By Council Member Roger Berliner.
Today, the Council approved the White Flint Sector Plan by a unanimous vote. It is a plan that will transform the White Flint community -- from the southern tip at White Flint Mall to the northern border at Montrose and Randolph Roads -- into a more vibrant, walkable, bikeable, livable place.
I was excited about this plan from the very beginning, one that over many years will transform a significant portion of the Council District that I represent. Nonetheless, I was also well-aware that the compact, dense mixed-use development proposed represented a paradigm shift for our County, and especially for the neighborhoods adjacent to the sector plan. While many residents were excited by this vision of the future of their community, others were, and some remain, deeply skeptical and fearful of the changes that will occur.
For that reason, I made a commitment early on to protect the surrounding communities to the maximum extent possible and have worked hard to make sure that the new White Flint will improve the quality of life not just for the new people drawn to this vibrant place, but for those who already live in the immediate area. Our goal was to create a distinct "sense of place" for White Flint, and I believe the plan achieves that goal. Those who live in and around White Flint will be able to take advantage of the numerous public spaces, bike trails, and walking paths as well as the public amenities that make a neighborhood feel like a neighborhood -- a library, a recreation center, a new school, and a beautiful, substantial civic green that will serve as a meeting place for the community.
Our vision for White Flint emanates from the growing understanding that we can no longer afford to perpetuate suburban sprawl. There is an environmental imperative for us to grow smarter, to grow more compactly and with less reliance on the automobile in order to reduce our carbon footprint. And I am excited about the potential the White Flint Sector Plan has to achieve these goals. In fact, one of EPA's senior officials has praised the White Flint plan for that very reason. The new White Flint will allow people to live and play closer to where they work, to spend less time in their cars and more time enjoying recreational activities and time with family.
When you look at the area today, it is hard not be struck by the large amount of asphalt found in the strip malls and surface parking lots. Asphalt is not the highest and best use of this incredibly important real estate. We need less "impervious surfaces" and more trees. The White Flint Sector Plan will provide both. It will transform the proliferation of surface parking lots into a greener, more vibrant network of mixed use development that will produce vast improvements in stormwater management and overall water quality to the benefit of our local watersheds like Rock Creek. Streetscaping and street trees, along with other environmental incentives in the Commercial/Residential Zone (CR Zone) will also help to reduce CO2 emissions and absorb some of the heat produced in urban areas. In fact, it is the goal of the plan to double the tree canopy.
The White Flint Sector Plan is also predicated upon a deepening commitment to mass transit and calls for a new MARC station on Nicholson Court and the transformation of Rockville Pike into a lovely grand boulevard that will include state-of-the-art bus rapid transit. The plan calls for significant parking restrictions and aggressive mode share goals that will help take cars off the roads; a new street grid which should help diffuse traffic and make it easier to get around the area; and protective measures that will be put in place to prevent cut-through traffic into the neighborhoods surrounding White Flint.
My colleagues and I are committed to the proper implementation and careful monitoring of this sector plan. Throughout the course of the Council's deliberations regarding the plan, right up to and including today, I offered numerous amendments to ensure that our Planning Board keeps a close eye on traffic conditions that are the source of so much understandable consternation. Under an amendment I proposed today, the Planning Board will be required to do a comprehensive analysis of road conditions every two years, and to recommend to the Council specific projects that will uphold our obligation to provide adequate transportation services.
More broadly, I believe the new White Flint can and will serve as a model of sustainable growth for our county and perhaps for the nation as a whole. My goal has been to try to link what we are doing in White Flint to our need to take cars off the road around the new, enlarged National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, and launch Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Ave. as a pilot "Sustainable Transportation Corridor." We need to look at this corridor, arguably the single most important economic corridor in the state, in a holistic manner, not focusing too narrowly on one segment or a single neighborhood, but rather on the entire length of the Pike. And the state of the art transit system that we envision for White Flint is as important to Friendship Heights and Bethesda as it is to Rockville.
While the redevelopment of the White Flint area will do much to create a new type of sustainable community, it will also benefit the County from an economic development perspective. It will be an attractive place for new businesses which will help sustain and enhance the County's vitality and competitiveness in the region. Significantly, the White Flint Sector Plan is expected to generate between six and seven billion dollars in new revenue for the County over the life of the plan -- not a shabby figure in any economy, let alone our current one.
