those folks who are walking home tonight from their food service jobs because there is no bus after midnight, here’s hoping the 1 percent in Congress step up for transit.

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A Walkable Wheaton?

A Walkable Wheaton?

Posted on by Andrew Brown

On Saturday, June 1, 2013, the Coalition for Smarter Growth partnered with Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee to tour recent and upcoming changes in “A Walkable Wheaton.”  Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and  County Council President Nancy Navarro toured new developments and were joined by speakers from Kittelson & Associates, Housing Opportunities Commission, Latino Economic Development Center, and Just Up the Pike.

Montgomery parking requirements looser, but not enough

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

Montgomery County’s new zoning code will allow less parking in new developments in order to use land more efficiently and encourage alternatives to driving. However, the regulations still require parking in ways that will hinder the walkable urban places the county wants to build.


Space for people, or space for cars? All photos by the author.For four years, the Planning Department has been revising its complicated, unwieldy zoning code. First written in 1928, the code hasn’t been updated since 1977, when the county was still mostly suburban. The new code will go before the County Council in a public hearing June 11.

Under the current code, buildings must have lots of parking, even near transit or in areas where most people don’t drive. The new parking regulations are simpler and allow developers to build fewer parking spaces, though they do require other amenities, like bike racks, changing facilities and spaces for car sharing or carpools.

New rules require less parking, more amenities

The new code reduces parking requirements throughout the county, especially in its parking benefit districts where public parking is available, like Silver Spring, Bethesda, Wheaton, Montgomery Hills and eventually White Flint.

Restaurants currently must have 25 parking spaces per 1000 square feet, a little smaller than a Chipotle. Under the new rules, a restaurant would only need between 4 and 10 spaces, depending on whether it was in a parking district. Meanwhile, office buildings outside a parking district will only need 2.25 spaces per 1000 square feet, compared to 3 today.

Some rules have been simplified. The current law requires different amounts of parking for different kinds of stores; for instance, a “country market” must provide 5 parking spaces for each 1000 square feet, while a furniture store needs only 2. Under the new code, all stores would be required to have 3.5 spaces per 1000 square feet in parking districts, and 5 spaces elsewhere.

New buildings would also have to accommodate alternate modes of transportation by providing bike parking. Larger buildings will have to include space for car sharing, while developers would be able to swap out car parking spaces for carpool spaces, bikeshare stations or changing facilities.

However, the parking requirements for housing won’t change much. Single-family homes and townhomes would still need 2 off-street parking spaces or 1 if they’re in a parking district, same as before, while new apartments would need at least 1 parking space, regardless of where they are. However, apartment developers could build less parking if they “unbundle” them, meaning that residents could buy or rent a space separately from their unit.

Do we still need parking requirements?

While the new requirements are an improvement, some local groups argue that there shouldn’t be parking requirements at all. The Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Montgomery County Sierra Club, and the Action Committee for Transit, where I sit on the board, have all come out against parking minimums.


Parking requirements don’t always make great places.Why? For starters, parking is expensive to build and rarely pays for itself. Construction costs for a space in a parking lot are about $3,500, compared to $30,000 for one in a garage and $100,000 for one underground, not counting the cost of land. Parking fees rarely cover these expenses alone, so the costs get passed on to the public in other ways, like higher prices at a restaurant that’s charged higher rents by its landlord.

Meanwhile, our communities pay for a glut of parking. Surface parking lots that are only full on Black Friday take up valuable space that could be used for buildings or parks instead. And even attractively designed parking garages like this one in Rockville still create a dead space, hurting street life. On top of that, parking lots produce a lot of stormwater runoff, polluting waterways.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t have any parking, but the costs of excess parking outweigh the benefits. As Matt Yglesias writes in Slate, people will continue to want parking, and any developer who wants to stay in business will satisfy them without being told to:

Almost 100 percent of Washington-area residents like to sleep on a soft comforable surface at night. But there’s no regulatory requirement that residential buildings contain mattresses. The lack of mattress mandates doesn’t mean people are forced to sleep on the floor. It means that if people want to sleep on a mattress—and they generally do—they need to go buy one.

Once you take away the Agricultural Reserve, residential neighborhoods, and other uses, you’re left with about 4% of Montgomery County that’s available for development. That land is valuable, and we need to use it well. Covering it with big parking lots isn’t the right solution, but that’s what our current zoning code requires. While the new law’s a step in the right direction, it may not go far enough to create the kind of places we want.

The County Council will hold a public hearing on the Zoning Rewrite on Tuesday, June 11 at 7:30pm. To sign up to testify or submit written comments, visit their website.

