MontCo tackles 'Science City' as state backs nearby bus route
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
October 25, 2009
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| State transportation officials urged county leaders to approve a rapid bus transit system along I-270, helping reduce congestion and lessen commuters’ reliance on automobiles. (Andrew Harnik/Examiner file) |
Montgomery County officials are scheduled to take up the monumental "Science City" proposal on Monday, just days after both sides of the issue claimed victory in a state transportation plan calling for an express bus route alongside Interstate 270.
"You get a sense of how far along they are in their thinking," said Donna Baron, president of the "Scale It Back" coalition, an organization of neighborhood groups trying to reduce the scope of the development.
The planning department has approved a massive, 60,000-job biotechnology corporate and academic complex in Gaithersburg. Advocates say that development will make Montgomery County a world leader in biotech research and development. Critics say the plan is too much, too fast.
The council's development committee is set to meet about the plans Monday.
Both sides said they were encouraged by letters from state transportation officials last week urging county leaders to approve a rapid bus transit system along I-270.
Inletters to Montgomery County President Phil Andrews, Maryland highway and transportation officials say that "none of the all-transit alternatives, other than the use of express bus on the improved I-270 linked with the Corridor Cities Transitway, provided user benefits that would meet both the cost effectiveness criteria established by the [Federal Transit Authority] and the purpose and need" for the project.
The light rail option would require the county to go back to the drawing board, with years of environmental impact studies, and heavier expenses,the officials warned.
"The process is time consuming to complete and can require well over a decade to get a project through planning and design, construction and initiation of operation and would cost several millions of dollars," the officials warned in their letter.
The transitway is designed -- eventually -- to take commuters back and forth from Frederick to the Shady Grove Metro station. It's just one of several interlocking, big-ticket projects that the council will have to weigh this winter. State officials also endorsed a plan to route the buses through the Science City corridor, saying that it would increase bus ridership by up to 40 percent.
But Andrews, who has called for Science City to be scaled back, said a bus-only route precluded such a massive development.
"You can get the CCT with the current approved density," he said. "You don't want the tail wagging the dog here."
The Montgomery County Planning Commission, which drafted the Science City plans, said the state letters supported the commission's arguments.
"The CCT would serve as a means to cluster houses, jobs, and retail to support activity centers and lessen reliance on automobiles," the commission wrote.
