Montgomery County:

Transit Beyond the Purple Line

ACT meeting: October 2006

Richard Layman
Citizens Planning Coalition
Washington, DC
Suburban residents drive. . . .everywhere

-- Average suburban household generates 10+ trips/day.

-- Most suburban single family households have two cars.
-- Many suburban single family households have three or more cars.
 Mobility ‘rithmetic
Mode (one lane/mile) Capacity (per hour)
Freeway (car) 2,200 cars
Off-ramp (car) 1,800 cars/hour/lane
Urban small blocks 900 cars/hour
Urban superblocks 1,350 cars/hour
Regular bus 6,250 passengers/hour
Rapid bus 10,000 passengers/hour
Light rail 16,000 passengers/hour
Rapid rail transit 30,000+ passengers/hour
 DC’s Competitive Advantages
1.  (Historic) architecture [historic preservation]
2.  Pedestrian-centric urban design [walking city]
3.  History and authenticity
4.  A rich transit infrastructure that allows time- and
cost- efficient mobility without being car-
dependent.
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5. The fifth competitive advantage is the federal
government and its generation of an
agglomeration of jobs and businesses, with a
significant number of both being located in the
core of the center city
 Define Montgomery County’s
Competitive Advantages
• Does transit and mobility rate?
• If not, why not?
• If not, should it be strengthened to become
a competitive advantage? (Arlington!)
• Many employment centers are located
within range of subway stations (Silver
Spring, Bethesda, Rockville, White Flint,
Shady Grove-Gaithersburg)
Seven reasons why people don’t ride transit

• It doesn't go where they need to go from where they are.

• It's not time-efficient.
• It's not cost-efficient to take transit compared to driving.
• Metro goes where they need to go, and they would ride, if they
could get to the station somewhat efficiently. Otherwise, it's easier
or faster to drive. (This is related to but subtly different from [2]).
• Transit can't be counted on; it is no longer reliable when planning
time-sensitive trips, and therefore another mode is chosen.
• Transit riding isn't conducive to the requirements of the trip
(parent with children, transporting something big and bulky, etc.)
• Driving is subsidized in so many ways (cost of roads, cost of
military protection of access to oil, land use planning, free
parking, etc.) that people don’t pay the real cost of the trip, and it
seemingly is cheaper than transit
The auto-centric paradigm
Rockville Pike
Every parking space is an automobile
trip generator
Think differently about how to get around
 More to think about
• Donald Shoup’s points about car subsidy, that a free
public parking space is worth at least $1,800/year
• People say transit is subsidized. It is. Roads are too—
to the tune of 50%. Gasoline taxes come nowhere near
to covering road costs.
• Average fuel cost: $1,500/year.
• Cost to own and maintain a car: $6,000/year
• Avg. household spends 20% of income on transportation
(automobiles)
• The less you spend on automobiles, the more there is to
spend on housing & other necessary and discretionary
spending
Reinserting transit into the paradigm
 RideOn: national best practice
suburban bus transit
• Is best practice from the 1980s still good enough?
Jurisdictions should adopt a
Places First-Transit First-Complete Streets

land use and planning paradigm

 “Transit First” policies
• Reduce subsidies to the private automobile through increase in user-based
fees such as tolls, gasoline taxes, parking fees, and parking cash-outs.

• Reward smart land use planning decisions by making greater regional

transportation investments in communities that take real steps to discourage
urban sprawl and reinforce city centers.

• Fund transportation projects based on performance measures or criteria

which consistently increase the share of non-automobile trips, improve air
quality, and reduce average vehicles miles traveled per capita.

• Ensure adequate funding for maintenance of the existing transportation

system before spending money on expansion through major capital
investments.

• Maximize funding flexibility at the regional level so that local jurisdictions are
able to program funds where they are most needed.
 Transit user demographics

Graphic: Washington Post

The original WMATA system was designed
to connect the suburbs to Downtown DC

“Rail Rapid Transit for the (suburban) Motorist”

The subway wasn’t designed to
promote compact development
 Sprawl/automobility vs. efficiency
• Polycentric vs. monocentric transit
planning
• Sprawl land use patterns make transit
costly and inefficient, therefore infrequent
• Priming – road building shapes
development patterns
• Exurban development (people keep
moving farther and farther out)
• How to attract choice users?
Transit planning needs to be based
around the “mobility-shed”
 Modes and the Mobility Shed
-- Walking
-- Bicycling
-- Segways/scooters/Vespas
-- Transit
-- bus
-- rapid bus/streetcar
-- streetcar
-- light rail
-- subway
-- Taxi
-- Car Sharing
-- Motorcycle
-- Van pooling
-- Railroad
-- Personally owned automobile
● Transit is more than WMATA or MARC
● Mobility is more than transit
One mile radius from transit stops
 Focus on linking modes
• Metrorail
• Metrobus
• Ride-on Bus System
• Maryland Commuter Rail
• Bicycling
• Walking
• Transportation Management Districts
What’s the County’s plan?
Is this a “Plan”?
Or a bunch of ideas listed in a report?
Automobility versus mobility
 Montgomery County has multiple
distinct transit sheds
• 13 subway stations (including Takoma)
• 11 MARC railroad stations
• Other transit centers (i.e., Langley Park)
• Major employment centers
-- some with subway stations (Bethesda, Silver Spring,
White Flint, Rockville, Shady Grove) and some without
• Other activity centers (shopping centers, Montgomery
College, etc.)
• Purple Line adds 8 stations
• Purple Line will connect the east and west legs of the
Red Line Subway system within the County
Plenty of opportunity for mode shift
• The mobility-shed (transit-shed) provides a
conceptual framework for planning
• Mode shift within transit-sheds should be a
priority for planning and marketing transit
• MoCo extant “Transportation Management
Districts” and “Mitigation Plans”
• How effective are Mitigation Plans? Minimum
20% reduction in automobile trips.
• The TravelSmart method as a way to implement
mobility-shed approaches
Transit-shed planning integrates modes
-- Walking
-- Bicycling
-- Bus
-- Other modes
are linked to
-- Subway
-- Railroad
and eventually to
-- Light Rail
-- Streetcar
 Bus isn’t sexy but can’t be ignored
• Buses are cost-effective way
to get people to stations
(RideOn is a national leader)

