what's up the pike: i hit somebody's car today

A reader asked me, "what's new with the Fillmore (pictured above)?" I didn't know. I'd kind of forgotten it was there. But now I know.

- The Fillmore hits a major snag as the Planning Board rejects zoning amendments County Executive Ike Leggett proposed for the proposed music hall on Colesville Road. Lee Development Group, which wants to build a mixed-use development behind the new venue, would be allowed to count it as a public space required under the current zoning code. In addition, they'd be allowed up to fifteen years to build the project, whereas most approved development plans have a five-year deadline for construction.

Most of the controversy over the Fillmore has come from its operator, Live Nation - an international concert promoter who has rebranded several existing music halls around the country as "Fillmores." In February, local writer Carol Bengle Gilbert attempted to draw attention to the County's deal with Lee Development, suggesting that the use of a privately-run (but publicly owned) venue as a public amenity was unethical. In two weeks, the County Council will consider the same legal changes.

- Richard Layman of Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space discusses last week's pair of posts, "sick of emo kids on ellsworth" and "how to grow an old town in no time," about Downtown Silver Spring. Definitely check it out.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Rendering of how the Purple Line could look if built along Wayne Avenue east of Downtown Silver Spring.

- Local builder Winchester Homes is demanding the right to buy back 118 acres in Burtonsville seized by the state for construction of an InterCounty Connector route that was eventually eliminated. The property, at Route 198 and Peach Orchard Road, was being cleared and graded for the construction of 130 homes before being bought for the proposed highway's Northern Alignment, which would have paralleled Route 198. When the southern Master Plan Alignment was selected instead, the land was retained to fulfill EPA requirements that the ICC's environmental damage is mitigated.

The Montgomery County Circuit Court ruled that Winchester has the right to re-purchase the property, though the state is appealing that decision. Another Winchester project, Fairland View at Fairland Road and Route 29, was halved in size in order to accomodate a future interchange with the ICC's current routing.

- A week after one Purple Line opposition group was outed as a front for a country club, another organization has appeared, this time in East Silver Spring. This week's Gazette features the people behind the "No Train On Wayne" signs that have appeared along Wayne Avenue. Along with a route between Silver Spring and Thayer avenues, Wayne is one of a few alignments still on the table for the proposed transitway - which will eventually connect Bethesda and New Carrollton - east of Downtown Silver Spring Regardless of which side of the issue you're on, it's hard to deny: that's a catchy slogan.

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now, don't do this at home, but . . .

You know how I feel about speed cameras. As much as I don't support vandalism of public property, I can't say I haven't driven past the county's new speed cameras without thinking up various ways I could put them "out of service," if you will. This photo (I don't know where it was taken yet) comes from - who else? - Chip Py, perhaps best known for leading a march on Downtown Silver Spring last summer in support of free speech for photograhpers.

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what's up the pike: wine and whine

Columbia Country Club has been outed as the anonymous owner of a website for an anti-Purple Line group. The proposed transitway would run through the club's Chevy Chase golf course.

- Barely out of the gate, new anti-Purple Line group Alliance for Smart Transportation has been revealed as a front for Columbia Country Club, with a write-up in yesterday's Post. The Chevy Chase-based club, who's been fighting the proposed transitway that would slice their fairways in half for nearly two decades, sought to bankroll a "grass-roots campaign" opposing the Purple Line.

Purple Line supporters Action Committee for Transit, who discovered the connection between Columbia and the group, plans to hold a press conference outside of the club early this morning. The event will include a guided tour of the transitway's proposed route through the club and a wine tasting.

- Last week's Planning Board hearing to give Falkland Chase historical status went nowhere, says Silver Spring Scene. We won't find out the future of the New Deal-era apartment complex at 16th Street and East-West Highway until September, though the Planning Board is leaning towards a mix of preservation and redevelopment. Falkland owner Home Properties agreed to reconsider their earlier concept for redeveloping the complex's North Parcel, at 16th Street and East-West Highway, aiming for something closer to suggestions made by Planning staff.

