Marc Elrich's Rapid Transit Update

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

I wanted you to be aware of progress on my proposal for a countywide Bus Rapid Transit system. I will be part of a Transit Task Force, appointed by County Executive Ike Leggett, tasked with the mission of making a countywide transit system a reality. The Task Force will look at implementation and financing issues for a countywide system.

The significance of this newly-appointed Task Force is that we will go beyond studying traffic and transportation problems in our County. We already know there is a problem. We know that we sit in traffic too long and that we need better transit to travel around the County. This task force is designed to help solve the problem.

As you may know, for the past four years, I have been exploring the idea of a countywide rapid transit system to address our congested roads and reduce pollution. After numerous conversations with transportation and planning experts, visits to similar systems and reviewing countless pages of transportation manuals, I developed a proposal for a 120-mile system that would take people from where they live to where they work, study and play. My proposal is currently being studied by county transportation planners and outside consultants and that report should be due out in the coming months.

The transit vehicles would travel in their own dedicated guideways in existing right-of-way; this means that the transit vehicles will not be stuck in traffic. Transit that uses guideways is relatively inexpensive to build. Additionally, the guideways use minimal paving because the center areas of the guideways can be grass and used to handle stormwater.

This proposal is a win-win-win for residents, environmentalists and developers. It’s the only solution that allows our County to grow in a sustainable way: it provides reliable and efficient public transportation that will convince people to leave their cars at home, thereby reducing air pollution, and it allows reasonable development near established neighborhoods without flooding the surrounding communities in traffic.

This BRT system has been recognized as a critical transit solution by the Montgomery County Planning Board and by the County Council in their recent letters regarding state transportation priorities for our county.

I thank the County Executive for recognizing the need to move this proposal forward via this Task Force. I look forward to working with the members of the Task Force and residents of this County on this important issue. My staff and I are always willing to come to your civic organization or other group to further discuss this proposal with you. Please contact us via e-mail, councilmember.elrich@montgomerycountymd.gov or phone 240-777-7966, to schedule a time to meet or for additional information. You may also visit my website for more information about this proposal.

Sincerely,

Marc Elrich
Councilmember At-Large

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Rapid Buses Arrive in NYC

The New York Times has the story on how the Big Apple is going green fast with this aggressive expansion of public transit that is already going while the 2nd Ave. subway line construction is just getting started. Why is New York going with rapid bus which Marc Elrich has been promoting for Montgomery County?

Cost:

But it's the cost advantage that really hits home.

Officials estimate that modern metropolitan areas spend on average $1 billion per mile to build a new subway line. A full-blown, Bogota-style bus rapid transit system is estimated to be roughly a thousand times cheaper -- just $1 million per mile.

Experience:

The buses themselves resemble light-rail trains, and they move in their own lanes. Federal grants are helping to pay for the improvements, even after MTA budget woes forced the agency to cut dozens of regular bus routes early last year.

Speed:

"It's a lot faster," said Daniel Hernandez, a Brooklyn resident who rides the bus to work daily in Midtown Manhattan. "The best part is you can board through the back door. That speeds things up a lot."

Indeed, northbound traveling from the South Street Seaport to 42nd Street took a reporter less than 20 minutes to travel more than 50 blocks, a time comparable to a trip on a subway train that stops at every station. Southbound from Harlem, the trip gets disrupted by the 2nd Avenue subway construction but can still cover 125th Street to the Chrysler Building in about the same amount of time.

Popularity:

New York's testing of bus rapid transit began in 2008 in the Bronx, where DOT and MTA jointly implemented a system for the Bx12 bus along Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway.

The east-west route has since become one of New York's most heavily used. The Straphangers Campaign, a division of the nonprofit New York Public Interest Research Group that advocates for public transit riders, surveyed the route this summer and found that it now runs 25 percent faster than the old express service.

"It has really, really done a great job for east-west commutes in the Bronx," said Cate Contino, a campaign coordinator. "Ridership on that has skyrocketed. It's now in like the top five or 10 for the city."

Can Easily Expand the System:

Expansion of "bus rapid transit light" throughout New York City is now under way.

DOT plans to roll out a new line in Brooklyn, along the B44 route from Sheepshead Bay to Williamsburg.

Up next is likely a line along 34th Street in Manhattan that would cross the island east to west along that notoriously difficult thoroughfare. The city has considered plans to cut the middle portion off to passenger vehicles entirely to speed up the route for buses. Now Contino says there's talk that the entire route could become the first full-blown bus rapid transit route, with all curbside parking eliminated in favor of buses and stations.

Even Staten Island will likely be included. In that borough, DOT is already experimenting with technology that allows regular bus drivers to order a red light to turn green as it approaches, speeding up travel times to the Staten Island Ferry port. Officials are considering expanding this "signal prioritization technology" to the SBS routes in Manhattan and the Bronx and to any new routes added later.

Officials are also eying Queens for opportunities there. A recent DOT study of the feasibility of spreading bus rapid transit throughout the city concluded that the five boroughs could all benefit from such systems in at least eight to 10 heavily congested traffic corridors in each borough.

That suggests up to 50 new lines could be added to the nascent system in the years to come. Both the Pratt Center and Straphangers Campaign say their experience with the two lines put in so far tells them this is a good way for the city to go. DOT reports suggest the city is already moving forward on 16 of the most promising routes.

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Lessons from a South American Bus Rapid Transit System

(Or, What I Did on my Winter Vacation)
By Council Member George Leventhal.

Councilmember George Leventhal enters a bi-articulated express bus in Curitiba.

