A family tries to cross Route 29 at Stewart Lane in White Oak. Below: pedestrians are rare in White Flint, save for this homeless man at the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Rockville Pike; townhouses in Briggs Chaney backing to Route 29.
There's been a lot of talk about the ongoing redevelopment of White Flint, which Montgomery County planners say will be bigger than Downtown Bethesda. Landowners in the area around Rockville Pike and Randolph Road are seeking to build 335-foot-tall buildings, which would be the tallest in the county.
No one who lives on the east side of the county would disagree that there is already a huge discrepancy between where we live and the rest of MoCo, specifically along the Route 355/Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike corridor. I can't help but look at the proposals for new housing, offices and retail in North Bethesda and say: does this really do the east side any good? Should I support any elected officials who continue to push this development over something here?
When I read about the White Flint proposals in last week's Post, I remembered when Henry (from the Silver Spring Scene) and I went to interview County Councilmembers two years ago. "Why are we approving 300' tall buildings in North Bethesda when the height limit is still under 200' in Downtown Silver Spring?" he'd ask them, never receiving a satisfactory answer. While I doubt buildings that tall would be appropriate anywhere on the east side, I think the emphasis on densifying the Rockville Pike corridor now means we've lost an opportunity to provide dense, pedestrian- and transit-friendly communities in areas where a population that relies heavily on walking and transit already exists.
The Z line buses along Route 29 are some of the most well-ridden routes in the region, always packed as they head into Downtown Silver Spring each morning and out each evening. I've never seen as many people walking or riding buses along Rockville Pike with its strip malls as I've seen on Columbia Pike, darting across six lanes of traffic, exit ramps, service roads. It's far more dangerous than Rockville Pike, which at least has sidewalks along some segments - and no interchanges, either.
East County does not look like a transit-friendly place, because even when there were plans to run light-rail down the middle of Route 29 we still designed everything around the car - hence the "great failure of transit serviceability" that resulted in the removal of any mention of increased density or improved transit from the 1997 Fairland Master Plan. But this community, with its thousands of apartments and townhomes and a large population of transit riders, has the potential to become a very transit-friendly community, as much as White Flint, I think. We've already got the people, and they're already out of their cars.
I'm not asking for 300-foot towers. But I'd like to see Montgomery County at least begin to study ways to practice here what they already preach in Rockville and Bethesda, if only on a smaller scale. We don't have transit like the Red Line to sustain the level of development proposed in White Flint, and it doesn't hurt that demographics and zoning make the profits a lot higher for any development over there, either. But, on the other hand, we could probably fit all of the retail opportunities on Columbia Pike between White Oak and Burtonsville into a couple blocks of Rockville Pike. It's time to level the playing field, one game at a time.
There's been a lot of talk about the ongoing redevelopment of White Flint, which Montgomery County planners say will be bigger than Downtown Bethesda. Landowners in the area around Rockville Pike and Randolph Road are seeking to build 335-foot-tall buildings, which would be the tallest in the county.
No one who lives on the east side of the county would disagree that there is already a huge discrepancy between where we live and the rest of MoCo, specifically along the Route 355/Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike corridor. I can't help but look at the proposals for new housing, offices and retail in North Bethesda and say: does this really do the east side any good? Should I support any elected officials who continue to push this development over something here?
When I read about the White Flint proposals in last week's Post, I remembered when Henry (from the Silver Spring Scene) and I went to interview County Councilmembers two years ago. "Why are we approving 300' tall buildings in North Bethesda when the height limit is still under 200' in Downtown Silver Spring?" he'd ask them, never receiving a satisfactory answer. While I doubt buildings that tall would be appropriate anywhere on the east side, I think the emphasis on densifying the Rockville Pike corridor now means we've lost an opportunity to provide dense, pedestrian- and transit-friendly communities in areas where a population that relies heavily on walking and transit already exists.
The Z line buses along Route 29 are some of the most well-ridden routes in the region, always packed as they head into Downtown Silver Spring each morning and out each evening. I've never seen as many people walking or riding buses along Rockville Pike with its strip malls as I've seen on Columbia Pike, darting across six lanes of traffic, exit ramps, service roads. It's far more dangerous than Rockville Pike, which at least has sidewalks along some segments - and no interchanges, either.
East County does not look like a transit-friendly place, because even when there were plans to run light-rail down the middle of Route 29 we still designed everything around the car - hence the "great failure of transit serviceability" that resulted in the removal of any mention of increased density or improved transit from the 1997 Fairland Master Plan. But this community, with its thousands of apartments and townhomes and a large population of transit riders, has the potential to become a very transit-friendly community, as much as White Flint, I think. We've already got the people, and they're already out of their cars.
I'm not asking for 300-foot towers. But I'd like to see Montgomery County at least begin to study ways to practice here what they already preach in Rockville and Bethesda, if only on a smaller scale. We don't have transit like the Red Line to sustain the level of development proposed in White Flint, and it doesn't hurt that demographics and zoning make the profits a lot higher for any development over there, either. But, on the other hand, we could probably fit all of the retail opportunities on Columbia Pike between White Oak and Burtonsville into a couple blocks of Rockville Pike. It's time to level the playing field, one game at a time.