Meanwhile, newly minted board member Joe Alfandre excoriates the project's architects for ignoring the precedents for Falkland Chase. "I don’t know where you guys are going with this, but I don’t appreciate the disrespect that you show the Garden City movement," said Alfandre, referring to the 19th-century planning movement that catalyzed modern-day suburban planning. Alfandre's best known as developer of the Kentlands in Gaithersburg. Currently, he's working on the Courts of Woodside, a small townhouse project a few blocks north of Planning Place on Georgia Avenue. Read more!

rapid bus routes could blanket east county by 2012

A map detailing the twenty-four new rapid bus routes proposed by WMATA. The first route in East County, along University Boulevard, could open within a few months.

Within four years, East County could be served by a number of rapid bus routes, part of a 100-mile network proposed by WMATA. The transit agency unveiled their plans to roll out the system, dubbed "MetroExtra," to the Action Committee for Transit earlier this week.

A handful of the new lines are already operating throughout the region, including Route 79, which runs along Georgia Avenue between the Silver Spring and Archives Metro stations. WMATA Board Chairman John Catoe derived the concept from the popular Metro Rapid routes he pioneered while heading the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. Metro Rapid buses have seven "key attributes," among them easy-to-understand route layouts, fewer stops, more frequent service, and a system that gives buses priority at stoplights. Unlike Bus Rapid Transit (like what is proposed for the Purple Line), it doesn't use dedicated lanes or enclosed stations.

According to the WMATA proposal, routes along University Boulevard, Veirs Mill Road and East-West Highway could appear within the next several months; on New Hampshire Avenue between Fort Totten and White Oak in 2009; between Greenbelt and Twinbrook via University Boulevard and Randolph Road in 2010; on Georgia Avenue between Silver Spring and Olney in 2011; and along Route 29 between Silver Spring and Burtonsville in 2012.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Boarding a Metrobus at Old Columbia Pike and Briggs Chaney Road.

While the Georgia Avenue and Route 29 corridors already have more daily ridership than University and New Hampshire, WMATA's chosen to given them a lower priority. (The Q2 bus on Veirs Mill Road, with 11,000 daily riders, is one of the heaviest-used routes in the entire system.) I was originally disappointed by that decision, but I soon realized it says a lot about the intentions of MetroExtra - who it's meant to serve and where it's best suited.

University, lower New Hampshire and Veirs Mill were largely built out during the 1950's, when it was still desirable to line a major street with houses. As a result, surrounding neighborhoods embrace all three roads with driveways and sidewalks. The speed limits are lower and there are frequent stoplights. Buses can get caught up very easily, and the potential MetroExtra improvements could make a big difference in travel time.

This isn't the case along Georgia and 29, where there are fewer stoplights, fewer cross-streets and no driveways. They were developed later, and the neighborhoods along them shy away from the road. The feel is like that of a freeway, and unsurprisingly so, given that's what Route 29 is eventually to become. As a result, average speeds are higher, and faster buses aren't as much of an issue. Several express routes already run along Route 29.

If the intention were simply to run faster buses, all of the new routes would run along the Beltway. But you'll only get so many riders from park-and-ride lots. People are more likely to walk along University Boulevard, whether or not it's actually safe to do so currently, because their neighborhoods are built around it. They may even be denser than their counterparts along Georgia or 29, making walking more practical and bus transit more efficient. Ridership may not be as high along University, but that only means more room to grow for MetroExtra.

East County's been waiting for rapid transit since planners first suggested running light-rail down the median of Route 29 in 1981. MetroExtra isn't as flashy, but it promises to improve the speed, reach and reliability of bus transit in East County, making it more attractive to users who'd rather drive or take Metro. After all, if it worked in Los Angeles, it can work anywhere.

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big day at planning place . . .

A rendering of the proposed redevelopment for part of the Falkland Chase apartments at 16th Street and East-West Highway.

Today, the Board decides the fate of Falkland Chase, along with bike paths along the ICC and in Burtonsville. Check out the hearing schedule, staff reports - and what the Planning Board says - on their website.

Or, of course, you can make yourself heard and go to the hearing in person.

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what's up the pike: two bike paths diverged . . .

