MONTGOMERY COUNTY BRT: A BOONDOGGLE WE CAN'T AFFORD

Bus Rapid Transit System Will Still Cost

Bethesda Residents $1000+ a Year!

Another Robert Dyer @ Bethesda Row Exclusive!!!

A month later, there still has been no public dialogue, no release of credible data supporting ridership and time savings, and no credible finance plan for the boondoggle its few dozen supporters call Montgomery County BRT.

One other thing hasn't changed:  the financing plan put forward by the BRT committee will still cost many Bethesda residents $1000 or more per year in new taxes.

Supporters are trying to lowball the numbers by using real estate values that would pass for "affordable housing" in the county, when calculating residents' estimated BRT tax.  Rents will also increase.

Worst of all, the BRT system proposed is simply an ideological, political and vanity project run amok.

Wait, the worst of all is that no reporter, politician or other public voice has criticized or critiqued the BRT plan, its performance and ridership projections, real-world application, and financing.

If you would finally like to hear the other side of the BRT story, read this article  I posted last month, which is the only critical evaluation of BRT in Montgomery County ever put forward and published.  It's a shame that this week we are simply getting more reworked press releases posing as "articles."

Ever noticed that none of the BRT articles ever include the phrase, "Critics of the proposal say that ______."  That's apparently by design.  You the public are to believe that BRT is inevitable; it's just a question of how we're going to pay for it.  Scary stuff.  All this talk for two years, and not one public hearing or charade... I'm sorry, charette.

They mean for working families to finance the BRT boondoggle, but less than 20 people in a county of nearly a million will design and pass the project nearly by fiat.  Are you as dumb as they think you are?  No.  And that's why we'll be lucky to have one public hearing, once this is all a predetermined done deal.

It's outrageous.  And as I argued in the linked article, it will also take funds from our already struggling Metro system.

There are many smart people on the BRT committee.  And that's why their proposal assumes no federal funding.  They're smart because this BRT project has zero chance of qualifying for federal funds in its current form.  USDOT guidelines outright forbid awarding funds to wasteful projects like this.

If BRT was competing with the Rockville Freeway for federal funds, the Rockville Freeway would win, hands down.   Why?  It meets an actual and quantifiable need for a corridor between White Flint and Columbia, two exploding employment and housing hubs.

More significantly, for a fraction of the cost, the Rockville Freeway would move more commuters each day than the entire BRT system.  That is an incredible statistic.  And one that is the deciding factor in awarding federal funds.

Media hype aside, how bad is this BRT plan?

It's Yugo-meets-New Coke-meets-John Carter bad.  Now that's bad.

We need to get real and focus on improving capacity of our existing Metro, Metrobus and Ride On routes in the county.  And building our long- and intentionally-delayed master plan highways.

The future of transportation is multimodal.  And expensive.  We simply can't afford the BRT boondoggle.