MoCo Looking For Residents, Business Owners To Plan Rapid Transit

The four BRT corridors under study, via MCDOT

Montgomery County is looking for about 40 residents and business owners to help it plan a rapid transit system along Rockville Pike and Wisconsin Avenue.

The county on Monday announced the creation of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor Advisory Committees (CACs) for four major corridors projected to be among the first where the countywide BRT system is implemented.

The 355 South Corridor would run along 9.3 miles of Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue with 14 stations from Rockville to the Bethesda Metro station. Thanks to $10 million in funding from the state, Montgomery County is conducting planning studies with the State Highway Administration to get some idea of what BRT along the corridor would look like.

The County Council approved a master plan last year that set up the framework for a 10-corridor, 80-mile BRT network.

Sensing the controversy that permeated the master plan process, the Council required the county’s Department of Transportation to set up the CACs on a route-by-route basis.

The 355 South Corridor was originally proposed to extend all the way to the Friendship Heights Metro station and D.C./Maryland line in Chevy Chase. But the Council agreed to cut off the planned corridor at the Bethesda Metro station, unless the District of Columbia begins studying its own BRT system that could be connected along Wisconsin Avenue.

The CACs will have about 40 members, MCDOT’s Joana Conklin said on Monday. About 30 of those members will be residents who live within 500 feet of Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue, representatives of civic associations adjacent to the corridor or business representatives nominated by the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce.

Another 10 members will be at-large and selected by MCDOT. Conklin said preference will be given to those who use transit and who live close to the road.

Nomination forms are here.

The county will hold a kick-off meeting with all CACs in early winter 2014, then meetings will happen every two or three months. Nominations are due Nov. 21.

Conklin said the CACs will discuss study assumptions and methodologies of each corridor with state and county transportation officials. CAC members will also be expected to voice concerns about impacts and let the rest of their communities know what’s coming.

The master plan did not recommend any specific treatments for the Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue corridor, though the planning process include suggestions of dedicated BRT lanes in existing all-traffic lanes.

The idea of losing one lane of regular traffic — especially in areas of Bethesda where there’s no room to add lanes — didn’t sit well with some who testified against the idea during the master plan process.

Conklin said the state-funded studies happening now for the 355 South Corridor include finding utility and right-of-way constraints and some preliminary design. MCDOT has also developed concepts for service plans, looked at how BRT might connect with other transit systems and is now looking at transit signal priority, meaning how traffic signals will operate when BRT vehicles come through.

The county says it’s too early to come up with construction and operating costs, though the countywide system has been projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Image via MCDOT

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up