STRANGE
BUT
TRUE!
Another Robert Dyer @ Bethesda Row Exclusive
The saga of the Emperor's new bus (a.k.a. Montgomery County Bus Rapid Transit) took another bizarre turn yesterday. A statement regarding a recent - but, strangely, unpublicized - visit by transportation officials from the province of Henan in Communist China, included a reference to the BRT project.
While the 18 officials from Zhengzhou were here to "learn about" planning and transit, the statement went on to say that they "shared insights about their own bus rapid transit system."
So to set the scorecard straight, Chinese officials have had more opportunity to weigh in on the BRT project than the taxpayers of Montgomery County.
How ironic, as China is the only country in the world to successfully accomplish what county politicians have claimed is their goal: "get people out of their cars." Oh, and they just happened to force people to do it. For example, one day half of the people are allowed to drive into work, and the next day, the other half can drive.
Is having Communist officials advising you on an already-controversial project good PR? Mmm... not so much.
This is the latest public relations disaster to befall the BRT "juggernaut." First, the finished plan was presented and endorsed by several elected officials - without a single public hearing on the matter. Then, when citizens like myself started pointing out that some downtown Bethesda residents could pay $1000 a year or more in BRT taxes, irate taxpayers turned out to a belated afterthought of a public hearing (again, after the plan had been finished).
Without those massive taxes, BRT was suddenly with no source of funding. Primary BRT advocate Marc Elrich then demanded the business community pay for the system. If they didn't, Elrich warned ominously, businesspeople would "get their worst nightmare." Unfortunately, he declined to specify what that "nightmare" would be.
And the county's own master planner said the BRT system won't work, and won't have the ridership.
With a terrible concept being made worse by gaffe after gaffe, it's time to retire the downright nutty BRT plan, and get to work on building our decades-delayed master plan highways.
As the Chinese officials may have told them, Beijing has not just one Outer Beltway, but five!
Ask their advice.
