Transporting Silver Spring: How smart?

BY ETHAN GOFFMAN

 

Photo: Richard Jaeggi

Almost before our eyes, downtown Silver Spring is transforming. In synergy with a revitalization program based on strong community participation and public/private partnerships, smart growth initiatives have helped to jump start Silver Spring. What was very recently a decaying inner suburb has become a model of innovative, conscientious development.

Smart growth is the general term for alternative approaches to the sprawling growth patterns that characterized the last half of the 20th century. Suburban living traditionally has equaled almost total dependence upon cars, with longer trips, less use of public transportation, and roads built with little accommodation for pedestrians or cyclists.

For inner-suburb communities such as Silver Spring, the sprawl pattern has meant a traffic and pollution burden with virtually no economic benefits.

Smart growth's beginnings

During the administration of former Governor Paris Glendening, the state of Maryland began to address suburban sprawl. Through application of smart growth principles, Maryland became a pioneer of the cost-saving, preservationist model of renovating old neighborhoods and boosting development around existing transportation networks.

Silver Spring was an obvious place for the state to begin, according to Gary Stith, president of the Silver Spring Regional Center.

"Downtown Silver Spring is the poster child for smart growth," Stith says. "We've got the mix of usesÑresidential, shopping, entertainment, jobs, offices. You've got to have all of those types of uses together, in a compact area that's walkable, to really have smart growth."

Public transportation projects such as the Purple Line, the proposed east-west addition to the Metrorail system, are crucial to smart growth. The Silver Spring revitalization plan is modeled around the provision of transportation modes that allow easy access to all areas; and the provision of attractive pedestrian spaces throughout downtown Silver Spring, to encourage strolling, browsing, and shopping. The planned hub of the new Silver Spring is an integrated transportation system, with many of the system componentsÑMetrorail, bus service, and train serviceÑalready in place and others scheduled to be added.

Stewart Schwartz, president of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, believes that the potential absence of the Purple Line will hurt Silver Spring and cripple attempts to spread smart-growth revitalization to nearby Prince George's County. Schwartz also states that Governor Robert Ehrlich is deliberately delaying and thus trying to kill the proposed line in favor of building the long-discussed Inter-County Connector and other major roadways.

"The goal is to shift as much money as possible to the Inter-County Connector," according to Schwartz. "The Inter-County Connector is absolutely the worst thing for Silver Spring's revitalization, because bypass [roads] have always shifted development out of downtown areas."

Schwartz and other proponents of smart growth believe that new highways do not solve traffic problems, and instead generate others. The pattern of outward sprawl leads to new and longer trips, traffic jams, increased pollution, and abandonment of inner cities and older suburbs, and has necessitated continuous investment in the infrastructure. Government subsidies are stretched in order to provide increasingly distant suburbs with new schools and public buildings, road repairs, and more extensive water and sewage systems.

An innovative mix

There is no question that Silver Spring has done a superb job with the construction aspects of revitalization. Stith credits Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan with spurring this new vision.

"The redevelopment of downtown Silver Spring wouldn't have happened without his leadership," he said.

Under Duncan, Silver Spring has adopted innovative concepts based on strong community participation and public/private partnerships.

The new mix of uses accords well with pedestrian-oriented ideals that urban areas should encourage mixed uses from a variety of businesses, small and large, individual and corporate.

The Silver Spring Metro station is the obvious centerpiece of non-automobile transportation, allowing residents, shoppers, moviegoers, arts attendees, and others easy access. Planners continue working to enhance the station, which is due to be completed in 2007 as the Silver Spring Transit Center, a multi-hub complex.As part of this process, the MARC train stop recently relocated next to the Metro.

Future plans include expanding bus capacity and moving the Greyhound/Peter Pan bus station to the complex. The Green Trail, part of a network of Washington area hiker-biker trails, will also be linked to the station.

Yet visitors to downtown Silver Spring immediately notice one striking element anathema to smart growth.Swarms of cars compete with pedestrians, while the wait for crossing lights can seem interminable.Pedestrians who cross with the light are often cut off by aggressive drivers and many pedestrians find themselves stranded between traffic on the tiny cement islands in mid-street.

"Colesville Road is intimidating to cross when you're trying to get to the Metro station or to the buses," Schwartz said.

Blaming the victim?

Montgomery County's pedestrian fatality rate, one of the highest in the country, confirms a disregard for walkers' safety in Silver Spring. According to Pedestrian Safety Coordinator Christy Huddle, 18 pedestrians in this area were killed in 2002 and 11 were killed in 2003.

Leaders have taken some important measures to address the problem.

"We have installed countdown pedestrian signals, reconfigured Fenton Street to slow traffic using bulb-out intersections, and re-striped crosswalks in an effort to improve pedestrian safety," Duncan said.

Planners are also creating safe pedestrian areas, including the redevelopment project on Ellsworth and Fenton and the pedestrian linkage program in south Silver Spring.

"Pedestrian environment is as important a consideration" as are drivers' rights," Stith said.

However, he also places partial blame on pedestrians, citing a recent study that found that 56% of pedestrians at intersections along Georgia and Colesville crossed against the light.

Schwartz disagrees. Street design in Silver Spring is unfriendly, he says, and light cycles at crosswalks are sequenced to favor drivers.