Curitiba, a city of 1.8 million people, is the capital of the state of Paraná in Brazil. In late December, I visited Curitiba at my own expense and was briefed on its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, one of the world’s first and most highly-regarded. Because Montgomery County is studying BRT as an option for its residents, I wanted to find out how it is working in other communities. I found many positive aspects and some less positive.

My sincere thanks to Silvia Mara Dos Santos Ramos of URBS (Urbanizacao de Curitiba, S/A), the city’s transit agency, and André Vinicius Marchezetti of transportation consulting firm Logitrans, who were the guides for my visit. Officials at EMBARQ, a project of the World Resources Institute, and its Brazilian Center for Sustainable Transport were also extremely helpful in helping me make contact with the guides in Curitiba.

Positive Aspects of the System

Curitiba’s system is respected around the world and has inspired other BRT systems in Latin American cities including Bogota, Mexico City and Guatemala City, as well as U.S. cities including Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles. Click here to see a good overview of the system in Portuguese, but with easy-to-understand graphics. Click here to see a map of bus routes.

The genius of the city’s plan is that on primary streets, the center two lanes of traffic have been reserved for buses. This enables the buses to avoid automobile traffic and move smoothly, with minimal interruption. “Tube” stations are placed every 500 meters along primary routes. A city law states that no resident may live more than 500 meters from a bus stop, so the primary and collector routes cover the entire residential area.

Inside a tube station.

On the main bus line, the 351 tube stations are sleek and modern. Passengers pay when they enter the station, avoiding a delay when entering the bus. The buses are long, with several doors allowing passengers to enter and the bus doors correspond with several doors at each station, enabling speedy entrance to and egress from the buses. Buses on primary express routes are “bi-articulated,” containing three cars with accordion-style dividers that enable them to navigate tight turns quickly and efficiently.

This video demonstrates a biarticulated bus navigating a tight turn.

Within the stations, bus stops are identified with a clear map similar to the Metro route map. A tourist like myself can easily navigate most of the city by following the bus route on a map. Unfortunately, because the buses are used on multiple routes and because the bus network covers so much territory, complete routes are not shown inside every bus.

A single fare of R$2.20 Brazilian Reals (U.S. $1.22) enables a rider to take a single bus as far as it travels, even from Curitiba’s furthest suburbs into the city center. Fare revenue accounts for 100 percent of Curitiba’s operating budget. (Its capital budget – the cost of building the system – came from international investment including the World Bank and French Development Agency.)

Property values adjacent to the bus line have shown consistent increases when new express routes are constructed, increasing tax revenues to local governments. Buses utilize 20% Biodiesel to minimize emissions of carbon and other pollutants.

Less Positive Aspects of the System

My son Daniel Leventhal rides the bus.

Because the current system dates to 1974, the 29 primary bus terminals that facilitate transfers between collector and primary bus routes are aging. The two I visited were not especially attractive, and abundantly covered with graffiti.

Ms. Dos Santos told me that “the rich do not use the system much.” Those who have access to the comfort and privacy of their automobiles opt out of using the BRT system. In general, I did not find the BRT experience comparable to fixed-rail systems in terms of comfort. Curitiba does not have a Metro rail system, although there are plans to construct a rail line in time for the 2014 World Cup.

Lessons for Montgomery County, Maryland

Taken from inside an express bus, this photo shows the division of the BRT lanes from automobile lanes.

According to Ms. Dos Santos, the rate of automobile ownership in Curitiba is 22%, while transit usage is 40% and the balance of commuters travel by motorcycle or motor scooter, or walk. This helps to explain why ridership of the BRT system is so high and why farebox revenues cover operating costs.

By contrast, in Montgomery County, 66% of workers drive to work alone while only 14.9% commute by rail or bus, according to the 2008 American Community Survey.

Another important difference is the price of gasoline, which is substantially more expensive in Brazil (R$2.49 Brazilian Reals per liter, or approximately U.S. $5.20 per gallon, while I was there) than in the U.S., making automobile travel substantially less affordable for working Brazilians.

The critical question is whether increased frequency, speed and convenience would persuade enough Montgomery County residents to ride the bus to make the system financially sustainable. Even in Curitiba, where per capita income was R$17,977 Brazilian Reals (U.S. $10,005) in 2006, upscale people do not ride the bus – and there are far more upscale people in Montgomery County, where per capita income is U.S. $35,684.

The county’s current Ride-On bus system generates only approximately 15% of its revenue from fares, with the remainder subsidized from general tax revenues. The current budget crisis has highlighted the Ride-On system’s significant expense to taxpayers, although the County Council has so far resisted cuts in Ride-On service proposed by the County Executive. How much more can we afford to expand the bus system even if the current 85% subsidy from all taxpayers decreased to a subsidy of 80%, 75% or lower?

Also relevant is that the county’s bus storage and maintenance facility is at its absolute limit of available space, and a new storage and maintenance facility proposed for Clarksburg has been delayed because of concerns over runoff into Ten Mile Creek, so there is currently no place to store additional buses in the county.

An express bus departs from tube stations.

Curitiba has a long history of transit service, dating back to horse-drawn trolleys in 1887. Planning for 20 primary express bus routes began in 1966 and the system opened in 1974. For more than 35 years, primary roads have been designed to accommodate the BRT system. Municipalities in the Curitiba region served by URBS delegate management of the transit system to URBS, whose board members are appointed by the Mayor of Curitiba.

In Montgomery County, however, major roads would need to be redesigned to accomodate bus rapid transit. The state of Maryland’s recent reconstruction of Route 29 represented a critical missed opportunity to develop express bus lanes in the middle.

