MoCo Council again tries to sabotage Montrose Parkway East

This week's so-called "compromise" on the Montrose Parkway East project is actually another attempt by the Montgomery County Council to either sabotage, or altogether cancel, the long-delayed highway. Amidst the political pablum of County Executive Ike Leggett's press release, clearly written under duress, was a sentence that did not receive sufficient analysis.

Leggett, who correctly did not want to delay construction of the road at all initially, stated that the one-year delay of the highway would be used to make design changes related to bicycles and pedestrians. He did not specify what those were, or who would approve those changes, and under what public oversight.

What we do know is that developers have wanted to kill the road outright, because it only benefits residents and commuters. It does not help developers, because it is a relief valve, rather than a road that lets developers build more "stuff." Developers want the money from the Montrose Parkway East to go to projects across the County that will allow them to build more stuff, the taxpayers who forked over the highway money be damned.

What we also know, is that several developer tools on the Planning Board have long dreamed of canceling the elevated portion of the parkway over Parklawn, in order to allow developers to build up to the edges of what would be an ordinary urban street. I was able to stop this attempt singlehandedly in 2013, when my testimony changed the votes of several commissioners, who were poised to cancel the grade-separated design for Parklawn at the behest of now-chair Casey Anderson. They also want other sabotage design changes that would similarly increase traffic congestion and lengthen travel time for commuters using the parkway. Such changes would ensure drivers in Rockville, Aspen Hill and other points east of a much-longer trip to and from I-270. Day after day after day.

CLICK HERE to take the first step in
shortening your commute

"Design changes" are right out of the Council playbook, and were previously used by Councilmember Roger Berliner to yet again delay the M-83 Highway. M-83 on the master plan alignment was ready to start construction on an up-or-down vote by the Council, after being recommended by both upcounty residents and MCDOT. Berliner, at the behest of developers, threw the project into an unrequired new approval process that included yet another public hearing. M-83, like MPE, is an old road needed decades ago, and won't by itself allow any development that couldn't go forward today.

It's critical we elect a Council that will cancel any sabotage design changes to the Montrose Parkway East, and will begin construction on that project and M-83 immediately.

Montrose Parkway East extension is essential infrastructure for Montgomery County

A third major effort to kill the long-delayed eastward extension of Montrose Parkway to Veirs Mill Road is underway. The war-on-cars Montgomery County Council is due to vote on the funding for the project in January. Killing the road or delaying it further would not be well-received by their constituents, who are stuck on the few existing east-west roads during rush hour daily. Then again, some on the Council sealed their electoral fates this fall, when they voted to kill the Midcounty Highway Extended (M-83), so maybe they have nothing to lose.

In times when radical ideologues put political whims and developer interests above their constituents, and are derelict in their duty to provide essential infrastructure, it's worthwhile to review the facts.

1. The Montrose Parkway, including the Montrose Parkway East, is arguably the infrastructure linchpin of the White Flint sector plan. 

2. Opponents often claim it is incompatible with the White Flint street grid, which misses the critical point: Montrose Parkway is not and was never meant to be part of the White Flint urban street grid. Its primary function, in fact, is to keep traffic that is not destined for White Flint off of that local street grid. That actually makes it safer for the pedestrians and cyclists we are encouraging to use those alternate modes of transportation to get around the urbanized Pike District.

3. Montrose Parkway, especially including the eastern extension, is critical to the success of retail and restaurant businesses in White Flint. The parkway's secondary function is to bring patrons of the businesses in the Pike District who live elsewhere in the County into the "downtown" from places like Wheaton, Aspen Hill and the I-270 corridor. Increasing trip times will only send those drivers to other commercial destinations. With a private-sector economy increasingly termed "moribund" by even the most progressive voices in the County, a loss of more than 2000 retail jobs since 2000 (according to the Maryland Retailers Association), and a stagnant restaurant sector (according to Melvin Thompson of the Restaurant Association of Maryland), we can hardly afford to self-sabotage White Flint.

4. The Montrose Parkway is a vital piece of a cross-county right-of-way known as the Rockville Facility. It was placed in earlier master plans as a future road to handle what everyone tells us will be a massive influx of new residents and development between now and 2040. The Rockville Facility extends from Falls Road in Potomac along Montrose Road and the Montrose Parkway to the Intercounty Connector, near the former site of the Indian Springs Country Club in Layhill.

For that reason, any attempt to downsize or intentionally slow traffic on the parkway will have dire repercussions far beyond the Pike District. It is gambling away what little capacity and valuable right-of-way we have left in reserve. The reality is, there is no other such east-west route available for a road.

