Monday, June 17, 2013

6-16-13 WASH POST: Several state road work projects are underway in the hope of improving travel near the Walter Reed-Bethesda

Rockville Pike/Connecticut Avenue. Several state projects are underway in the hope of improving travel near the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, sandwiched between Rockville Pike and Connecticut Avenue in Bethesda.

These are intended to provide relief for congestion stemming from the federal base realignment program that added patients and staff at the medical center.

The work on Rockville Pike between Cedar Lane and Jones Bridge Road, which the SHA estimates has had a moderate-to-severe impact on traffic since it began in 2012, is scheduled to be done this summer.

So is the widening and turn-lane addition project on Connecticut Avenue near Jones Bridge Road and Kensington Parkway, where resurfacing is scheduled over the next month.

 

Monday, June 03, 2013

MCDOT Announces June 18 Public Meeting on the MD 355 Multimodal Crossing Project at the Medical Center Metro Station

The Montgomery County Dept. of Transportation will hold a public meeting on the MD 355 Multimodal Crossing Project, which will be situated at the Medical Center Metro Station. The Public Meeting will take place on June 18, 2013, at 7:30 pm, and be held at the BCC Regional Services Center, 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda MD 20814.

The MD 355 Crossing Project is a design-build project, fully funded by the federal government at over $68 million, which will construct new entrances to the Metro Station and provide safe and efficient crossing of Rockville Pike for pedestrians and cyclists.

The project will include a bank of deep elevators on the Walter Reed side of Rockville Pike directly to the Metrorail platform, and a shallow pedestrian tunnel connecting Walter Reed to NIH and the bus and carpool transit center on the west side of Rockville Pike. The project will include roadway and pedestrian improvements at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Jones Bridge Road.

For more information, contact Phil Alperson, Montgomery County Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Coordinator, by phone at 240.777.2595 or by email at phil.alperson@montgomerycountymd.gov/brac

 

June 18, 2013 -- MCDOT Meeting Flyer:  http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/brac/Resources/Files/MMX-REOI-MCDOT-PublicMeetFlyer-061813.pdf

 

MORE INFORMATION ON THE PROJECT:  http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/brac/projects/metro_mc.html

Friday, May 31, 2013

5-29-13 MCDOT Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) for MD 355 Multimodal Crossing Project at the Medical Center Metro Station

 

REOI  (40 pp):  http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/brac/Resources/Files/MMX-REOI-MCDOT-052913.pdf

 

Additional Proxcurement Information (scroll down to Project #1027863): http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/DGS/pro/public_solicitations.asp

 

April 29, 2013 MCDOT Industry Information Presentation on Crossing Project (28 pp): http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/brac/resources/files/mmx-industryinfopresentation-mcdot-041913.pdf

Friday, May 31, 2013

5-30-13 Bethesda Now: Planning Board Agrees To Extend Public Commenting Period On Bus Rapid Transit

The Planning Board has agreed to extend the commenting period on the department’s controversial Bus Rapid Transit Master Plan after a number of Chevy Chase West residents against the proposal claimed they only recently learned about it.

Planning Board Chair Francoise Carrier agreed to extend the commenting period until June 7. It was originally supposed to end today (Thursday) before the Planning Board would begin worksessions leading up to a vote.

Councilmember Roger Berliner (D-Bethesda-Chevy Chase) spoke Wednesday with interim Planning Director Rose Krasnow about the concerns from residents of the Chevy Chase West neighborhood. They say they haven’t heard enough about a proposal to dedicate two curb lanes of Wisconsin Avenue exclusively to buses between Bradley Boulevard and the District line.

Many at a meeting on Tuesday with Larry Cole, the Planning Department’s lead planner of the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, signed a petition to move back the public commenting deadline so they could register their complaints and concerns.

In response to one resident’s claim that the Planning Department did a poor job of letting the public know about the Bus Rapid Transit plan, Cole rattled off a long list of places around the county in which he’s done presentations and spoken with residents. Two of those took place in Bethesda in the last few months, in April at the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board and in March at the Walter Reed BRAC Integration Committee.

