The Elrich Plan, Part Two

Steady population and employment growth. Rising CO2 emissions. Limited transportation funding. Different locations of jobs and housing. Congested Central Business Districts. And expensive costs for rail. How do you deal with all of these problems over the long-term?

First, let’s recognize the opposition of many Montgomery County residents to “overdevelopment,” a potent issue in the 2006 elections. Much of the opposition to development is really opposition to traffic. No one in the county believes that our transportation network is adequate to handle the current needs to move people. And the county is growing faster than its infrastructure. If there was a way to facilitate population or employment growth without additional traffic, a lot of the opposition to development would fade.

Smart-growth proponents agree and are pushing for new development to be located near Metro stations. But there are limits to this strategy. First, the Metro system is primarily a north-south network designed in the 1970s to channel commuter traffic bound for the District. Locating developments on top of Metro stations leaves open a substantial possibility for increasing east-west traffic, as well as Virginia-bound traffic. Second, redesign proposals such as the ideas under consideration for Rockville Pike address traffic management for new communities. Even if no additional developments are constructed, the traffic conditions for existing communities are intolerable. And third, Montgomery County – home to nearly a million people and over a half-million jobs – is too big for a comprehensive redesign. Traffic relief must be designed for how the county currently functions. Traffic relief gained through redesigning stretches of the county over the next fifty years is unlikely to be valued by citizens who desire improvements in their lifetimes.

Increased transit availability is the only way to allow more development without creating excessive traffic and more carbon dioxide emissions. In densely urbanized areas, rail is a worthwhile option despite its expense. But Montgomery County is not universally dense. In many parts of the county, projected riderships would not justify expenses of $75-102 million per mile (as with rail on the Purple Line). The county has a bus network but that has proven inadequate to deal with its transportation issues by itself. That is why County Council Member Marc Elrich would rely on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Conventional wisdom holds that people prefer to ride trains over buses. Why?

1. Trains run faster than buses.
2. Trains are serviced by stations while bus riders must wait at inadequate stops.
3. Trains appear more frequently than buses.
4. As a result of irregular frequency, buses are often crowded.

BRT attempts to address the shortcomings of buses by simulating the positive attributes of trains. BRT routes often feature dedicated lanes for buses and even tunnels or bridges. They sometimes prioritize buses at traffic lights, allowing a light to remain green when a bus approaches when it would otherwise turn red. BRT buses can operate out of small stations that are a decided improvement over the small, pitiful shelters (or even simple poles) that accompany regular bus stops. Unlike rail, BRT buses can enter residential neighborhoods and use local street networks before entering dedicated lanes on main roads. By operating partially on existing traffic lanes, BRT routes demand much less right-of-way acquisition than rail routes. And because BRT is cheaper than rail, it can be more cost-effective in lower-density communities such as the ones found in Montgomery away from the Beltway. By combining the lower costs and greater flexibility of buses with higher performance approaching (but perhaps not equaling) the levels of rail, BRT is a realistic alternative for expanding the county’s transportation network far from its existing Metro stations.

Where would Elrich locate his BRT routes? We’ll find out in Part Three.