Simple and inexpensive, bike trails like the Capital Crescent Trail (pictured in Bethesda) offer an alternative to driving in an era of increasing gas prices and traffic. In actuality, bike paths get the short end of the stick. Here's a look at what's happening this week in trails:

For joggers and bikers in Silver Spring, the Purple Line may be the only way that the popular Capital Crescent Trail gets completed east of Rock Creek Park. As the MTA nears its decision on how and where to build the proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton, those on both sides have stepped up their game recently, from reaching high school students to launching a "grass-roots coalition" bankrolled by the exclusive Columbia Country Club.

While the contact page of new anti-Purple Line group Alliance For Smart Transportation lists an address in Silver Spring, suggesting a connection with the east side, their list of talking points focus on the Purple Line's effects on the trail in Bethesda, or a Town of Chevy Chase-funded study that was largely debunked by state Secretary of Transportation John Porcari.

You'd think that a so-called "Alliance" would move away from Bethesda and ally themselves with their anti-Purple Line counterparts in Silver Spring - SSTOP and the nascent "No Train on Wayne" group, some of whose members do support the project, if not in their backyards. It reminds me of my meetings last summer with activist Pam Browning, who admitted she didn't know about anything east of Silver Spring, or former Chevy Chase mayor Mier Wolf, who'd never really driven on congested East-West Highway (which parallels the proposed Purple Line route) before.

Not that I personally support the forming of a cross-county anti-Purple Line coalition, though it would be nice to see Silver Spring and Bethesda come together on something. I mean, think of all the lemonade that could come from it!

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

A redevelopment of the Burtonsville Shopping Center could include a bike path along Route 29 between Route 198 and Dustin Road.

IN ADDITION:On Thursday, the Planning Board holds a hearing for the ICC Limited Functional Master Plan, which lays out how the InterCounty Connector, currently under construction, will accomodate bike paths and interchanges. Dismayed by the highway's potential effects on the environment, many anti-ICC groups - or groups seeking more alternatives to driving - saw the State Highway Administration's plan to include a bike path parallel to the ICC as a compromise. As The WashCycle explained in a two-part series last month, the state wasn't willing to meet bikers halfway.

In 2004, SHA deleted the trail, saying it would do even further harm to local parkland and streams by increasing the paved area. And while seven miles of the path were added back to the ICC in 2007, the new route follows local roads, like New Hampshire Avenue and Fairland Road, that add extra travel time. Not only that, says the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, but they may also be more unsafe for bikers than a path next to the highway.

FINALLY: Up The Pike, a bike path makes a minor hurdle for the long-awaited Burtonsville Shopping Center redevelopment. Also on Thursday, the Planning Board will decide whether Bethesda developer Chris Jones, whose BMC Property Group will be knocking down the forty-year-old strip mall later this summer, will be required to install a trail and landscaping along old Route 29 between Route 198 and Dustin Road. The project would require cooperation with other properties north of the shopping center, including a church, a garden center and several houses, and planning staff isn't entirely sure that it's feasible to do so.

While it does concern a bike trail, the report from Park and Planning has no images what the project make look like. After years of controversy over potential "big-box" stores in the new center, Jones has returned with a plan for what he calls one the most "environmentally friendly plaza" in the country. But for all the press the Burtonsville Shopping Center over the past year, few people - outside of an East County Citizens Advisory Board meeting last month - have actually seen it.

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sick of emo kids on ellsworth: how to walk without driving downtown

UPDATE: Greater Greater Washington, as always, explains what I was getting at below in far fewer words.

Downtown Silver Spring: Why does "pedestrian-friendly" have to mean "shopping mall"?

Downtown Silver Spring is a nice place to be, and even nicer if you can walk there. And while the definition of "walkable" seems to be getting bigger (County Councilmember George Leventhal says he walks downtown from his home a mile away), Downtown still isn't walking distance for a lot of people. How can we create these kinds of pedestrian-friendly places outside of Montgomery County's major "downtowns"?

Thomas Hardman talks extensively about this in a string of comments following yesterday's post about Wheaton that could merit their own guest blog post - hell, its own blog. He makes several major points, among them: 1) that the County's "Downtowns" are only for those who can afford to live there, and everyone else just dreams they could too and 2) that a lot of people would gladly walk to their own neighborhood business district if they could, or if there was anything there.