Arguably the most important aspect of the White Flint plan, given its scale and scope, is the degree of consensus that was reached, consensus reflected in our own Council's unanimous support. And this was not just a happy coincidence, but rather the result of years of ongoing collaboration between the private sector, neighbors, and government. Differing priorities and perspectives came together around a shared goal -- to make the White Flint Sector Plan a strong, viable blueprint that will guide the successful transformation of the area for current and future generations of Montgomery County residents.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A New White Flint
Monday, July 13, 2009
Berliner Calls for New Transportation Policy on Wisconsin Avenue
Montgomery County Council Member Roger Berliner, who represents Bethesda, North Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac, is calling for the state to consider a “Sustainable Transportation Corridor” approach to Wisconsin Avenue. Berliner points out the impending transportation challenges in the Bethesda-White Flint vicinity and rightly notes how current policy emphasizes intersection capacity improvements above other solutions. Berliner states, “It is increasingly clear that pavement alone is not going to get the job done and would be counterproductive to our long term energy and environmental objectives, which can be met only if we significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled, expand transit options, and encourage more biking and walking.” We reproduce his letter to the Governor below.
Montgomery County Council
Roger Berliner
Council Member
District 1
July 13, 2009
Governor Martin O’Malley
100 State Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401-1925
Dear Governor O’Malley:
I am writing to ask you, Acting Secretary Swaim-Staley, and our legislative leadership to explore new legislation or regulations that would enhance coordination between state and local governments, harmonize land use and transportation objectives, and provide priority funding for “Sustainable Transportation Corridors.”
Modeled after a similar policy in Oregon, the goal of this program would be to ensure that future investments in state highway segments that (1) are of extraordinary economic significance to the state; (2) are experiencing unacceptable levels of congestion; and (3) straddle urban smart growth areas, are considered in the context of our larger public policy objectives of reducing vehicle miles traveled and supporting livable communities.
Regrettably, our current approach to significant state roads that bisect our increasingly urban county too often focuses on isolated intersection improvements in one area totally divorced from the larger context. The result can be short term “improvements” that are actually counterproductive in the long run. As the County Council representative of the communities that surround the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, I have witnessed this possibility first hand. Indeed, it is this experience that led me to explore other models that might serve our state and community better.
To the credit of your people in the State Highway Administration, who recently testified before our Council, they are trying hard to come up with a plan that would provide immediate short term relief to a looming traffic nightmare. As you appreciate, under the Base Closure and Realignment Act (BRAC) the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda is expanding and will reopen in 2011 as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. This expanded facility will treat twice as many patients, add 2500 new jobs, and increase traffic on a roadway that is already subject to unacceptable levels of congestion.
At the same time, just to the north of the expanded Medical Center, the Montgomery County Planning Department is currently drafting a new “White Flint Sector Plan,” which calls for compact mixed-use redevelopment. The Plan envisions the transformation of a section of the Rockville Pike into a multi-modal urban “boulevard” with a landscaped median, street parking, wider sidewalks, bike lanes, a grid of streets to take pressure off Rockville Pike, and much needed mass transit improvements, including the possibility of bus rapid transit.
Yet, to date, we have not stepped back collectively and assessed the needs of the entire Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue corridor, without question one of the most important transportation corridors in the entire state. It is increasingly clear that pavement alone is not going to get the job done and would be counterproductive to our long term energy and environmental objectives, which can be met only if we significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled, expand transit options, and encourage more biking and walking.
The aim of legislation creating Sustainable Transportation Corridors would be to establish that broader context, to bring the best of urban planning and progressive transportation policies together to support sustainable and vibrant communities, and to give priority to such areas of statewide significance.
Governor, I know that you and our legislative leaders are firmly committed to sustainability. The legislation that you and our state legislature have championed puts Maryland at the environmental forefront. In my view, legislation creating Sustainable Transportation Corridors is consistent with and builds upon this commitment. I commend it to you and our legislative leaders for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Roger Berliner
cc:
Secretary Beverly K. Swaim-Staley
The Honorable Mike Miller
The Honorable Michael Busch
The Honorable Rich Madaleno
The Honorable Brian Frosh
The Honorable Bill Bronrott
The Honorable Susan Lee
The Honorable Ana Sol Gutierrez
The Honorable Al Carr
The Honorable Jeff Waldstreicher
The Honorable Bill Frick
The Honorable Brian Feldman