There was also a Planning Board public hearing on the Plan on May 16.

In those meetings and again on Tuesday, Cole has repeatedly attempted to explain that the Master Plan process will not address some of the specific intersection-by-intersection concerns residents have.

Marie West, a Chevy Chase West resident who said the exclusive Bus Rapid Transit lanes would threaten the safety of schoolchildren, helped organize the meeting on Tuesday at the Concord Hill School.

At the meeting, Cole and Berliner chief of staff Cindy Gibson explained the process is far from over.

The Planning Board is expected to deliberate before sending its final version to the County Council sometime this summer. Gibson said she expects a County Council public hearing on BRT in September before a number of Committee worksessions and a full Council vote.

The Plan essentially sets the stage for the development of a BRT system.

It contains no timeline for starting the project, which at 79 miles and with 10 corridors across Montgomery County could fall in the $5 billion range. It would be up to the county executive and the staff of the county’s Department of Transportation to engineer the actual corridors, confer with the Planning Department on designs and construction and then budget the necessary capital funding. The County Council would have to approve those recommendations.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

5-24-13 Bethesda Now: Leggett Asks MTA To Reconsider Cutting Walter Reed Commuter Bus

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett wants the Maryland Transit Administration to reconsider its proposal to shut down a commuter bus that delivers people from Columbia, Burtonsville and Olney to the Walter Reed Military Medical Center Campus.

In a letter to MTA administrator Ralign Wells, Leggett said a 45 percent increase in personel at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center means the county and state must work to encourage greater use of mass transit in the area, not diminish it. He pointed to a traffic mitigation plan developed by the Montgomery County and Maryland Departments of Transportation that touted greater access to transit as one of its key elements.

In June, the MTA will hold public hearings on the proposed closure of ICC Commuter Bus No. 203, which an MTA spokesperson told us earlier this week is averaging fewer than 15 riders per trip. MTA had projected an average of about 20 riders per trip with that number growing to 30 riders per trip over a 24-month period.

Leggett asks the MTA to look at targeted outreach efforts or a redesign of services as a way to redeploy resources the agency says can be better used elsewhere:

Bethesda is one of the most significant employment hubs in Maryland, with traffic congestion that demands greater use of rapid transit alternatives rather than a reduction in service. With the passage of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) law in 2005 that established the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, 3,600 personnel have relocated from the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. It is important to note that this 45 percent increase in personnel at Walter Reed-Bethesda took place directly across Rockville Pike from the National Institutes of Health which has approximately 18,000 personnel.

Collaborating with the Navy, NIH and the local community, the Maryland and Montgomery County Departments of Transportation worked together to devise a comprehensive traffic mitigation strategy that had three key elements to improve mobility and pedestrian safety near WRNMMC. Those elements included: projects to provide short-term operational improvements to nearby major intersections; long-term improvements to provide greater access to and promote greater use of transit; and improvements to pedestrian and bicycle facilities for safe, walkable communities near the medical center. The biggest project which is just about to get under way is the Multimodal Crossing Project at the Medical Center Metro Station, a project that will encourage greater use of bus and rail transit by creating new and safer entrances…

…I understand and appreciate MTA’s need to make better use of available resources. The County continues to need additional transit opportunities for its residents and to encourage more drivers to get out of their cars. There may be opportunities to attract more riders through schedule modification, targeted outreach efforts or a redesign of services. I encourage you to consider redeploying these resources, and I ask that you review and consider putting additional transit resources to the Bethesda BRAC and Shady Grove Life Sciences areas.

Montgomery County BRAC Implementation coordinator Phil Alperson said he will give the county’s view at a public hearing on June 6 in Gaithersburg. Ilaya Hopkins, a Bethesda civic activist and member of the Walter Reed BRAC Integration Committee, is expected to join him.

MTA is proposing to cut two other ICC Commuter bus routes.

Arlington County transportation planner and blogger Dan Malouff called the move a “classic bait and switch from highway builders,” who promise a multimodal road to build political support for a project before cutting those other modes later.