Our county’s primary roads (Route 29, New Hampshire Avenue, Georgia Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, Routes 28 & 198, Veirs Mill Road, University Boulevard, Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike, and I-270) are owned, designed and maintained by the State Highway Administration. Close coordination between the county, the state and possibly the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) would be necessary to accomplish the BRT vision. Ridership will be a very important criterion for winning federal funding – and ridership is the key question regarding whether the system can succeed here.

Accommodating through automobile traffic on primary roads will be another key issue. Because the buses travel on a dedicated route, automobiles may not cross primary streets at every intersection. In Montgomery County, this will affect many neighborhood streets whose residents are accustomed to being able to cross major streets or make left and right turns to exit their neighborhoods – all of which could be restricted with rapid bus routes down the center of major streets.

My visit to Curitiba was a great experience and there is no question that I would love to see similar technology employed in Montgomery County. In the near term, I will advocate for BRT on Veirs Mill Road, which along with University Boulevard has just received a federal grant for bus transit improvements, and Georgia Avenue. I am also optimistic about prospects for BRT on the Inter County Connector and the proposal for BRT on Rockville Pike contained in the White Flint Sector Plan, now pending before the County Council.

On the other hand, my visit to Curitiba did not persuade me that BRT compares favorably to fixed-rail systems as an effective inducement for riders to leave their automobiles at home. I will continue to advocate strongly for light rail on the Purple Line and, while I understand that cost factors may ultimately persuade Governor O’Malley to select BRT for the Corridor Cities Transitway, my preference remains light rail for that system as well.

George Leventhal is an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council. He serves on the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee.

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Bus Rapid Transit in Cleveland

During a recent trip to Cleveland, your author rode on the city’s new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line. The experience leads us to conclude that BRT is vastly superior to normal bus service and should receive serious consideration in the Washington area.


The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) operates a system including rail, bus and trolley options. In 1997, RTA began work with the City of Cleveland on the “Euclid Corridor Transportation Project,” which called for BRT on one of the city’s main arterials. Euclid Avenue connects downtown’s iconic Public Square to East Cleveland, including Little Italy, the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University. RTA and the city made transportation and development on this corridor one of their priorities. RTA received a federal funding agreement and broke ground on the $168 million project in 2004. Service began on the 6.8 mile route, now known as the “Healthline,” in October 2008.


A downtown BRT station.

Your author boarded a Healthline bus at Public Square. The stations are larger than conventional bus stations but much smaller than WMATA Metro stations. They consist of covered areas that include metal benches and fare machines. While passengers can pay one-trip fares inside the bus, they can also buy one-trip, all-day, five-day or month-long tickets at the fare machines. An all-day ticket costs five dollars. Passengers do not have to pay to board the bus, but roving transit police sometimes appear to check for tickets. The stations are open at either end to let wind come through and the benches are short, both of which are intended to deter homeless people from sleeping in them.


A view from the middle of the bus facing the driver’s seat.

The buses are as large as the biggest WMATA buses. They have accordion joints in the center to aid in turning and have skirts on the center and back wheels to dampen noise. The interiors are roomy and have plenty of space for wheelchairs, bicycles and strollers. The buses are equipped with small metal wheels that protrude outward from their bottoms. As the driver approaches a station, the wheels make a grinding noise against the high curbs on the platforms. That noise enables the driver to pull up to the platform so that the distance between the bus doors and the platform is just two or three inches. The bus floor and the platform are at nearly equal height, facilitating ease of entry. The bus has a clanging bell that is reminiscent of a train. RTA claims that the buses use hybrid technology that promote lower particulate emissions and better fuel economy.


The bus door-platform gap is minimal.

The truly distinctive characteristic of the BRT system is not the bus design, but the street design. Your author saw Euclid Avenue under construction in early 2008. Much of it was destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. That part of the avenue that functions as a BRT line has four lanes: two in the center that are dedicated to buses, and two on the outside dedicated to cars. At many intersections, a left-turn lane for cars is added between the bus lane and the outer car lane. Cars attempting left turns cannot make them on a green light; they must wait until they receive a green arrow. Your author saw one car violate that rule and make a left in front of an oncoming bus moving in the same direction. A bus driver verified that car drivers sometimes continued to make that mistake even though the line has been in operation for over a year.


Two bus lanes in the center with a car lane on each outer edge. The station here is placed in an offset median.

Stations were located in the medians. In downtown, one station in a common median served buses headed in both directions. Outside of downtown, the streets often had multiple medians containing stations serving buses headed in only one direction. The buses had their own traffic signals that had a dramatically different appearance from conventional signals to avoid confusing cars. The bus signals had three lights, all in white: a horizontal bar on top indicating stop, a triangle in the center indicating slow, and a vertical bar on the bottom indicating go. A driver said that the signals were prioritized so that if a bus approached an intersection and the bus signal was about to turn to stop, it would remain go a few moments longer.


Buses use their own lanes and never have to wait behind a line of cars at traffic lights.

About 70% of the way out of Downtown, the street design reverted to normal: no dedicated bus lanes and stations on the outer curbs. The BRT buses operated as normal buses through the end of the route.


BIG buses!

The BRT buses had a speed advantage over conventional buses derived from four factors. First, the fare machines helped passengers board the bus quickly and prevented lines. Second, the dedicated lanes prevented the buses from waiting behind queues of traffic. Third, signal prioritization helped. And fourth, the buses operated in express mode. Passengers could only enter and exit at stations. One passenger said that the new line could travel from Downtown to Case Western in about half the time taken by conventional buses.


