November 30, 2 pm: Transportation Issues
December 7, 2 pm: Land Use Issues
December 10, 9:30 am: Land Use Issues; 1 pm, Financing; 2pm Land Use Issues
Read the staff reports and write letters! send emails! make phone calls!
The latest staff report, on Transportation Issues, by Glenn Orlin, Deputy Council Staff Director is out and available online at the County Council website. Tell the Council what you think about this proposed plan.
Here are some quotes from Mr. Orlin’s staff report:
“Incorporating a new or expanded transportation project in a master plan does not even guarantee it will be built in the long term.”
Instead, Mr. Orlin states that ‘A plan in balance does not mean the traffic conditions at build-out will be deemed ‘good’ or even ‘fair’ more likely the traffic congestion will be at the borderline between ‘tolerable’ and ‘intolerable.’
To achieve even this state of congestion, the non-auto-driver mode share for employees in White Flint would have to increase to 50 percent. According to the staff report,
“…so this would mean the proportion of commuters to White Flint not driving would have to nearly double.”
How could it reach 50%? Mr. Orlin proposes the following possibilities:
- Congestion pricing
- Removing the median on Montrose Road between I-1270 and Montrose Parkway and replacing it with a reversible lane, as is done on Colesville Road or Georgia Avenue...and "a reversible lane would mean introducing overhead lane indicators such as those over Georgia Avenue in Montgomery Hills and over Colesville Road north of Silver Spring, and could mean peak-period left-turn prohibitions at Tildenwood Drive and at Hitching Post Lane/Farm Haven Drive."
Widening Rockville Pike from 6 to 8 lanes between Edson Lane and the Beltway
That is what the Planning Board and Mr. Orlin envision for the existing White Flint/North Bethesda communities. The roads should look more like the roads that represent some of the most congested areas in the region.
If you can’t wait for this traffic disaster to come your way, just sit tight and it will. IF you don’t quite see this ‘vision’ for our neighborhoods, or for our county, please email the County Council immediately. Tell them you don’t want the ‘intolerable’ traffic that the Council staff says will happen. Tell them you don’t think the FAR is in balance with the infrastructure. Tell them you want the density decreased so our infrastructure can support it and tell them not to approve unachievable density plans. This is not sustainable.
The members of the PHED committee are Mike Knapp, Nancy Floreen, and Marc Elrich.
To contact the council email county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov; to read Mr. Orlin’s report, go to http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2009/091130/20091130_PHED2.pdf
Read the report! Is this what you want?