At every single community event I've been to in the past two years, I've heard someone talk about "neighborhood scale," about the hardware shop and the corner grocery store. It seems like a nice idea to take those things and put them in a place you can walk to, so you can leave your car at home, if only once in a while. Say you don't always want to visit Wheaton or Silver Spring or Rockville when you want to walk, because you'll be bombarded by crowds and strangers and, of course, emo kids, if there are still any around in 2008.

So why do our "Downtowns" end up becoming malls? And how could we get the corner grocery store in our own neighborhood, within walking distance? I think I have an answer, though it's a lot more complicated than many people would like it to be.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Rockville Town Square: a lack of foot traffic in the immediate neighborhood means high-end shops and big events (like Hometown Holidays, pictured) to attract customers from a wider area.

I work at a store in Rockville that sells four-dollar-a-scoop ice cream, across from a store that sells forty-dollar laundry hampers, and down the street from a store that sells four-hundred-dollar clothes. Rents in the apartments above push $1,800 for a one-bedroom; there are cheaper apartments, but they're heavily subsidized. The Rockville Town Square is a pretty, high-end shopping center, and it's tenanted the way it is to draw customers from a wide area - the standard for most malls is about 250,000 people within a fifteen-minute drive.

Densities push forty homes an acre in the complex, but the surrounding neighborhood is all single-family homes, and they won't be enough to sustain the shops here. So you have to make it like a mall, because people aren't going to drive fifteen minutes for a hardware store, and that means one thing: The Mall People.

The county in its "wisdom" has decided that it only supports The Mall People and their kin. Thus, you can't have walkability as they have it in almost every comparable jurisdiction; you're stuck with "centers". I do occasionally go to Wheaton to do some shopping and that's out of necessity alone. It takes me literally days or weeks to get over it. - Thomas Hardman

The "mall mentality" happens in neighborhood shopping centers as well, because miles and miles of single-family homes won't be enough to sustain them. The developer's still working on a smaller variation of the "250,000 people within fifteen minutes" rule, which means Super Fresh and Home Depot and Starbucks, and even they are barely hanging on in some areas. It happens in Aspen Hill, in Burtonsville, in Montgomery Hills, everywhere. You can make these places easier to walk to; you can build sidewalks and slow cars down, but you won't get that corner grocery or hardware store to move in.

The White Oak Shopping Center: a dense neighborhood means lots of people to walk around and support local retail.

Neither of those things exist at the White Oak Shopping Center, but there are a slew of locally-owned shops, including a clothing store, a bowling alley, and an ice cream store selling two-dollar-a-scoop ice cream. White Oak is surrounded by thousands of apartments, creating a base of shoppers who can all reach it by foot. It's an imperfect example - there's a Sears, which is both big and a chain; the demographics skew lower-income; and there are issues with crime - but it points us in the right direction.

If we're going to be at least partially reliant on pedestrian traffic, we need to increase the density at our neighborhood shopping centers. That means throwing in civic buildings, offices, and housing - ten, twenty, even forty homes an acre - that can sustain little shops pushed up against the sidewalk. Instead of talking about people within a fifteen-minute drive, you have people within a fifteen-minute walk. There are also people here at all times - office workers during the day, residents in the mornings and evenings - giving businesses a steady stream of customers.

Burtonsville: Practically invisible from Route 198, this Indian/Pakistani grocery is dependent on the Indian/Pakistani community for business. In a pedestrian-oriented center, sidewalk traffic would provide another source of customers.

There will be traffic, but also more alternatives to driving for those who wish to take advantage. At these densities, walking becomes viable, along with transit - real, usable transit, not just one bus every half-an-hour that goes twenty places you don't want to go before reaching your destination. A lot of people will drive here to walk, as these kinds of places are still a novelty in MoCo, or if you're disabled, for whom accessible parking suddenly becomes a serious issue.

From the looks of last month's charrette, it seems like Burtonsville has already answered this proposition with a resounding "hell, no. " It's clear that there are a lot of issues to deal with, like how to make sure that the complex isn't reliant on chains like Downtown Silver Spring, or how to prevent development from encroaching on surrounding residential neighborhoods. But the benefits are clear: stronger communities reinforced by local business; smaller-scale alternatives to so-called "town centers," and, of course, avoiding the Mall People.