Note the four traffic lights at this intersection. The two on the right are for cars. The light on the left is for buses only. The horizontal white line at the top of the bus signal means stop. The remaining light on the second-from-left is for cars making left turns.

The primary difficulty in the system is its network of fare machines. Several passengers complained to your author about the difficulty of using them and a driver said that she heard constant complaints about them. One passenger paid on the bus after telling the driver that the machine ate a dollar. Neither the buses nor the fare machines use Smart Card technology. If they did, it would be difficult for the transit police to verify payment. The driver told us, “If you use these buses in D.C., make the fare machines easier to use.” Finally, the driver indicated that street crime was an issue when passengers used the machines in the stations at night. The BRT line operates 24 hours a day.


For all the criticism of these fare machines, they do prevent lines to enter the buses.

Overall, the Healthline bore a significant similarity to the recently-constructed light rail lines in Phoenix and Houston, both of which your author has used in recent years. All three lines use dedicated lanes at street level. All use fare machines. The light rail stations were slightly larger than the Healthline’s stations, but all were much smaller than WMATA stations. The interiors of the Healthline buses and the light rail cars had similar widths and passenger room, although the trains were longer. All three systems moved at similar speeds in the urban core, but the rail lines probably went faster on suburban straight-aways. Overall, the experience of the three systems had more in common than not.


The special BRT traffic signal can be seen at the top of the picture just to the left of the Bus Only sign.

The Healthline’s final capital cost was $197 million or $29.0 million per mile of reconstructed street, significantly less than the per-mile cost of many light rail lines. Its name stems from the fact that the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals paid $6.25 million over 25 years for the naming rights. The BRT line has enjoyed a 47% ridership increase over the conventional bus line that preceded it, which was itself the most-used line in RTA’s system. That matches big ridership increases on newly-constructed BRT routes in New York City, Vancouver and Eugene, Oregon. Those who believe that BRT cannot support development will find little ammunition for their argument in Cleveland, which is seeing more than $3 billion in investment executed or planned near the Healthline’s route. The massive and expensive street reconstruction associated with a true BRT system guarantees the line will not be uprooted, moved or discontinued.


One of the many projects along the Healthline’s alignment.

The City of Cleveland and the State of Ohio have been hit much harder by the recession than Montgomery County and the State of Maryland. Yet, they have constructed a showcase BRT line that is stimulating badly-needed economic growth.

If they can do it, why can’t we?

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MDOT Goes Schizo on Gaithersburg West

So would the Planning Board’s proposed Gaithersburg West Master Plan be a bad idea because it would gridlock local roads and require vast sums of money to redo intersections? Or would it be a good idea because it would make a light-rail CCT cost effective? According to the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), the answer is both.

In September, we reported that two MDOT subsidiaries, the State Highway Administration (SHA) and the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), wrote a letter of concern to the County Council about the Gaithersburg West plan. In language expressed in an unusually strong dialect of bureaucratese, the agencies objected to the $1.3 billion cost of rebuilding interchanges that would be necessitated by the plan. They also stated their belief that the plan’s reliance on commercial space over housing would draw in commuters from other areas, thereby increasing the strain on the regional transportation network. The implication of these arguments is that the plan’s density, currently proposed at 20 million square feet of commercial space, should be reduced.

However, there may be a positive impact of the plan’s density: it could help build the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) as light rail. In July, we reported that Gaithersburg’s current density level generated ridership that would make bus rapid transit (BRT), but not light rail, competitive under federal cost effectiveness criteria. But in a new letter that we reproduce below, MTA believes that if the CCT were re-aligned through the bulked-up Science City proposed by the Gaithersburg West plan, it would gain a 15-40% boost in ridership. Since capital costs would only go up by 11-16%, the CCT might now be viable as rail. The Gazette reported that MTA’s CCT project manager told the council that the new alignment through the dense area of the plan would have a cost effectiveness range of $18-19 per hour of user benefit, which is superior to light rail on the Purple Line. But the density proposed by the Gaithersburg West plan is required to make these numbers work.



This poses an interesting question to the County Council, which will soon decide on the density to be allowed in the Gaithersburg West plan. On the one hand, almost everyone prefers rail to BRT. The County Executive, the business community, many state legislators and Action Committee for Transit are all on the record for rail. And even though the council’s Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment (T&E) Committee recommended BRT, it reserved the right to change its mind if higher densities permitted the feasibility of rail. The county’s pro-rail mindset does not apply to the CCT alone, but reflects a general sense that BRT cannot handle long-run high ridership capacities and is a “second-class” option compared to trains.

But there is also intense resistance to both the scale and the form of the Gaithersburg West plan from the civic and smart growth communities. The former will fight endlessly against a “city” in their midst while the latter has not yet acknowledged the tradeoff between density and transit mode.

How will this play out at the County Council? Let’s remember that Council Members are not planners. They are unlikely to whip out spreadsheets and plat maps and rewrite the Gaithersburg West plan wholesale. But they will adjust the density levels. The current allowable density in the plan is 20 million square feet of commercial space. The County Executive would like to see 18 million. Some on the council would like to go lower. In these sorts of situations, the natural inclination of politicians is to pick a number that everyone can live with.

But this is not a conventional split-the-difference issue. The problem is that MDOT’s schizophrenic messages reflect the actual facts on the ground. The Gaithersburg West plan would require huge infrastructure costs and it would enable a light-rail CCT. Density reductions would lower costs but might also result in BRT. Council President Phil Andrews, who represents Gaithersburg, sees this tradeoff clearly. Andrews told the Gazette, “I don’t think that light rail can be the tail that wags the dog, or is the Holy Grail here, either. It’s not the end goal. The end goal is to build a better community for everybody and to figure out what that balance is." For Andrews, that means cutting density no matter what the consequences for transit mode.