Photos courtesy of thecourtyard on Flickr.

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Transit projects in Gaithersburg to benefit from fuel tax revenue

Posted on by Andrew Brown

The increase in Maryland’s fuel tax, signed into law by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) last week, is projected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for Montgomery County road and transit projects, including two major projects in Gaithersburg.

The proposed Corridor Cities Transitway bus rapid transit system and an interchange on Interstate 270 at Watkins Mill Road are among 10 new projects — totalling $1.2 billion in spending — that will benefit from the increase in revenue.

The Corridor Cities Transitway is a 15-mile system of dedicated bus right-of-way that will run from the Shady Grove Metro Station in Rockville to the COMSAT site in Clarksburg. The first part of the route, between Shady Grove and the Metropolitan Grove MARC station, will receive $100 million for final design work and for rights of way.

“That project will still require a significant amount more to get the project fully funded,” said Tom Lonergan, Gaithersburg’s director of economic development.

The source of those remaining funds — expected to be upward of $400 million — has not yet been determined. Construction on the system is expected to begin in fall 2018.

Lonergan said the $125 million allocated for the Watkins Mill interchange will be used for final design and construction costs of the $165 million project.

The interchange will link two unfinished portions of Watkins Mill Road over I-270 in Gaithersburg. Drivers will be able to enter and exit I-270 from Watkins Mill Road, providing relief to the intersection of Md. 355 and Montgomery Village Avenue.

Dan Gross/The Gazette<br /> Watkins Mill Road west of Rt 355 is a dead end that is currently used for parking by construction crews working nearby. The fuel tax revenue will be used to complete the interchange with Interstate 270.

Watkins Mill Road west of Rt 355 is a dead end that is currently used for parking by construction crews working nearby. The fuel tax revenue will be used to complete the interchange with Interstate 270.The state budgeted about $40 million to the interchange project earlier this year, Lonergan said.

“It should get the job done,” Lonergan said.

County Councilman Phillip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg said the interchange would encourage economic development in the upcounty as well as relieving congestion.

“I’m very pleased to see [the projects] moving forward,” he said.

Also funded, the proposed Purple Line light rail system which will run from New Carrollton to Bethesda. The project is projected to cost $2.2 billion in total, and will receive $280 million for final design work from the tax revenue.

“Without the new funding, these critical transit projects could not have moved forward,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Transit projects are the ideal way for the county to accommodate its traffic and growth and to remain competitive in the future, Schwartz said.

Construction on the Purple Line could begin as early as 2015 for a 2020 opening; daily ridership is expected to reach 69,000 by 2040, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The transportation funding law indexes the state’s current 23.5-cent-per-gallon fuel tax — which has not been increased since 1992 — to inflation but limits increases to 8 percent per year.

A sales tax of up to 5 percent also is added to the wholesale price of fuel, to be phased in throughout three years. If the federal Marketplace Fairness Act is adopted, the new sales tax would be limited to 3 percent.

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D), who has been an advocate for increased state funding for transportation, praised the new law after the bill-signing, saying that it would support thousands of jobs in Montgomery County by allowing projects to move forward. The new law is expected to support 57,200 jobs over the next six years, according to the O’Malley administration.

Photo courtesy of Dan Gross/The Gazette

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Friends Around Town

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Your Friends have been out in the community over the last month and we’re grateful to our partners for engaging us in these fascinating opportunities.  Dan Reed and I were both panelists during a Montgomery Housing Partnership breakfast focused on social media in community engagement.

Montgomery Housing Partnership’s mission is to expand and preserve affordable housing in Montgomery County – something that will become an issue in White Flint if the county truly wants to draw a younger demographic.  MHP doesn’t just advocate, they also walk the talk by “acquiring, rehabilitating, building and managing quality affordable housing.”

061113 white flint

Friends of White Flint was very proud to be part of Coalition for Smarter Growth’s Walking Tours and Forum Series.  ”White Flint: From Drag to Desirable” was the topic that kicked off this season of walking tours – and to a sold out crowd!  Nearly sixty people joined Stewart Schwartz of CSG, Nkosi Yearwood of the Planning Department, Tommy Mann from Federal Realty and me on a beautiful morning’s trek through the past, present and future of White Flint.

The tour was a great way to feel and see the differences between streets that solely car-focused, as opposed to those that consider all travelers.  Features like tree buffers, bike lanes, benches and trash cans equalize priorities among pedestrians, bikers and drivers.  Many of our main White Flint streets still have a long way to go in becoming truly walkable.