Nobody likes the Mall People, but nobody said that sidewalks are only for the hip, either. But in many of our neighborhoods, it seems like we've already given them up.

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what's up the pike: giving and taking

The reconstruction of the Silver Spring Metro may not get as much funding as it needs according to a new proposal from County Executive Ike Leggett.

Two years have passed since the fateful flood that gave rise to Just Up The Pike, and I'm proud that I've been able to keep it up, unlike so many of my other grand projects that flame out shortly after getting started. The past two years have been a wild ride, meeting people, traveling the county, making friends and losing a few as well. Here's to another year of writing about the place that I love most - and, to kick it off, here's a look at what's happening around East County:

- It's become clear this week: so shall Ike Leggett giveth, so shall he taketh away. Right after throwing more money at the promoters who'll run the Fillmore music hall in Downtown Silver Spring, County Executive Leggett proposes cutting funds from the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center, a $50 million reconstruction of the existing Silver Spring Metro station. The transit center would expand the capacity of what is currently the state's second-largest transportation hub, bringing local and regional bus service together along with the Purple Line.

Like the Fillmore, the Sarbanes Transit Center is the centerpiece of a large mixed-use development with offices, hotels and possibly residential units. Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson says the cost-cutting threatens "important design elements" of the project, including the location of a police station and transit store.

- As one East County private school embarks on an ambitious expansion, another struggles to pay its monthly rent. The Chelsea School, a facility for learning-disabled students just outside of Downtown, just embarked on a fundraising campaign to build a Daniel Libeskind-designed addition to their campus. Meanwhile, the Newport School, currently located on Tech Road in Calverton, can't even keep their doors open for next year if their landlord doesn't cut rents.

Both schools have a long history in the area, and in recent years, both have also had to change locations frequently. The Newport School lost three-fourths of their enrollment when they moved to their current space in an office park, administrators said, crippling their ability to raise funds.

Dear reader: thanks for reading! We hope you'll keep coming back again and again. You are why Just Up The Pike has kept going strong. Read more!

roundabouts, or how to make a big traffic impact for little cost

A car gingerly navigates the new roundabout at Fairland Road, Musgrove Road and Marlow Farm Terrace in Deer Park.

A story in this month's Atlantic Monthly talks about the unexpected peril of excessive road signs, which the author argues is a distraction to drivers who could otherwise be paying attention to the road and things in the road instead of next to it. While his suggestion that we should do away with highway signs together - as they've been trying to throughout Europe - kind of scares me, I can agree that our roads could use less visual clutter.

While Montgomery County's been pretty gung-ho about speed cameras - which force drivers to slow down because of a machine by the side of the road, not because of actual people that might be hurt - they are looking at other ways to help motorists and pedestrians deal with one another. Last year, they built a roundabout, or smaller traffic circle, at Old Columbia Pike and Perrywood Drive outside of Banneker Middle School, and it's been the talk-of-the-town in Burtonsville ever since. (Whether or not to build roundabouts on Route 198 was a minor controversy at last week's Burtonsville charrette.)

In my neighborhood of Deer Park, just north of Calverton, the county's building three roundabouts along Fairland Road east of Route 29. It's a guarantee that soon they'll be festooned with signs and warnings in obnoxious colors. For the time being, the roundabouts - still under construction at Brahms Avenue and Musgrove Road; a third is underway at Galway Drive near Galway Elementary School - are a simple and elegant solution to pedestrian-motorist conflicts.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

This new roundabout is one of three Montgomery County is building along Fairland Road at Brahms Avenue, Musgrove Road/Marlow Farm Terrace, and Galway Drive. Below: the project also includes new sidewalks and jogging paths along Fairland Road.

Why? Because everybody has to pay attention and everybody wins. Traffic on Fairland Road isn't impeded by another stoplight, but the roundabouts force drivers to slow down and become more aware of their surroundings. Motorists have to communicate constantly with pedestrians and other motorists in order to enter or exist the roundabout. No sign can tell you if you can or can't go, and that's the clincher.

Because of the roundabout, the intersection of Fairland and Musgrove which, growing up, had been a site of many near-death experiences running from my house to a friend's house on the other side of the road, is suddenly a place of order and - dare I say it - repose. And we haven't even gotten pretty flowers planted in the middle of the roundabout yet!