5. Failure to build the extension, including the grade-separated interchange at Parklawn Drive, would forever stain the records of those who cast such a vote. There are four major infrastructure projects that were promised by all stakeholders in exchange for profitable development opportunities at White Flint, a $72 million developer tax cut, and hefty campaign checks for the Montgomery County Council. Only one of them, the Western Workaround, is currently moving forward. Still unprovided by the County Council are the new elementary school, the new MARC station, and the Montrose Parkway extension.

Very similar to the Council's bait and switch betrayal of upcounty residents with the M-83, cancellation of the Montrose Parkway East would prove that councilmembers only give lip service to necessary infrastructure in order to ram through the development. That's exactly the attitude that caused term limits to pass by an overwhelming vote by County residents last fall.

6. Funding for the Montrose Parkway vs. other long-delayed infrastructure in the County is not a zero-sum game. The parkway is an essential piece of infrastructure upon which all of the current and future development in White Flint and White Flint 2 will rely for adequate transportation capacity, and to promote the success of a walkable urban street grid amongst its new developments. It is not something that can simply be deleted because funds are tight, or because the Council has dropped the ball on infrastructure countywide. That's not the way planning and infrastructure work.

Much like M-83, the time to fund and construct the Montrose Parkway East is now; based on what County officials are hinting at for the redevelopment of Aspen Hill, Glenmont and Wheaton, it won't be long before we'll have to start planning future extensions to Connecticut Avenue (where ramp stubs are already in place for the road's planned cloverleaf interchange), Georgia Avenue and the ICC.

7. There are enough major development opportunities at the Montrose Parkway-355 interchange that we don't need to sabotage the parkway to create a smaller one near Parklawn. Air rights above the entire interchange can be sold to any interested developer. Along with the orphaned, pointless parking lot north of Pike & Rose, decking above the interchange could eventually create a seamless pedestrian connection between that development and a redeveloped Montrose Crossing.

The County Council's vote will cement their historical position as either responsible, honest stewards of growth and infrastructure (and I realize that is, frankly, a laughable thing to say about this Council) at White Flint, or a radical, war-on-cars mob of firebrands who have no qualms about burning down the foundations of the sector plan they passed unanimously in 2010.

MoCo traffic jams worsening, new study shows (Photos)

Typical morning rush
conditions on southbound
I-270 this morning: RED

You know traffic is getting worse when even a Montgomery County government report admits it is. While traffic and intersection tests utilized by Montgomery County planners are notoriously and laughably skewed to make things appear better than they are, the latest one finds drivers are crawling even more slowly than they were six years ago. The Montgomery County Planning Department's 2017 Mobility Assessment Staff Report shows you are moving, on average, 4 MPH slower around the county than you were in 2011. "Unexpected delays and peak congestion are increasing," the report says.

These results - and remember, the real conditions are even worse than they can appear under the lax tests applied for this study, and traffic has slowed much more than 4 MPH on many routes; 4 MPH is the average reduction in speed countywide - clearly indicate that our elected officials' current transit-only strategy has been a failure.

In fact, the study found that Ride On bus ridership has declined 7% since 2010, and Metro ridership within Montgomery County declined 3% over that same period. Metrobus is the lone bright spot. Ridership of Metrobus has increased "just under eleven percent" since 2010. That may be partially because of people fleeing Metro along the major corridors where Metrobus dominates, but certainly positive news in an otherwise bleak period for transit.

What happens when the
Montgomery County Council
approves massive development
in Clarksburg and Damascus,
but doesn't build the
M-83 Highway and
Damascus Bypass

Interestingly, just as planning commissioners and County Councilmembers are saying jamming the maximum development downcounty as possible (and we're not talking about transit-oriented smart growth, but transit deserts like Westbard) is a great idea, the report found that traffic jams have increased the most...downcounty. Oops.

So, let's get this straight: Transit use is clearly trending downward. Cars are moving slower than they were before "smart growth." We were promised exactly the opposite would happen by these same county officials. It didn't.

Amazingly, the Planning Board and County Council just approved the addition of over 3000 people to the Westbard sector plan area along River Road. Yet this latest study shows that the intersection of River Road and Western Avenue is number 3 on the top 10 bottlenecks in Montgomery County! And they've said they have no plans to increase capacity on River Road. This is planning malpractice of the highest order. Criminally, the report does not give a congestion map for River Road between the Beltway and Western - was that because it would show a red line? You betcha.