How will the rest of the council see this? We’ll find out soon enough.

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Why CCT Supporters Should Give BRT a Chance

Some backers of the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) may be disappointed by a recommendation from the Planning Department staff that the project be constructed as bus-rapid transit (BRT). But CCT supporters should give BRT a chance for one simple reason: it may be the only way to make the project competitive for federal funding.

In order to be built, the CCT must qualify for funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which shares the cost of transit projects with applicant states. FTA gives proposed transit projects overall ratings of high, medium-high, medium, medium-low and low, with only projects receiving a medium or better rating considered for funding. The overall rating is the average of two sub-ratings: project justification and financial commitment, with each being ranked using the above five scores. Project justification is in turn an average of five component ratings on mobility improvements, environmental benefits, operating efficiencies, cost effectiveness and land use. If a project scores low on any of these categories, it must make it up with higher scores in one or more of the others. Any project with an overall score of medium-low or low will not be financed.


FTA makes the ultimate decision on each of the above ratings. But one of these ratings is already known for the CCT as well as the Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line: cost effectiveness. FTA defines cost effectiveness this way:

In its evaluation of the cost effectiveness of a proposed project, FTA considers the incremental cost per hour of transportation system user benefits in the forecast year. Transportation system user benefits reflect the improvements in regional mobility - as measured by the weighted in- and out-of-vehicle changes in travel-time to users of the regional transit system – caused by the implementation of the proposed New Starts project. The cost effectiveness measure is calculated by (a) estimating the incremental “base-year” annualized capital and operating costs of the project (over a lower cost “baseline” of transit service), and then (b) dividing these costs by the projected user benefits. The result of this calculation is a measure of project cost per hour of projected user (i.e. travel-time) benefits expected to be achieved if the project is added to the regional transit system. Proposed projects with a lower cost per hour of projected travel-time benefits are evaluated as more cost effective than those with a higher cost per hour of projected travel-time benefits.

Here is how different levels of cost effectiveness are associated with ratings:


The goal of any transit project should be to have a cost per hour of user benefit of $23.99 or lower, with the lower the better. Projects with higher costs per hour must get rankings of medium-high or high in one or more of the other categories to have a shot at an overall medium ranking, without which federal money will not be available.

The CCT will be competing with the Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line for funding. Few people believe that FTA will fund more than one of these projects at the same time. Few believe that Maryland can afford to pay its share of the cost for more than one of these projects at a time. (Some believe the state may not be able to afford any of them!) Each of these projects has several options for construction. Some options use BRT while others use rail. Some options use more tunneling than others. Some have different alignments than the others. But every option has a cost effectiveness estimate. Here’s how all of these options compare for the CCT, Purple Line and Red Line.


The only option to receive a medium-high cost effectiveness rating is surface BRT on the Purple Line using the Capital Crescent Trail. No one is particularly enthusiastic about that proposal. Of the eight medium cost effectiveness ratings, two are for BRT on the Purple Line, two are for rail on the Purple Line, one is for dedicated surface BRT on the Red Line, one is for dedicated surface rail on the Red Line and two are for BRT on the CCT. The two rail options for the CCT, as well as all the tunnel options for the Red Line, fall into the “low cost effectiveness” rating because they cost more than $30 per hour of user benefit. The Purple Line’s rail options generally do better than rail options for the other two projects because 1. population density on its route is greater than on the CCT, and 2. the cost of tunneling through Downtown Baltimore is very expensive. If the state chooses rail for the CCT or tunneling for the Red Line, those projects must be rated medium-high or high in one or more of the other categories to have a chance at federal funding.

Cost effectiveness is not everything. But it’s worth remembering that FTA initially rejected Virginia’s Dulles Metrorail extension in part because its cost effectiveness exceeded $31 per hour of user benefit - a low rating that is comparable to the cost of the CCT rail options. So if CCT supporters really want to see their project get built, BRT will give them their best chance of success.

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Maryland and Obama’s Stimulus Package

By Sharon Dooley.

The message posted by Adam from the Obama Saturday message could hold great promise for Montgomery County’s transportation dilemma.

The recent series about Council member Marc Elrich’s bus rapid transit (BRT) proposals and options for the Purple Line transit mentions the costs and problems in trying to pull all of this together. But a drive through the down county shows the discussion is passionate and divisive as signs are popping up like winter cabbages throughout the area. Along Jones Bridge Road one sees signs stating “No BRT on Jones Bridge”, while further east one sees signs about no routing along Wayne Avenue. Additionally “Save the trail” and “Purple line now” signs continue to proliferate and add to the visual pollution of opinions. Routes have been proposed for light rail along the Capital Crescent Trail and bus rapid transit along Jones Bridge or even along the beltway, among others.

In this down-county route, options have been discussed about underground, above ground, and almost every thing except a monorail. Alternatives are proposed for the east and west terminal stations. There are great commercial gambles in attempting to guess which route will prevail and just who will be the final owners of which critical – and potentially quite profitable - properties along the chosen routes. Business concerns are said to be funding some of the activists on each side. Preservationists and environmentalists are finding some areas of concert and others of confusion. No one person is seemingly positioned to be the “decider” here, and maybe that is a good thing. There appears to be enough that is both positive and negative about many of these suggestions that dilution of the ultimate decision-making by a committee of some sort may well provide excellent political cover when and if a route is chosen.