East County's never been good to its pedestrians, which is unfortunate for a community with a lot of young people and a lot of buses to catch. The Cherry Hill, Briggs Chaney and Route 198 interchanges were proposed with the intention of giving pedestrians an easier time, and perhaps they have, because anything's easier than running across six lanes of Route 29. But the cars don't have to slow down or even stop anymore, and that doesn't help you when all you've got are your own two feet and luck.

If we're going to be serious about pedestrian safety, we have to give drivers a reason to pay attention to them. Signs and cameras may help increase the scare potential for motorists, but they won't make it any safer to cross a busy road.

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what's up the pike: money money money charrette

County Executive Ike Leggett throws a little more money at the Fillmore. Is Live Nation threatening to jump ship? Let's not jump (ha!) to conclusions.

- Greater Greater Washington, one of the region's best blogs on what's happening inside-the-Beltway, gave a nice long mention to our mini-series on last week's Burtonsville charrette. It's not all too often that a JUTP post gets this much attention - you'll want to get on the commenting bandwagon before the cool kids move on to the next big local blog story.

- County Executive Ike Leggett's working hard to make sure that Live Nation, whose proposed Fillmore music hall will take over the former J.C. Penney building on Colesville Road, stays in the game. In addition to $2 million in State funds, Live Nation will also get $800,000 in tax breaks from Montgomery County over the next ten years. Lee Development Group, who owns the land and a good chunk of the block bordered by Colesville, Georgia, Cameron and Fenton, will get up to fifteen years to develop a hotel-and-office complex behind the venue. That's triple the five-year deadline made by Park and Planning for submitted plans to be built.

I'm surprised by that, because I'd assume a developer would want to get his building up as quickly as possible. Then again, it's been long enough since we last heard about the Fillmore that I assumed it'd already opened. Perhaps I'm just impatient.

- Rising gas prices have forced Montgomery County Public Schools to cut bus service to a wider net of students living near a school. Currently, students within a mile of an elementary school, a mile and a half of a middle school, and two miles of a high school cannot ride the school bus. While the School Board hasn't decided what the new distances will be, I can't help but wonder: seriously? Back when I went to Eubie High, I had a friend who lived just a mile away and rode the bus. There are no sidewalks between his house and the school, and he'd have to cross busy Route 28 to get there.

Could MCPS really take away bus service from neighborhoods where walking to school would actually be dangerous? (More importantly, would The Parents ever let that happen? Seriously? No.)

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what's up the pike: friday the what?

MTA's proposed transit center at University and New Hampshire in Takoma Park would collect several local bus routes and the Purple Line into one consolidated facility.

We're a little all over the place at JUTP this week. Here's a look at what going on as we head into the weekend:

- The MTA promises that a proposed transit center at University and New Hampshire can boost development in the Takoma-Langley Crossroads, but ridership numbers aren't enough to convince the Taco Bell currently at that corner to give up its location.

- Today, I'll be interviewed on Rockville Central Radio, an online radio show hosted by Brad Rourke from Rockville Central, representing the other Pike in Montgomery County. The show's at noon; you can listen to it here.

- Voters in the 4th Congressional District, which includes a healthy chunk of East County, get a head start on November with a special election next Tuesday to replace Congressman Al Wynn (at left), who resigned after losing the Democratic primary to Donna Edwards in February. Edwards will be running against Republican Peter James of Germantown, who's profiled in the Post today.

I've never met Peter James, though he did take me to task (in a comment I can't currently find) for not talking to him after a candidates' forum last April. James and Edwards will be running again in November - by then, hopefully, we'll be able to talk to both candidates in depth.

- Speaking of people I'd like to talk to: Just Up The Pike is developing a little planner-crush on Rollin Stanley (pictured at right in 2004), the recently-appointed Planning Director for Montgomery County. An Ontario native, he cut his teeth revitalizing Toronto and St. Louis before Montgomery County tapped him to come down here. Earlier this week, he told the Greater Bethesda Chamber of Commerce this week that big houses will be "the next slums" and that future development will have to be smaller, and I'll bet everyone in that room had to pick their jaws off the ground.