The County Council has
designated this completely
jammed segment of
Connecticut Avenue as a place
where...thousands more
automobile commuters should
be added!

Check out the red-lined severe congestion during the evening rush on Connecticut Avenue through Chevy Chase Lake - where the County Council recently approved thousands of new housing units. This is unbelievable. What are these people smoking?

Will it be better in
the morning? Uh, no

The Level 5 [traffic]storm
known as MD 355
northbound in
Bethesda

Are we ready for
thousands more cars
in downtown Bethesda
in the morning? Nope

"Kill me now"
- George Costanza

Considering how much growth is coming to the MD 355 (Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue corridor) in the next decade, it should be a red flag that four of the top ten bottlenecks in the county are along that corridor. The others are New Hampshire Avenue, Connecticut Avenue and Georgia Avenue. We can now see the impact of never completing the Northwest Freeway, North Central Freeway and Northern Parkway, as those were supposed to take through-traffic off of those north-south commuter routes.

Aspen Hill is moving
much more slowly;
the top purple number is 2017 speed,
the bottom green is 2011

What happens when you don't
build the Rockville Freeway, Part I

What happens when you don't
build the Rockville Freeway, Part II
(and delay Montrose Parkway East)

Heavy traffic jams shown on Randolph Road and Norbeck Road, as well as sizable decreases in travel speed since 2011 along those east-west corridors, show the impact of failing to build the Rockville Freeway and Montrose Parkway East along the Rockville Facility right-of-way.

In short, we are being led by very stupid people.

None of this is to say we cannot have growth and greater density near Metro stations in our urban areas. What it is saying is that our elected officials have failed to provide the infrastructure necessary to handle that growth. And it is forcing us, as voters, to ask ourselves how much longer we'll allow these clowns to get away with it.

Montgomery County planning massive tax-cut for developers as they raise taxes on you

This Thursday, Montgomery County will raise your taxes to the highest level ever. And next week, they will discuss the biggest developer tax cut ever. 

Awk-ward.

On Thursday, the Montgomery County Council is expected to unanimously approve an FY-2017 budget that raises your taxes to a record, all-time high. It will include a property tax hike so massive, it required a unanimous vote by the Council last week to exceed the County's charter limit on property taxes. And it will hike the recordation tax you will pay when selling your home, or even just refinancing your mortgage. Notably, the budget shifts the cost of school construction from developers to taxpayers.

But the Council isn't done helping developers, who account for over 80% of councilmembers' campaign contributions, yet.

The Montgomery County Planning Department is now proposing a massive tax cut for developers.

That is not a misprint.

Just as the County has rejiggered its traffic congestion measurements to reduce taxes for developers, now the County political cartel is proposing to do the same for school capacity and construction costs.

Three key school funding equations would be changed under the planning staff's recommendations, and would result in developer tax cuts up to 59.4%!

Here's how the scam will work:

New math will make it
appear fewer students
are being generated
by new development

First, much like the "new math" planners now legally use to make failing intersections and overburdened roads appear to pass traffic tests, planners are proposing to change the equation for student generation rates. The "new math" will base the forecast only on housing built in the last ten years, which will - surprise! - slash the student generation rate significantly (anybody remember a little thing called "The Great Recession"?). Just a quick glance at the "before and after" colored bars in the graph above shows you just how drastic the change will be (green represents the number of students forecast under the proposed new math).

Massive developer tax cut
number one

The new, lower student generation rate will be combined with a biennial recalculation of school construction costs, to - surprise again! - massively slash school facility payments for developers. For example, the elementary school payment for a mid-rise apartment unit is currently $2,838. Under the new tax cut, that ES payment would drop to $1,495. How about a high-rise payment for the high school level in Bethesda, Silver Spring or Rockville? It will absolutely plunge from $804 to $394.

Sounds like a sweet deal, right? "But, wait - there's more!"

Massive developer tax cut
number two

Impact taxes developers pay will also be lowered under the new biennial formula. As the planning staff acknowledge in their report, under the new formula, "all School Impact Taxes will decrease." The mid-rise apartment building school impact tax per unit would drop from $12,765 to an astoundingly cheap $4,659.

In an additional proposed change, the current .9 multiplier in the school impact tax would be removed. This would preserve the type of massive tax cuts proposed for all but single-family homes. Which would also further discourage developers from building single-family homes, which cannot be built in the same density as townhomes and apartment buildings, and therefore generate fewer students on a lot of the same size than multi-family housing.