However, in the middle of this debate about one section of the county is the fact that we have an entire county that is approaching gridlock in multiple areas as has been discussed in the previous series. (This is not the place to address the problem potentials of BRAC.) Companies who complain about delayed deliveries, or have to change routes due to construction or congestion frequently describe the cost to businesses. But the one question that is too important to be overlooked is how we, as an increasingly urban county, can provide adequate transportation to the approximately one million people who live here NOW? It appears abundantly clear that we must construct transit of some type to provide an east-west conduit for those who work within the county. It is also obvious that the orientation of the Metro, planned as it was in the 1950’s when we had bedroom communities sending all of their workers downtown to the city is no longer the operational model. The long-planned, much maligned (and properly so, in my opinion) Inter-County Connector will not serve this function for the working commuter and gobbles up most of our state transportation efforts in dollars and sense.

The Cross-county BRT routes that were presented by Marc Elrich in the previous week hold much promise, in my opinion. In my 2006 campaign I encouraged commuter express buses be established from Park and Rides at the county lines whether at the Prince George border or along our borders with Howard and Frederick Counties and encouraged major employers to supply van pool pick-ups from those same lots. This could have reduced the enormous parking lots at some of our new bio-techs, especially in the upcounty, where workers find 270 to be such a huge bottle neck.

Park and Planning needs to again look at the traffic planning areas and try to find more experts from outside the area who have done things differently. And, as Adam discussed, the traffic mitigation solutions utilized here at times ask for suspension of one's belief system! Portland, Oregon is expanding light rail to its various suburbs and as Delegate Al Carr recently noted, Cleveland is looking at varied expansions for its transit. Toronto is known for creative and non-automobile related solutions. While these are major cities and Montgomery County is not a city, it shares many of the same urban concerns seen in big cities.

Now – back to the title of this piece – Obama – stimulus and Montgomery County.

As was mentioned, President-elect Obama wants infrastructure stimulus projects that are set and ready to go, but are waiting for funding. This means that municipal or state areas have had the routes decided, the environmental impact studies are completed and there is agreement on the process by the community. To me that states clearly – let’s get on with the Corridor Cities Transit way (CCT) – it certainly meets each of these criteria. The CCT is primed and ready to go – the BRT pilot project can start here. Even though I think light rail might be the ultimate solution, were the line to be completed all the way to Frederick County as originally planned, Bus Rapid Transit could be ready to go in fairly short order; the route would provide good jobs and a necessary stimulus to the tax base here in the county. It is a cost-effective solution, and, although by no means inexpensive, this could jump-start this long delayed project. I think the council under the direction of new council President Phil Andrews – known for his environmental views – should have a plan ready for County Executive Ike Leggett to endorse before January 20th and get it ready to present to our new President on January 21st. (Now I know they go on vacation shortly and this might be a stretch – but a near approximation might well accomplish the same goal. California is already jumping forward with its wish list; Maryland should not lag far behind.)

Once we can implement this, and residents see the efficacy of the initiative, then we should be easily able to step in and gradually add those other BRT transit corridor routes proposed by Councilmember Elrich across the county. Also, by that time maybe those claims and counter claims in the down-county about purple-line routes and means will have been decided by a commission established by Governor O’Malley and the SHA. The SHA in its most recent MARC transportation decision has decided to decrease the numbers of routes and trains serving in Montgomery County, even though ridership is up along the Montgomery County MARC routes. In some convoluted thinking the gas tax – which comes from cars on the road – helps fund MARC, which takes drivers out of their cars, so when drivers drive less there is less money for trains. Reports of a recent hearing will be shared in a future article.

Next problem: convincing commuters to leave their cars – also more on that later.

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The Elrich Plan, Part Five (Updated)

County Council Member Marc Elrich’s ambitious Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Where on Earth can we get that kind of money?

First of all, no new money is coming from the state. State money was difficult enough to get for Montgomery transportation projects even prior to the O’Malley Administration’s $1.1 billion cut, a decision forced by declining revenues. Second, Montgomery County’s revenue problems will probably prevent the county from spending more than its current $900 million on local transportation projects. The county’s spending also does not apply to state roads, although it has made an exception to this rule recently. The county could apply development impact taxes to transportation, but those amounts are currently less than $10 million per year. And the ongoing tax revolt will likely prevent any increase in the gas tax until at least the next term. The Obama Administration may spend more money on public works, but it remains to be seen how much (or whether) any of that money would be available for Elrich’s BRT plan.

In short, sufficient new resources will probably not be there, certainly not in the short term. Given that fact, perhaps the only way to finance Elrich’s BRT network is to reallocate some existing transportation spending from road projects to transit. That is going to meet resistance. Far more people currently drive than use transit. And transit projects have traditionally benefitted Downcounty residents while Upcounty residents have needed road improvements. But two factors make at least some reallocation potentially beneficial for both groups.

1. Elrich’s BRT routes would service Upcounty and East County destinations that would otherwise lack transit such as Burtonsville, Colesville, Norbeck and Olney.

2. The traditional method of relieving road congestion is to build more lanes and/or widen intersections – an approach which some believe is ineffective. Another approach is to build parallel transit options, as the Elrich proposal would do. If the real objective is to reduce congestion, isn’t taking cars off the road at least as legitimate as adding auto capacity?

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. Marc Elrich’s plan is an honest attempt to deal with all of these problems at once. It’s expensive, ambitious and maybe even utopian. It would take a very long time to implement even with broad support.

But if there are any better ideas out there, I’d sure like to hear them.

Update: Delegate Al Carr (D-18) recently rode the BRT line in Cleveland and posted about his experience here.

