Regular readers of this site know that Metro is developing a Strategic Plan, Momentum, which makes the case for additional major capital investments we’ll need to accommodate the region’s growth by 2025. For those of you unfamiliar with the details of Momentum, one of the driving factors behind many of the initiatives is the need for improved core capacity to boost Metro’s ability to carry more riders in the system’s core.
BART System
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On January 17th and 18th, two staffers from Metro’s Office of Planning attended a two day transit network design course, offered by long time transit planning consultant, transit blogger and now author, Jarrett Walker. In transit planning circles, Walker’s recent efforts, culminating with “Human Transit,” have been very well regarded. For many planners, his book has been a breath of fresh air in helping to demystify how complex transit offerings can be made more simple, customer focused, effective, and useful for everyday city life. Many planners have an appreciation of the attention he has given to linguistics, and how word choice (i.e., the use of “transfer” vs. “connection” or “transit route” vs. “transit line”) can subtly reinforce or undermine certain collective beliefs about the usefulness of transit, or anything else for that matter.
The participants in the DC course were fairly diverse, although all of those in attendance had a vested interest in transit in some way. Among these were urban planners, consultants, advocates, and transit planners, among others. Care was taken to ensure that each working group had a included at least one transit professional mixed with other disciplines and backgrounds in order to facilitate a balanced discussion. Read more…
While Montgomery County’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan moves forward through the master plan update process, the county has prioritized some of these corridors for more detailed study. One of these is the Veirs Mill Road corridor, generally stretching between the Rockville and Wheaton Metrorail Stations. Managing the effort on behalf of the county is the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) through the State Highway Administration (SHA) and the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA). SHA, MTA, and Montgomery County hosted an open house in May to introduce the study to local residents and solicit feedback on some of the issues present along the corridor. You can view the study’s webpage for more information, where you can access the May 2012 Open House material.
Strategic Importance
Why is the county advancing the study of this corridor? One reason is apparent with a quick look at the area’s geography and relationship to major transportation corridors.
Veirs Mill Road (highlighted in black) in context
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Countywide Master Plan Transit Corridors.(Click for larger size.)
While Metro works to bring the transit system back up to a state of good repair as well as looking to the future of Metro, we continue to work with our jurisdictional partners on various transit studies and projects to expand the region’s transit system. In Montgomery County, since 2008 much of the transit expansion planning has focused on developing a countywide Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, most recently through the recommendations of the county’s Transit Task Force earlier this year.
Seeking to take another step towards defining the county’s transit future, the Montgomery County Planning Department is holding a series of public meetings in the coming days to hear from the public on an update of the county’s master plan to consider how BRT might be incorporated within the transportation corridors under study. Above is a map of the proposed corridors under review.
You can find Montgomery County planning staff’s recommendations online (22MB pdf).
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