Think back to recent development fights in places like Westbard, downtown Bethesda, Rock Spring, White Oak and Lyttonsville, as well as the Adequate Public Facilities battle royale in the City of Rockville. At the outset of many of those discussions, the County Council and Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson told us they were going to "start a conversation" about how they could allow the massive development their developer supporters wanted, and somehow provide the infrastructure that would be required to support it.

Would you have imagined at that time that the plan was actually a ruse to open up the formulas and instead give those same developers a massive tax cut?

Well, if you read my blog back then, you might have known something was up.

It's unlikely anyone has any doubts about how arrogant and patronizing the County Council and Planning Board are at this point. You can be sure there's much "mansplaining" ahead from both, as they try to educate us to understand schemes and treachery - er, sorry, "Subdivision Staging Policy" - so complex it is simply beyond the small mind of you, the citizen.

Are you ready for term limits yet?

The Planning Board is expected to hold a public hearing on the proposals, and the rest of the SSP, on June 2, 2016.

So, to summarize, this Thursday, Montgomery County will raise your taxes to the highest level ever. And next week, they will discuss the biggest developer tax cut ever. You can't make this stuff up, folks! This is what happens when you have a political cartel where government policy is for sale to the highest bidder. And more than 80% of the money is coming from developers.

Res ipsa loquitur.

FACT-CHECKING MONTGOMERY COUNTY INFRASTRUCTURE FORUM

As Paul Harvey used to say, "And now...the rest of the story."

This past Saturday's infrastructure summit at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School was long in hours, but short on accurate information. The Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County described it as a "farce." Much of the program was made up of County officials delivering the same talking points we've already heard in other forums, and too little from actual parents and residents. More facts were being tweeted by the PCMC and citizens during the meeting than being generated by the speakers themselves.

No public speaking by the public,
please!

One would think that the beg-a-thon underway currently for school construction money would be enough to dissuade Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson from claiming that development is covering the cost of the new school construction it requires. While everyone is rolling around on the floor laughing in response to that assertion, let me point out:

DC, Fairfax and Arlington have all had real estate development booms - and they all had budget shortfalls this year. Montgomery County has been growing like mad before and after the recession - and is in a structural deficit as far out as the projections go.

Guess what? It's a fact that residential development does not generate the revenue needed to cover the schools and services those new populations require. Your ever-increasing Montgomery County taxes and fees are the best evidence of that.

Developers covering school construction
costs? Not quite... "Need state aid," tweeted
MCPS Board of Education member
Jill Ortman-Fouse. Yep, actual BOE member
said it, not me

The use of cluster averaging allows County officials to give the false impression that overcrowding is currently under 120% of capacity.

FACT: I'm aware of eight Montgomery County public schools which currently exceed 150% of capacity. One is at, or exceeds, 180% of capacity. At some point, it's like having two schools within one building.

FACT: As regards future development in the Walt Whitman cluster - those schools are over capacity now. Wood Acres Elementary is getting an addition, and that will put it at full capacity when completed (it was over-capacity prior to the beginning of construction). Kids are taking gym class in hallways at Pyle Middle School.

FACT: The generation of students from multifamily housing in the Whitman cluster, and in the Westbard Sector in particular, is significantly higher than elsewhere in the county. Bruce Crispell, long-range planner for MCPS, acknowledged this fact at the Westbard Sector Plan charrette.

How about those talking points about "urban" schools? Put aside the point that Westbard and other areas being targeted for massive overdevelopment are definitively suburban and residential in character for a moment. Put aside the point that neither potential elementary school site floated by planners for the Westbard sector is large enough to hold a school. Put aside the point that the acreage of Westland Middle School and the current Little Falls Library site together is not large enough to support the population, employees and facilities for two "collocated" schools (one wonders how many people who are talking about "collocating" a school at the Westland site are aware of the actual size of the property, and that any expansion into Equity One's site is blocked by the driveway for Kenwood Place - and the proposed Equity One grocery store building that would be on that part of the Westwood Shopping Center site).

Put that all aside, and ask yourself if you want your kids in a tiny school, with inadequate playground space, athletic fields and other facilities. As Rockville Planning Commissioner John Tyner pointed out recently, schools involve more than just jamming kids into sardine can classrooms and "urban" (a.k.a. cramped) school buildings. The facilities that high-quality schools require are "the things that really determine if kids get a good education or not," Tyner said. I won't even get into the idea being floated of these schools being placed in industrial areas! What's better than a portable classroom? A portable classroom next to an EPA brownfield, I guess.