Update 2: Miranda Spivack of the Post is now up with an article on the Elrich Plan. We hope Ms. Spivack appreciated our research, which is of course provided free of charge!

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The Elrich Plan, Part Four

In Parts Two and Three, we revealed Council Member Marc Elrich’s intention to build Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes across the county. But just because people have the option of using transit does not mean they actually will. After all, part of the county’s official development policy is to force developers to build parking spaces in new projects, thereby encouraging auto use.

Yes, you read that right. Division 59-E-3 of the Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance requires developers to build minimum numbers of parking spaces for new buildings. The requirements vary depending on location, proximity to Metro stations and land use. Requirements for office buildings, for example, vary from 1.9 spaces per 1,000 gross square feet (GSF) of building space for a project in the county’s southern area that is within 800 feet of a Metro station to 3.0 spaces per 1,000 GSF for a project in the county’s northern area more than 1,600 feet from a Metro station. The requirement for retail buildings is 5 parking spaces per 1,000 GSF. Restaurants require 25 parking spaces per 1,000 GSF. There are many, many other categories. Developers are permitted to build fewer spaces if they enter into share-a-ride agreements, build near Metro stations, provide shuttle buses or carpooling incentives, or engage in other measures to reduce traffic.

These requirements not only encourage auto use in the age of global warming, they also guarantee that new developments will cause new traffic. And they impose tremendously expensive burdens on developers. Parking spaces cost a lot of money to construct, sometimes running close to $100,000 per space when built underground. And that space is not as profitable for building owners as actual leaseable space for office or retail uses. Minimum parking requirements might make sense for suburban areas in the 1960s, but their primary effect now is to increase auto congestion and greenhouse gas emissions and to increase the cost of project construction.

Elrich would augment these minimums with parking caps, especially in the county’s Central Business Districts (CBDs). If residential areas and CBDs are connected with BRT routes, why do we need large numbers of parking spaces? Elrich does not favor reducing parking spaces for visitors, customers or shoppers, but he would restrict spaces available for employees. Doing so would relieve CBDs of congestion and decrease building costs for developers. This would enable more construction in CBDs – a key goal of smart growth advocates.

But Elrich would not stop there. If new development is unchained from parking requirements, there is less need for the county’s burdensome traffic tests. We explored this issue in last summer’s Traffic Measurement series. Briefly, the Planning Department uses Critical Lane Volume, a measurement that it knows is terminally flawed, to measure congestion at county intersections. If a new development causes traffic to exceed congestion thresholds that are set for each area of the county, developers are required to install a variety of mitigation measures designed to compensate. But these mitigation measures – things like widening sidewalks, building bus shelters, setting up bike lockers, establishing “information kiosks” and the like – usually have nothing to do with reducing real live car traffic. Decades of such policies are responsible for our current traffic nightmare. And developers who pay for these tests and mitigation measures are required to spend millions of dollars in exercises that have little, if any, impact on traffic reduction.

So once BRT routes are in place and parking caps are established, Elrich would phase out these tests. No one would be happier to see them go than the developers!

Tomorrow, we’ll conclude with the most difficult issue facing this plan: financing.

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The Elrich Plan, Part Three

In Part Two, we discussed Council Member Marc Elrich’s choice of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as a transit mode for most of the county. Where would he locate the routes?


Elrich’s routes are intended to connect residential areas to commercial destinations. Their primary purpose is to facilitate work-related commutes. Here is his route list:

1. US-29/Columbia Pike
Connects Burtonsville to Downtown Silver Spring. Also has a loop through the developing centers around Cherry Hill and White Oak. Offers connection to Silver Spring Metro Station. Can be augmented by garages in Burtonsville for Howard County commuters, further reducing traffic on Columbia Pike.

2. New Hampshire Avenue
Connects Colesville to the Langley Transit Center, which will have a Purple Line stop. Also connects to the US-29 route and its Cherry Hill/White Oak loop.

3. ICC
Elrich has opposed the ICC since Moses crossed the Red Sea. If he had his way, it would be stopped yesterday. But if it is built, Elrich would use it to run BRT between Fairland and the Rockville and Shady Grove Metro stations.

4. Purple Line
The state is currently considering whether the Purple Line should be BRT or rail. Elrich is agnostic on the mode. Whatever the Purple Line is, it will connect Prince George’s County to Bethesda through Silver Spring. It will also serve as a connection for some of Elrich’s BRT routes.

5. University Boulevard
Connects the Langley Transit Center to Wheaton. The Wheaton connection provides access to a Metro station as well as other BRT routes. This route also provides Four Corners with a transit option, something that is badly needed considering the horrendous US-29/University Boulevard intersection.

6. Georgia Avenue
Connects Olney to the Glenmont Metro station. Offers a transit option to Aspen Hill. May provide relief to the awful Georgia Avenue/Randolph Road intersection, which is scheduled for an expensive grade separation project. This route is already a priority for the county in its project request list for the state.

7. Georgia and Connecticut Avenues
A spur off the Olney route, separating at the Georgia/Connecticut intersection. Connects Olney to Chevy Chase and the Purple Line.

8. Veirs Mill Road
Connects Wheaton to Rockville. This route is another county priority for state projects.

9. Route 28
Connects Norbeck to Rockville.

10. Route 355
Parallels the western branch of the Red Line from Shady Grove to Bethesda. Includes an option to run as far north as Clarksburg. Also has a spur to Montgomery Mall.

11. Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT)
This is a state project, although not one for which the state is scheduling a lot of money. If the CCT is a BRT line, it can have an express route from Clarksburg to Shady Grove as well as a local route through Montgomery College to the west.