Friends of White Flint also hosted a Developer Showcase on April 30th in the Whole Foods Rockville café.  It was an opportunity for the community to browse new projects in White Flint’s future, and meet the people behind the ideas.   Paladar Latin Kitchen, Montgomery County Parks Department (Wall Park), LCOR (North Bethesda Center), Lerner Enterprises (White Flint Mall), and Federal Realty Investment Corp (Pike & Rose) were all available to chat, show their plans and share guacamole.  Friends of White Flint member Chevy Chase Land Company was also present with information about their plans for Chevy Chase Lake.

Over 100 visitors checked out the exciting plans for White Flint and appreciated seeing the images up close.  If you weren’t able to join us that rainy morning, let us know if you’d like us to host a similar event on an upcoming evening!

Finally, Friends of White Flint has begun a monthly presence at the Pike Central Farmers Market!  Find us among the food trucks and produce and learn more about your community while you browse!

And, wherever you see us – don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on the plans for White Flint.  We’re here to have a positive and consensus-building conversation.  Join in!

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Testimony before Martin Grossman, Director of the Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings in Opposition to Special Exception Request for S-2863, Costco Wholesale Corporation

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Dear Hearing Examiner Grossman:

Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Our non-profit organization works to ensure that transportation and development decisions in the Washington, D.C. region, including the Maryland suburbs, accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas.

We want to express our opposition to the Special Exception request for the Costco automobile filling station – a large scale gas station which will attract vehicle trips from outside the local area. We believe this proposal is wholly inconsistent with the 2012 Wheaton CBD and Vicinity Sector Plan, and antithetical to the goal of promoting transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly development within one half mile of a Metro station. The Wheaton Sector Plan area not only offers high quality Metrorail service, but also extensive bus service and a planned rapid transit service. This concentration of transit services will increase the share of trips made by transit, encourage more walking, and reduce how much people drive in the area.

As a regional organization, we advocate for well-designed transit- and pedestrian-oriented development which focuses more housing and commercial activities within an easy walk of Metro stations and other high quality transit services and historic downtowns. We seek to mitigate existing automobile-oriented uses in transit districts, and prohibit new ones. Reducing auto-oriented uses and their impacts are important to fostering a public realm and private development that better cater to pedestrians rather than prioritize the movement of motor vehicles. Uses such as gas stations, automobile repair services, drive thrus, and similar uses that attract motor vehicular traffic and encourage automobile-oriented designs such as additional driveways, wider driveways, surface parking, and curb cuts should be minimized, reduced, and in some cases, prohibited in transit districts like the Wheaton Sector Plan area. The proposed, a high volume gas station, is an unnecessary new auto-oriented use that would detract from the county’s and our efforts to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment around the Metro station.

The Plan specifically identifies the existing “auto-oriented uses” of the area as one of the key issues to be addressed through the implementation of the Sector Plan. The addition of a large scale gas station would compound the “auto-oriented uses” problem identified in the Sector Plan. We recognize that the site of the gas station is on the outer part of the mall property and Plan boundary. Yet we find the proposed use not a neutral use related to our goals to improve the pedestrian environment, but rather a use that actively degrades the pedestrian environment and works against Sector Plan goals. With such a large scale gas station, additional vehicle trips will be attracted to the transit district from outside the local area simply for the purpose of refueling vehicles with cheaper gasoline. This regional automobile service use  contradicts the Sector Plan’s and our goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Introduction of a new large scale gas station would directly oppose the Plan’s guidance to:

“Provide better pedestrian connectivity and support safe, secure, and appealing street level activity” (p. 25)

In an area like the Wheaton Sector Plan area, we have often found that the transition from auto-oriented land uses take time, but can be phased in to create more transit-oriented and pedestrian-friendly development. The Wheaton Sector Plan accommodates the existing auto-oriented regional mall surrounded by surface parking, but seeks to manage the negative impacts on pedestrians but proposing pedestrian access improvements, pedestrian-oriented street design changes, and encouragement of redevelopment to a more pedestrian-friendly design. Preventing new uses that would further degrade the transit district is also an important part of progressing towards a more pedestrian-friendly Wheaton Sector Plan and Metro station area. The large scale gas station would degrade the pedestrian environment by attracting additional automobile trips to the area and force more automobile-oriented designs for public rights-of-way to accommodate this auto-oriented use. Preventing this kind of use also promotes our overall goals to support greater use of transit, and build safe, walkable places, especially around major transit hubs.

For all of these reasons, the Coalition for Smarter Growth urges denial of the Special Exception application for the Costco automobile filling station.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Cort
Policy Director