The difficulties of creating _one_ regional transit agenda

Are caught in the op-ed in the current Montgomery County editions of the Gazette, in the op-ed by Gaithersburg City Councilman Ryan Spiegel, "CCT: A worthy project gets short shrift," which makes the point that the proposed Corridor Cities Transitway project to connect Frederick Maryland to upper Montgomery County, gets short shrift in the state, compared to planning for the Purple Line in MoCo and PG County and the Red Line in Baltimore.

The problem comes down to "monocentric" vs. "polycentric" development paradigms, promoting development more generally, versus promoting development more intensively, and promoting non-automobile centric mobility specfically.

For example, another area issue where this conundrum is at the center of the problem is whether or not to add lanes to I-66 in Arlington and Fairfax Counties. Arlington County, which has one of the nation's most thorough and progressive transportation policies and plan, prefers to discourage sprawl by having policies in place that encourage walking, bicycling, and transit, and having significant "transportation demand management" programs in place designed to promote mode shift away from the automobile, especially single occupant vehicle trips.

Counties farther out in the region want it to be as easy as possible for their residents to be able to drive in and extract the maximum value from the core--high paying jobs--without having to pay for it in terms of sales and property taxes, and to return to their home counties and spend their money there. The Washington Post, knowing where its future is buttered, is big on freeway expansion as this editorial "Spot On: Planners should vote to widen Interstate 66" indicates. (The Post is also big on the Inter County Connector in upper Montgomery County and Prince George's County.)

Also see this letter to the editor, "Credo for I-66: 'Wiser, Not Wider'" in response to the column by Marc Fisher, "Time for I-66 to Grow Out" and this Dr. Gridlock piece, "More Study Needed On I-66 Problems."

Most of the broad transit expansion proposals for the WMATA system, be they the Silver Line, or extensions of the green line to Fort Meade, etc., are about enabling development, just as the extension of "city" water and sewer systems allows for development.

It's all about sprawl.

There is some element of this with the Corridor Cities Transitway too.

The WMATA system is criticized by some scholars, notably Steve Belmont, author of Cities in Full, for being polycentric and promoting sprawl. That makes sense, because the WMATA system was always intended to serve first and foremost suburban commuters traveling to high-paying jobs in the city.

One of the plans for the DC subway system, 1965. Note the legend: "Rapid Rail Transit for the Motorist." Most of the planning for the subway was done in conjunction with freeway planning and many of the routes, just like how the orange line pops out onto I-66, were originally designed to be located within freeway medians.


Figure from Cities in Full.

The happy accident was that by creating 29 subway stations over a roughly 15 square mile area in the core of the city of Washington, close-in neighborhoods had a new allure and attractiveness, that a pedestrian-centric mixed use urban design allowed for even better neighborhoods with the addition of high capacity transit.

Subway stations at the core of the center city.

So at the core, the WMATA system functions monocentrically, in ways that Belmont did not forsee.

The sprawl vs. concentration of land use argument becomes a real problem in forging a "regional" policy, because close in communities--DC and Arlington County for sure, potentially Alexandria but not really, and maybe the communities that immediately abut DC in Montgomery County (Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Takoma Park)--have different interests from other jurisdictions in the region. (There are even polycentric issues with the creation of the Silver Line transit line in Fairfax County, but I have written about them before.)

What this means is that like Arlington County, it is imperative for DC to develop its own transportation vision and plan, one that is simultaneously independent, complementary, and visionary. DC needs to exhibit great leadership to be able to advocate for its transportation vision in the context of regional needs.

We aren't doing it at the moment...