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The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of using bus rapid transit on the planned Corridor Cities Transitway, a transit system on the Interstate 270 corridor.
County Executive Ike Leggett already has expressed his support of a bus-based CCT, and the recommendation will go to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who will make his own recommendation before sending an official proposal to the Federal Transit Administrationfor funding.
The decision to back bus rapid transit, or BRT, reverses a 2009 decision tosupport light railfor the transit system and follows an analysis by consultant Parsons Brinckerhoffthat found that a BRT-based system would be less expensive and take less time to build than a light-rail system.
A bus-based CCT would cost about $491 million to build and should be completed by 2028, with the first phase — from Shady Grove to Metropolitan Grove — built by 2020, according to the report. By contrast, a light-rail system would cost about $772 million to build and not be finished until 2040, with the first phase completed by 2031.
Because the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center cannot be constructed until the CCT is built, delaying the opening of the CCT delays the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the analysis concluded.
Costs and timing aren’t the only benefits BRT has over light rail, several council members said.
By using BRT, the county will be able to more easily integrate the CCT witha countywide BRT system, a possibility a county commission is studying, said Council President Roger Berliner, D-Bethesda. When that system is constructed, the county will be able to extend BRT to Clarksburg.
Councilwoman Nancy Floreen, D-at large, also urged the extension of the transit system beyond the planned endpoint at Comsat Laboratories in Germantown to the county’s border with Frederick County, and, with the cooperation of officials there, into Frederick County.
“We’ve got to provide other options for people to get out of their cars, and that’s what this does,” said Councilman Craig Rice, D-Germantown.
Last week Rice expressed concerns that county residents won’t want to use the new system if it means getting on a bus, rather than a train. This was a concern shared by CCT Coalition Chairwoman Marilyn Balcombe.
But others insisted that BRT vehicles will not look like other public buses.
“The public will have the same experience on the bus rapid transit as they would on a light rail because of the feel of the vehicle,” Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, said Tuesday.