• Parking lots at transit stations

waste precious land resources

• Transit shed planning focuses

service improvements—
frequency and headway—
based on better calibrated
opportunity, potential, and
demand
 Bus marketing
• Bus shelters as primary points for transit
marketing
• Quality shelters
• Signage-Identity systems
• Bus-based identity systems
• Schedules
• Ad-supported shelter programs can
include bike sharing
Bus stop quality indicates whether we value
transit and the bus system
Integrate public art, historic interpretation
and wayfinding information
Improve Marketing and Promotion!
Walking: Every transit trip starts and ends on foot

People will walk further to transit and when they have interesting, well-
maintained, and safe places to walk.
 Bicycling
• Montgomery County Bicycling Master Plan
-- I am not conversant with it
• Does it propose Bike Stations with
showers in each major employment
center? (Bethesda, Silver Spring,
Rockville, North Bethesda, Gaithersburg,
Germantown)
• A separate part of Purple Line Planning
• Check out [Link]
 Reduce automobile use and
automobile acquisition
• Carsharing
• Location efficient mortgages
• Arlington County’s Master Transportation
Plan is focused on reducing single
occupancy vehicle trips
• Each plan element is congruent with this
policy objective
 MoCo Transportation Planning:
In Flux?
• Corridor Cities Transit plan?
• Bus Rapid Transit? -- few people with
choices ride buses willingly
• State Administration not committed to
transit – planned failure, designed to
maximize opposition? (Purple Line)
• Inter County Connector!
• Go! Montgomery & Ike Leggett?
One role of advocates is
to push the envelope
Rebar Art Collective: Parking Squat, San Francisco, Sept. 2006
Road Witch project, United Kingdom
MARC Extend within DC & Virginia -- or

Simulation: MARC train in Crystal City, Virginia. Steve Dunham, Virginia

Association of Railway Patrons
-- MARC trains could go south from Union Station to L’Enfant Plaza, Crystal
City, Alexandria; could stop in Takoma Park (Walter Reed); Brookland
(CUA, Washington Hospital Center, Providence Hospital)
Instead of commuter rail, create a
regional railroad system - 1

Concept: Dan Malouff, [Link]

 Instead of commuter rail, create a
regional railroad system
• Merge VRE and MARC into one system
• Regional, not commuter, passenger railroad
• Service in both directions
• Include service to parts of Pennsylvania and
West Virginia
• 7 day/365 day service
• That means weekends
• Add DMUs to provide variable levels of service
where practical
Bombardier Diesel Motive Unit (DMU) in Ottawa City, Ontario
Budd Self Propelled Vehicle, Metro-North Commuter Railroad, Connecticut
Budd RDC Vehicle, MTA, deaccessioned
 Think of MoCo as a grid
• East-West Streets
-- Viers Mill Road
-- Randolph Road
-- University Boulevard
-- East-West Highway
 Think of MoCo as a grid
• North-South Streets
-- I-270
-- Rockville Pike
-- Connecticut Avenue
-- Georgia Avenue
-- Colesville Road
Come up with your own unconstrained
County transportation plan

• Use the grid as a framework

• Promote compact development within each
box of the grid
• Use transit-shed planning within each box
on the grid to enhance the current system
• And to shape the future
• Don’t forget to look at maps of old streetcar
and interurban systems
Come up with your own unconstrained
County transportation plan

• Streetcar or (ugh) Bus Rapid Transit

• More light rail– a middle purple line?
• Extend the Subway line north at each end,
to Frederick, Carroll, Howard Counties?
-- from Shady Grove to King Farm, I-270,
Marriott, Kentlands, Frederick?,
Westminster?
-- from Glenmont to Olney?
Subway extension planning?

-- Where is MoCo in all the crazy talk

about extending subway lines?
-- What about extending the red line
north beyond Shady Grove, beyond
Glenmont?

Proposed extended green line to BWI.

 Bus Rapid Transit vs. Rail:
DC region is not Bogotá or Curitiba
• Most people riding buses in those places
are transit dependent.
• Buses are their only transit option
• The more successful BRT lines in North
America have ridership not much higher
than highly used Metrobus lines
• Mode shift key priority
• Transit-economic development connection
Bus Rapid Transit
What’s Old is New Again:
Streetcars?
Portland Streetcar, Oregon
Simulation: Skoda/Inekon Streetcar on Charles Street,
Baltimore.
 Regional Transit Advocates Unite!
• We need to develop an annual cross-
jurisdictional transit advocates conference
• Develop a consensus, unconstrained
agenda (publish-publicize)
• Alternate meetings annually, between the
Baltimore and Washington regions
• Legislative advocacy conferences each
year in Annapolis, Richmond, and DC (DC
session to include lobbying Congress)
 There’s more…

• Peak oil/supply and

demand
• The economic,
environmental,
political and social
costs of oil
dependency
• And the need to
accommodate more
population in the
region
 Thank you!
Richard Layman
Citizens Planning Coalition
Washington, DC

Email: rlaymandc@[Link]
Blog: [Link]