Each of the BRT routes would rely on one dedicated bus lane, perhaps with occasional tunnels under particularly difficult intersections. Why only one lane? One of the consequences of Montgomery County’s sprawl is that weekday traffic is often unidirectional. In the morning, traffic heads south (or sometimes west) from residential communities to commercial centers. In the evening, traffic reverses. Auto progress is slow when in the direction of most of the traffic, so the dedicated lane would be used in that direction (such as south in the morning). Buses could make a return trip in the regular traffic lanes, which are relatively clear when going against the flow of traffic. The reversible lanes on parts of Georgia Avenue and US-29 operate on a similar premise.

Another aspect of the BRT routes is their operation as a feeder network. Buses can go into residential neighborhoods and use their street networks. When entering the main roads (like US-29), they can enter the dedicated lanes and travel at higher speeds. Some routes can also operate as express routes. By cycling the buses through their routes faster, the same amount of bus stock can carry more passengers. That reduces per-passenger capital and labor costs.

By using existing rights-of-way, including in some cases medians, BRT can be a lot cheaper than rail. The Purple Line is estimated to cost $75-102 million per mile if built as rail, and that does not include the purchase of the Capital Crescent Trail decades ago. Cleveland is building a BRT line on Euclid Avenue for roughly $20 million per mile. Rail can still be justified in very dense areas like Bethesda and Silver Spring where high ridership is worth the cost. But BRT can be a more cost-effective option in lower-density areas.

Best of all, this system offers real transit options to parts of the county that have never had them before: Colesville, Olney, Burtonsville, Norbeck and other places far from Metro. These are places that are probably never going to get rail.

But the Elrich plan does not end here. We’ll continue in Part Four.

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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.

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The Elrich Plan, Part One

At-large County Council Member Marc Elrich has introduced a sweeping new transportation proposal. It is ambitious. It is comprehensive. It violates several taboos. But will it work?

In assessing the effectiveness of any long-term transportation plan, we must consider the real-world constraints faced by the county. And there are many problems to overcome. Here are a few relevant facts that any transportation plan must face:

1. Growing Population and Employment
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) projects that Montgomery’s population will grow from 938,000 in 2005 to 1,145,000 in 2030, an increase of 22%. Over the same period, the county’s employment will grow from 500,000 in 2005 to 670,000 in 2030, an increase of 34%. The Washington region as a whole will see population growth of 32% and employment growth of 38% over the same time period.

2. Carbon Dioxide Emissions Are Increasing
Population and job growth will push up CO2 emissions, thereby fueling global warming. COG estimates that CO2 emissions will increase in the Washington region by 33% between 2005 and 2030, and 43% between 2005 and 2050. Roughly one-third of those emissions are caused by vehicles. COG has told Elrich that an 8.3% reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is necessary to reduce emissions to 2002 levels in Montgomery County. A reduction of 15-20% in VMT is necessary to reduce emissions to 1990 levels. COG estimates that Montgomery County will be at “high risk” for drought and thunderstorms and at “medium-high risk” for flash flooding and snow or ice-storms because of climate change.

3. Funding is Limited
Regular readers remember the state’s $1.1 billion transportation cut. Part of the reason for that cut is the General Assembly’s failure to heed the Governor’s proposal to index the gas tax for inflation during the Special Session. While the state still plans on spending $9.4 billion on transportation projects over the next six years (for now), the vast majority of Montgomery’s portion of that spending is accounted for by the $2.4 billion InterCounty Connector. Montgomery County plans on spending roughly $900 million on transportation over the next six years. But very large portions of both state and county spending go to system maintenance, not new projects. At existing rates of spending, it is very doubtful that either the state or the county can adequately prepare their transportation infrastructures to handle the demands of a 20-30% population growth occurring through 2030.

4. Residences Are Not Located Near Jobs
Prior to World War II, Montgomery County was primarily a bedroom community for the District. From the 1950s on, it has evolved into an employment center. But jobs and residences are concentrated in different places. The county’s employment centers are located in the I-270 corridor, especially from Bethesda to Gaithersburg, as well as in Silver Spring. Many people commute to the District and Virginia. Residences are more evenly distributed throughout the county. Many areas, like East County, northern Silver Spring, Potomac, Olney and the rural areas are dominated by residential uses. The fact that most jobs are not located near most residences stresses the transportation network.

5. Central Business Districts (CBDs) are Highly Congested
Smart growth advocates favor concentrating both employment and new residential development near Metro stations, especially in the county’s downtowns. One challenge to this approach is that the roads in these CBDs tend to be very congested. Longtime readers will recall our lengthy criticism of the county’s reliance on Critical Lane Volume to measure traffic. When using average speeds to measure corridor performance, the slowest stretches of road in the county include Rockville Pike in Rockville, Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Georgia Avenue north of Wheaton, and Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road in Downtown Silver Spring. If new development in these CBDs is accompanied by new traffic, those roads will be overloaded. And the geographic constraints of all these CBDs will prevent the roads from being widened.

6. Rail Limitations
Rail is expensive. According to the Purple Line’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, rail on that route will cost in a range of $75-102 million per mile. That may be justified by the high density in the Montgomery and Prince George’s inner suburbs. But it is harder to make that case in lower-density areas. Furthermore, much of the right-of-way for the Purple Line is already publicly owned (such as the Capital Crescent Trail). Assembling the right-of-way for a new rail line further north in the county would require huge amounts of money and perhaps significant destruction of housing. This decreases the likelihood that rail by itself is a feasible solution for the county’s transportation challenges.

How does Elrich intend to deal with these problems? We’ll find out in Part Two.

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