"We're blaming the victim, in a sense, because of something that is timed not to help the pedestrian," he said. "Some of those blocks are extremely long. There's no crosswalk and the distances are huge. That encourages people to jaywalk."

Perhaps most significantly, the speed of cars in Silver Spring is simply not oriented toward pedestrians. Signs and laws for drivers aren't enough, Schwartz says. Without additional traffic-calming measures, such as street-narrowing, downtown Silver Spring is not fully a smart growth area.

"They should be looking at how to narrow Colesville and put in a safe median.I'm not talking about a three-foot-wide strip, but something much more substantial," he said.

Harry Sanders, vice president of the Action Committee for Transit, praised the downtown area's new sidewalks, but worried about pedestrian safety, especially in reaching buses.

"We have advocated a bridge over Colesville, but we have not been able to convince the planners to put that in,"Sanders said.

The Purple Line connection

Beyond making Silver Spring truly pedestrian-friendly, a complete fulfillment of smart growth would allow speedy, accessible public transport options. Last August, this ideal was dealt a severe blow when Ehrlich announced that the consensus plan for the Inner Purple Line would not happen on his watch, due its disruption of the Columbia Country Club golf course.The inner Purple Line through Silver Spring would have provided a key rail link to Prince George's County to the north and Bethesda, and eventually parts of Virginia, to the south.

Duncan explained the need for an east-west link by stating that "job centers are now spread throughout the Washington region, and as a result, commuting patterns have changed. Ultimately, we need to create a subway beltway, connecting the spokes of the wheel that make up the current metrorail system, and link job centers around the region by rail."

Yet Duncan has consistently blocked plans for the inner Purple Line, which many residents consider to be the only viable option.He has repudiated a consensus supported by planning commissions, regional and local officials throughout Montgomery and Prince George's counties, and an array of advocacy groups, that the Purple Line be built along the old B&O Railroad right-of-way, which Montgomery County purchased in 1985 specifically for this purpose.

Such alternatives as an outer Purple Line, an inner-line loop, and the possibility of dedicated bus routes, have all been studied and rejected by area transportation authorities. All of these plans have been deemed impractical for reasons of cost, residential disruption, environmental concerns, or time concerns.

An outer Purple Line, for instance, would cost $5 billion, at least three times as much as the Purple Line, and take 15 to 20 years to complete.In addition, critics argue that it would fail to serve the densely populated inner suburbs most in need of an East-West rail option.

Duncan, nevertheless, has supported the determined opposition of a small but potent coalition, consisting mainly of Chevy Chase and Bethesda residents who fear losing the use of the Capital Crescent hiker-biker trail, and members of the Columbia Country Club, who risk losing two holes on their golf course.

Yet Inner Purple Line plans included a complete hiker-biker trail to be built alongside the light-rail line, and a proposal that the country-club portion of the project be built underground, at a cost of $10 to 15 million.Inner Purple Line opponents, however, remained unsatisfied, insisting on further study.

Meanwhile, the delays continue.Years of study dating back to 1986, and public meetings that began in 1994, have finally resulted in...more study.Even without Duncan's support, the overwhelming consensus would likely have allowed the Purple LineÑto proceed under most governors.Instead, we have more discussion in an endless planning process.

Car-crazy

Rather than supporting public transportation, the Ehrlich administration is returning to a car-oriented model of transportation.The Inter-County Connector (ICC), a six-lane highway from Laurel to Rockville, is high on its priorities list.

Doug Duncan, too, supports the ICC.

"It is my strong belief that if we don't build the ICC we will not only condemn our region to perpetual gridlock, but hurt the future economic health of Montgomery and Prince George's counties, including those communities inside the Beltway," Duncan stated.

Schwartz disputes this position. He believes that the historical impact of road construction is widely misunderstood. New highways tend to move shopping and jobs further out, leading to more and longer car trips.

Schwartz also believes that bypasses have played a major role in killing both inner cities and rural areas.

"You can go to any small town in America and see how the bypass highway caused all the economic development to shift out to the highway, and Main Street died," he said.

Schwartz believes that "a massive $3 billion highway project" is not cost effective. Rather, creating jobs near where people live, as well as extending existing transport system, work much better.

Sanders agrees. "The thing that I'm concerned about the ICC is the amount of money. It really takes away from other projects."

Sanders also wonders why there is no discussion of a smaller alternative to the two extremes of a six-lane ICC and no such connector at all.

"The real issue is how you can provide some additional road capacity in that corridor without spending billions of dollars­. It can be done," he said. "Everybody wants you to be for the ICC or against it. They don't want to compromise."

Although Schwartz worries that without of a Purple Line, the building of the ICC will significantly hurt Silver Spring revitalization, Sanders' concerns are elsewhere.

"Silver Spring will be okay," Sanders said. "I think what the Inter-County Connector really will hurt is future developments like this in Prince George's County."

Will Silver Spring be the first domino in a marvelous cascade of inner suburb revitalization? With a governor hostile to public transit, it may not. Yet a new vision cannot be just the work of a handful of leaders; it must involve input from local residents. Comprehensive smart growth will take the awareness and effort of people throughout Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

If it succeeds, perhaps Silver Spring revitalization will be the beginning of a thriving, interlocked group of inner suburbs free of traffic congestion, designed to serve the multiple needs of this diverse community.