Northwood News ♦ February 2014

Bus Rapid Transit:  Well-Intentioned Policy Meets Financial Self-Interests; Fantasy Thinking Results

By Jim Zepp

In the rush to promote the BRT on Colesville Road, the MNCPPC staff have recently recommended making this one of the County’s top priorities for available transportation construction funds, even though no design/engineering studies have been done and location of the BRT stations have been specifically avoided in previous discussions.

Nevertheless, the BRT advocates are apparently unhappy with the structurally unsound and unuseable Silver Spring Transit Center and so want to add the Colesville BRT to the County’s collection of boondoogles costing residents millions of dollars, while ignoring genuine funding needs and wise decision-making processes.

Bus Rapid Transit on Colesville Road and University Boulevard

On 26 November 2013, the County Council voted to adopt the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan (BRT Master Plan).  The Plan amends the Countywide Master Plan of Highways to potentially have dedicated Bus Rapid Transit along eight corridors, including Colesville Road and University Boulevard.  The adoption of the Plan means the County will go forward with more-detailed studies that will look at the potential impacts for each route.  They will consider where the stations might be located, how much land would need to be acquired, and what the impacts would be to surrounding neighborhoods, traffic circulation, and pedestrian safety.

The next steps will involve requests to the Council for funds for these additional studies.  The Council agreed during its final deliberations that a Citizens’ Advisory Committee will be established for each route.  At the last minute, Council Staff made the following changes to the Plan with new recommendations to be studied for our area:

• Colesville Road between 16th Street and Lockwood Drive:  Dedicated lane for BRT (previously recommended buses in mixed traffic between Sligo Creek and Southwood Avenue).  This would either be in the existing curb lane or in the median area with median removed and stations in the median.  Please note that the entire ¼-mile length of Lockwood is only two lanes wide.
  A rapid busway in the median which would have raised guideways would prevent left turns into and out of the neighborhoods except at signalized intersections.  Access to the neighborhood and the Woodmoor Shopping Center from southbound Colesville Road would be restricted and would require trips around the jughandle.

• University Boulevard from New Hampshire Avenue to Williamsburg Drive:  A two-way busway in one dedicated lane in the median area.  The buses would pass each other at varying intervals.  This treatment would require road widening.  This segment was previously recommended for mixed traffic treatment.

• University between Williamsburg Drive and Lorain Avenue:  Mixed traffic on University Boulevard between Lorain Avenue and Veirs Mill Road (two-way, one-lane median busway with passing at intervals).  This will set up a situation similar to when the Metro is single tracking trains for the promised rapid transit of BRT vehicles.

The County Executive stated that his priorities for BRT treatment are on Route 29 and Route 355 (because of pending mega developments in White Oak and White Flint), not the five routes previously approved through public participation processes in area master plans years ago.  The Plan has the potential to significantly alter the Four Corners neighborhood which has had services and amenities within walking distance for many decades.  The Planning Board’s recommendations are available at:  www.montgomeryplanning.org/ transportation/highways/brt.shtm.   ■