Park and Planning did a little last-minute switcheroo on us when we tried to interview Stanley for our East County-unrelated story about 4 Bethesda Metro Center, but I'm looking forward to meeting him for reals. (Nothing's planned yet, of course.) Call it a new "Head-to-Head Tour," if you will, except there's only one stop.

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going to new orleans for a week

I'll be out of town for the next week, volunteering in the ongoing reconstruction efforts in New Orleans. However, Just Up The Pike won't be going anywhere, with posts over the next couple of days about some things I've seen in and around East County recently. In the meantime, however, a few parting notes:

- If you're interested in Burtonsville's revitalization - which made the Washington Post earlier this month and would like to take part in a study about how to redevelop the village center, you'll want to attend one of two meetings on Thursday at the East County Regional Services Center on Briggs Chaney Road. The first meeting, at 12 noon, is for local business owners, while a separate meeting at 7 p.m. will be held for residents.

- Maryland Politics Watch, home to former JUTP guest blogger Adam Pagnucco, will be running a five-part series this week on traffic in Montgomery County. They'll be looking at how the county determines just how bad congestion is at a given intersection - which influences everything from which roads get funded for reconstruction to whether new development is allowed in a certain area - and how the system can be improved.

- And, as always, I encourage you to visit the District 4 Wiki, founded by local activist Eileena York and former County Council candidate Thomas Hardman. Like Wikipedia, the District 4 site can be edited by anyone. York and Hardman hope that East County residents will use the wiki as a way to write about their community - and to communicate with others as well. District 4 Wiki will be holding its first outreach meeting on June 5 at the Long and Foster in Burtonsville.

Happy Memorial Day! I will be back on June 1.

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student leaders, transit advocates team up for purple line push

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: Planning Board approves requirements for SilverPlace headquarters; New building on FDA campus dedicated; Metro plans rapid-bus expansion along 16th Street, Veirs Mill Road by 2009.

As Downcounty residents pored over the MTA's latest plans for the Purple Line last Wednesday, a group of student leaders met with members from the Action Committee for Transit at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School to learn how to make the proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton a reality.

"I think students and people in general are vested in the interest for transit," says Ben Moskowitz, senior at Walter Johnson High in Bethesda and student member of the Montgomery County Board of Education.

Roughly ten students, representing their schools' student government associations and newspapers, came from as far away as Watkins Mill High in Montgomery Village and Centennial High in Ellicott City. ACT President Ben Ross says it's just a sign of how popular the Purple Line is across the region.

"All I can say is . . . it is not just students that we see support from Upcounty," says Ross. "We leafletted the Metro stations two years ago and letters came from all over the County . . . people just look at that map and say 'this makes so much sense'."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Deirdre Smith and Carlos Abinader from the MTA gave a brief presentation on the project, including an explanation of light rail and Bus Rapid Transit, the two technologies proposed for the Purple Line. Abinader, who lived in Germany for several years, stressed how important transit can be to its users. "Kids, adults, everyone, they live it, they breathe it, they ride it," says Abinader. "It's wonderful."

One student from Whitman High in Bethesda expressed concerns about the line's effects on existing residential neighborhoods. "Things will be impacted," responds Abinader, "but we are trying to minimize any impacts."

A successful student-led protest against proposed Ride On cuts last winter encouraged ACT to reach out to high schoolers. "You need a few people who are really committed and it'll sweep the schools," says ACT Vice President Hans Riemer, who recently left a position as youth coordinator for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. "Student empowerment, that's the core tactic . . . talking to students about their power."

The students joined Ross for a round-table discussion about ways to generate interest in the Purple Line, with suggestions ranging from additional student meetings to a new Facebook group. Alex Blocher, a junior at Blake and president of its SGA, says he hopes to reach out to people who don't see the utility in the project right away. "People who have a reason for it . . . who actively travel Montgomery County are aware of it," states Blocher, "but the general population isn't as aware as I'd like it to be."

Moskowitz knew about the Purple Line for years, but first became interested in supporting it after working on Steve Silverman's County Executive campaign in 2006. As the campaign and his position on the Board took him across the County, he "became even more passionate about it in my car driving from Bethesda to Silver Spring and once even taking the Metro from Glenmont to White Flint."