"Full disclosure": The architect speaking at the meeting was with Perkins Eastman. The same Perkins Eastman retained by developer Equity One for its Westbard redevelopment plan. The same Perkins Eastman that thereby will profit from approval of the Westbard Sector Plan as currently formulated. An approval that will be decided by Chairman Anderson, and Councilmembers Roger Berliner and George Leventhal, and other officials present at Saturday's forum. Is this a forum, or corporate lobbying?

By the way, there's a lot more to infrastructure than schools. Roads, sewers, police and fire are just some of the major expenses development generates. Yes, proponents of BRT did use this forum to push for that $5 billion bus system boondoggle - which will have zero impact on traffic congestion.

FACT: BRT would reduce capacity on the County's most-traveled commuter routes by a full 33%.

FACT: The current draft of the Westbard Sector Plan includes not a single project or proposal to increase automobile capacity on River Road or Massachusetts Avenue. And how could you do much anyway, given that the River Road right-of-way is constricted by homes east of Little Falls Parkway. Would the War-on-Cars-Capital of the World, Washington, DC, widen River Road within its borders past Western Avenue? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Contrary to what you may be hearing from this meeting and the media - we are not "going to be okay" on our present course regarding development and infrastructure.

"And now you know...the rest of the story."

Just the facts, ma'am.

TIME TO TACKLE INFLATED INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS

COZY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN 

POLITICIANS, UNIONS, CONSTRUCTION FIRMS 

DRIVING TAXPAYERS INTO POORHOUSE, 

STIFLING VITAL PROJECTS

One of the biggest arguments for substandard transit projects like Montgomery County's proposed BRT system, and not building needed highways is, "We just don't have the money."

That's partly true, because politicians keep spending transportation funds on the folks who donate to their campaigns.

But there's a fundamental flaw to that argument, and it came to my attention recently.

Reading about a new interstate highway in the deep South, that will extend several hundred miles through three states, I was flabbergasted to find that the ambitious project's total cost was going to be less than what Maryland taxpayers are paying for the few miles of the InterCounty Connector.

As a fan of underground subways, I wonder why areas like ours have stopped building them.  We're told that light rail (which I also like, by the way) is a cheaper alternative.

Initially, you might think so.  New York City is building a subway extension of 8 miles for $17 billion.  In contrast, Maryland has estimated the much longer Purple Line to cost around $2.2 billion as a surface light rail line.

But wait a minute, Toronto is building the 15.5 mile Englinton-Scarborough Crosstown subway line for about $8 billion.

Ironically, the ESC subway was meant to be a light rail line.  But Toronto Mayor Tom Ford wisely scrapped that plan.

Subways are a far more civilized form of urban transit, particularly in dense areas.  They help create world-class transit systems when stops are placed in the right spots.  Subways can arrive beneath destinations, whereas light rail can be blockaded by surface obstacles around buildings.  Consider the experience of arriving within the Verizon Center complex or Prince Georges Plaza, compared with remote outposts like the White Flint and Shady Grove stations.

And subways do not require all of the surface clutter and debris needed to operate light rail systems.  Not to mention that subway speeds blow away bus or light rail rapid transit.

We're unlikely to match the transit ridership rates of New York City until we have a system that covers the same amount of territory the Big Apple's does.

And we won't reduce gridlock until we build our master plan highways like the Rockville Freeway, M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended, the Outer Beltway, and the Northern Parkway.

Opponents say we can't afford to do it.

It turns out that's hogwash.

Why does it cost so much to build infrastructure here?  Besides nuisance lawsuits permitted by federal law, the driving force behind costs is our politicians' cozy and unethical relationships with all of the players needed to build anything.  Requiring not only union labor, but with an inflated wage, causes costs to skyrocket.  Design and build firms, like union leaders, give generously to politicians' campaigns.  And those politicians are equally generous with the taxpayers' money, approving design and construction projects with overinflated budgets.  And as we've witnessed with projects like Strathmore and the Silver Spring Transit Center, those same tight relationships seem to prevent elected officials from taking any serious, punitive measures to avoid cost overruns when projects go wrong.

While a project like the Rockville Freeway could be built for well under $1 billion under the current cost structure, it is well past time to tackle the outrageous infrastructure prices that are keeping our region from moving forward.  That includes sewer and utility improvements, too!  Even FDR believed that unions hold no right to bankrupt the public.

For Montgomery County in particular, it has been devastating.  It doesn't have to be.  We have the power to take action now to reduce the cost of building infrastructure.  What we need is the leadership that can actually take on this challenge.