Montgomery County planners designing a proposed rapid transit system are facing the unpleasant choice of further clogging main traffic arteries in the county by taking lanes for bus routes or condemning churches, houses and businesses to build new lanes. The Planning Department wants to use existing lanes wherever possible and not cut into people’s properties, said Mary Dolan, acting chief of the department’s Functional Planning and Policy Division. Once the system is in place, the county can go back and build it up, adding additional lanes or even new routes.

Designing a complex, costly system will make getting approval from the County Council and funding from the state more difficult, she said.