Although he'll be going to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall, Moskowitz hopes events like this will groom a new generation of student advocates. "The biggest advantage we have is there's a lot of people who have time to stay with this," he says.

Riemer looks forward to the possibilities. "I know that high school students in Montgomery County are some of the most organized around," says the East Silver Spring resident, who ran for County Council two years ago. "What if you could get the media to see young people care about the Purple Line rather than focusing on the people carping about what they might lose?" Read more!

more info means stronger opinions at purple line open houses

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: What are local high schoolers doing to show their support for the Purple Line? We'll find out next week.

A computer-generated image of Purple Line trains running along Wayne Avenue. The Maryland Transit Administration is releasing more visuals of the project to give local residents a better idea of what it will look like.

A new round of information on the Purple Line released at a series of open houses this week is giving some Downcounty residents more reason to support or question the controversial proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

Representatives from the Maryland Transit Administration said there was a "steady flow" of visitors to an open house Wednesday evening at East Silver Spring Elementary School, with approximately fifty people in their guestbook at 6:10, an hour after the meeting started.. Transit advocate Don Slater, whom with his wife Tina lives "six doors off" the Wayne Avenue alignment, was excited about the turnout. As we reported last winter, the Slaters have printed out bumper stickers reading Purple Line/Green Transportation for supporters of the project. The Purple Line is "absolutely necessary to the Maryland suburbs," says Slater.

Gary Stith from the Silver Spring Regional Services Center noted that the project's slow pace has tested the patience of local residents, but only because they're so hungry for information. "The more you keep people informed, the better," says Stith. "They're smart, well-educated. They expect to get good information."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

The State's newest ridership figures estimate that as many as 68,000 people will ride the Purple Line each day, depending on which of six alternatives is built. It's a large increase from the 47,000 daily riders anticipated last December. At this month's open house, MTA has also produced estimates of how many automobile trips will be removed in different parts of the region. According to the latest figures, the greatest traffic impacts will be seen in College Park, where as many as 7,000 trips could be replaced by the line, while an additional 5,900 trips may disappear in Downtown Silver Spring.

Another new feature was a series of video simulations depicting different parts of the route, the early versions of which have appeared in neighborhood meetings over the past several months. Standing a few feet away from a screen showing trains flying down Wayne Avenue, Sligo-Branview resident Rose Polyakova said she hoped that MTA would pick light-rail vehicles over Bus Rapid Transit, a cheaper technology that can be compared to a train on rubber tires.

"Most [people] want to build a Purple Line," says Polyakova, but "a lot of people would ride a rail that would not ride a bus . . . there's a perception that buses are not nice."

One possible BRT design would cut across the front yard of her home at Wayne and Flower avenues, where she's lived for nine years. "Sitting on my front porch would not be as pleasant as it is today" with a bus running through it, she says.

East Silver Spring resident Karen Roper, who sits on the Purple Line Advisory Committee, had already seen most of the information presented at the meeting. "Don't expect to see anything new," she says. "I just expect to keep them honest."

Roper made headlines two years ago for taking elected officials on walking tours of the Purple Line route in East Silver Spring to convince them to re-route the line away from her neighborhood. Learning more about the MTA's plans haven't changed her opinion, she says, especially as the project's focus has changed and more stops were added. "I think you have to look at what this was supposed to be," says Roper, "and it was supposed to be rapid transit."

"It's an end game," she adds. "Politicians are stuck between a rock and a hard place . . . to prove that they can make it work."

The next step will be the publication of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a several-hundred-page document outlining the Purple Line's direct effects on the region, later this spring. They'll also make a decision on which form the project may take - what routes and whether light-rail or BRT will be used. In September, the MTA will hold public hearings where residents can speak about the project.

Read more!

university, new hampshire rank among region's most dangerous roads

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: Freed slave's descendants explore homestead site in ICC path near Route 29; B'ville townhouses go green; former Council hopefuls say they'll be back in 2010.

A family attempts to cross Route 29 near Stewart Lane in White Oak. Montgomery County ranked among the region's most-dangerous places for pedestrians in a new study.

If you ever find yourself on foot in Montgomery County, you might want to think twice before stepping out into the crosswalk: a new study (warning! PDF file) from the