Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Maryland > Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland
 [Register]
Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland Calvert County, Charles County, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 03-04-2011, 02:38 AM
 
Location: Washington D.C.
13,687 posts, read 15,595,539 times
Reputation: 4054

Advertisements

I have just finished looking at the transit plan for Montgomery County and it looks great. It is going to be a revolutionary way of thinking for this region in my opinion. Montgomery County is planning a complete system like Metro using BRT technology. After watching some video's from the Montgomery County planning board, I think this is going to be revolutionary for this county.

BRT is the wave of the future for the entire country including NYC. It is basically light rail with wheels. It runs in it's own right of way separated by a median from traffic with Metro frequency at 6 minute head ways. It has dedicated transit stations just like light rail and gets signal priority. BRT can carry up to 200 people at a time. There are over 100 miles of BRT planned for Montgomery County and construction is slated to start very soon. It is very inexpensive compared to Light Rail and Metro. The right of ways are already state and county owned. The 100 mile system of BRT in Montgomery County will only take a little over 2 years to build according to county planners.

Now the million dollar question. We know people will ride Metro. Will Montgomery County residents ride BRT if it resembles Metro convenience?







Last edited by MDAllstar; 03-04-2011 at 03:13 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-04-2011, 02:58 AM
 
Location: On the Rails in Northern NJ
12,380 posts, read 26,754,070 times
Reputation: 4580
What a waste of $$$ , and where is this coming form? MD is broke , aside for building the Red and Purple lines , and enhancing MARC the state seems to have no other plans.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 03:08 AM
 
Location: Washington D.C.
13,687 posts, read 15,595,539 times
Reputation: 4054
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey View Post
What a waste of $$$ , and where is this coming form? MD is broke , aside for building the Red and Purple lines , and enhancing MARC the state seems to have no other plans.
Montgomery County is footing the bill for this. You aren't a fan of BRT? They are building it in Manhattan as we speak. What don't you like about it?


Here are all the video's of presentations for the BRT project's to the city councils. They are long though since they are the real taped presentations. The most recent map is the one I posted though which was updated last year 2010 for Science City.
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/el...rich_m/brt.asp

Last edited by MDAllstar; 03-04-2011 at 04:14 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 03:11 AM
 
Location: On the Rails in Northern NJ
12,380 posts, read 26,754,070 times
Reputation: 4580
Its slow , a cheap transit solution and has less capacity then a LRT line...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 03:50 AM
 
Location: Macao
16,284 posts, read 42,972,532 times
Reputation: 10231
I like it.

But, I think most States prefer to put most of the money into the highway system.

Most of the photos look great though, but the photos look like Europe and Asia, where things are more dense and transit-oriented.

I would love to see something like that for Maryland though. It would certainly enourage me to move there.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 04:01 AM
 
Location: Washington D.C.
13,687 posts, read 15,595,539 times
Reputation: 4054
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey View Post
Its slow , a cheap transit solution and has less capacity then a LRT line...
How is it slow? We are building heavy BRT with it's own dedicated median separated right of way for the entire 100 miles. This system wouldn't work in our area without separated right of ways because we have the worst traffic in the nation. Montgomery County is going to revolutionize BRT in my opinion. They plan to built it like a subway system with interchanges and everything. Every single line will run very fast and never hit traffic.

It also will solve the infrastructure problem for the massive great seneca science city everyone seems to be opposed too. Every single east-west major road in the Greater Gaithersburg area will have BRT. That includes the following according to the plans:

1. Quince Orchard/Montgomery Village Ave.
2. Muddy Branch to Old Town G-Burg to Woodfield Rd Route 124
3. Great Seneca/Muddy Branch Intersection to I-370 to Shady Grove Metro Station
4. Shady Grove Rd
5. Key West Ave. to Gude Dr.
6. Route 355 feeding all the east-west BRT lines.
7. A host of circulator feeder buses which is what the Ride On bus network in Montgomery County will become when this is built.
8. Don't forget the CCT Light rail project also which will anchor everything


How can anybody object to them building the Science City with this type of mass transit network?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 04:06 AM
 
Location: Macao
16,284 posts, read 42,972,532 times
Reputation: 10231
Come to think of it, if every other country out there can make pretty cool public transit, there is no reason the U.S. shouldnt be able to (beyond NYC).

Metro DC is a big place with a lot of population and certainly a need for it.

Somehow things always get botched though....don't know how. Plus so many extremely pro-car, anti-transit people with a lot of power.

That being said, I like MDAllStars' support and enthusiasm though.

Also, reading some other Metro DC blogs, it seems all around DC...from College Park to Annandale to wherever else, they all recognize that they have to restructure things into more urban, less car-oriented.

Sometimes its just a matter of someone getting the initiative going...than once people see how much better it is than cars for 24-7, it will revolutionize things more into the direction it needs to go.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 04:07 AM
 
Location: Washington D.C.
13,687 posts, read 15,595,539 times
Reputation: 4054
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger Beer View Post
I like it.

But, I think most States prefer to put most of the money into the highway system.

Most of the photos look great though, but the photos look like Europe and Asia, where things are more dense and transit-oriented.

I would love to see something like that for Maryland though. It would certainly enourage me to move there.
That is who they are modeling their system after according to the Montgomery County Council. Many of the counties examples are coming from Australia and Europe. They said for the first time ever, they plan to build it now and let the density come later. I don't think we will have any problems from a density perspective based on where the lines are being built anyway. These are all very populated area's with very high transit ridership. 355 alone is going to be massive from Bethesda to Gaithersburg based on the development plans.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 04:22 AM
 
Location: Washington D.C.
13,687 posts, read 15,595,539 times
Reputation: 4054
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger Beer View Post
Come to think of it, if every other country out there can make pretty cool public transit, there is no reason the U.S. shouldnt be able to (beyond NYC).

Metro DC is a big place with a lot of population and certainly a need for it.

Somehow things always get botched though....don't know how. Plus so many extremely pro-car, anti-transit people with a lot of power.

That being said, I like MDAllStars' support and enthusiasm though.

Also, reading some other Metro DC blogs, it seems all around DC...from College Park to Annandale to wherever else, they all recognize that they have to restructure things into more urban, less car-oriented.

Sometimes its just a matter of someone getting the initiative going...than once people see how much better it is than cars for 24-7, it will revolutionize things more into the direction it needs to go.
Montgomery County will build transit not roads. The video I watched was adamant about there being no room to add lanes to 355, Rt. 29, Viers Mill, Georgia Ave, New Hampshire etc. which are all parking lots and getting worse every year.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dr-...nsit_task.html
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-04-2011, 06:37 AM
 
131 posts, read 343,128 times
Reputation: 95
Sure, I'd ride it if it were available.

It's a bit hard to tell from the map, but it looks like the routes sort of overlap those of the existing light rail. So the question would be why would I ride this versus the light rail?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Maryland > Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top