ACT Opposes Transportation Policy Area Review
And Changes to Local Area Transportation Review
Dear Council President Berliner and Council Members:
The Action Committee for Transit urges you to reject the Transportation Policy Area Review that was originated by MCDOT and transmitted to the Council by the Planning Board. While the amendments approved by the PHED committee ameliorate the worst aspects of this plan, we still believe it should be rejected.
This plan shifts control of transportation spending priorities away from the voters and you, their elected representatives. Even with the flexibility added by the committee, tax revenues would have to be spent on reducing road congestion in and around the policy area where development occurs. This still favors investment in sprawl-inducing roads like M83 -- the computer models will insist on it, whatever the real world effects.
We also urge you to reject the proposal to use HCM analysis in LATR. If you do not reject them entirely, we urge you to adopt the Leventhal-Floreen amendment that sets the threshold for HCM at 1800 near Metro stations. This is necessary to avoid discouraging development near Metro by tightening development standards near Metro while leaving them unchanged in sprawl areas.
The claim made for HCM is that it is more accurate than CLV. This claim is specious because neither model reflects reality. In actual fact, development near Metro generates far fewer automobile trips than such models assume. Attached is a research paper by Robert Cervero, chair of the Planning Department at Berkeley, which measured the true trip generation rates near transit stations by counting cars leaving the garages. Among the buildings studied by Professor Cervero were two in Montgomery County, the Avalon at Grosvenor and Lenox Park Apartments in downtown Silver Spring. The trip generation rate at the Lenox Park was 65% below the model number and at the Avalon it was 30% below the model number.
Transportation planning should reflect the change in the paradigm for our county. Both our 20- and 30-something generations and our Baby Boomer residents planning for retirement are demanding more transit investment. If we want to attract tomorrow's jobs and residents, we must make transportation planning funding decisions that will provide our duly elected County Council the flexibility to invest in the infrastructure that is already popular and in high demand, and not tie our spending priorities to outdated and fallacious computer models.
Sincerely,
Tina Slater
Action Committee for Transit, President