Coalition for Smarter Growth Promotes White Flint Plan

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Barnaby Zall

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The Coalition for Smarter Growth, www.smartergrowth.net, is a group of local, regional and national environmental and civic organizations such as the Piedmont Environmental Council, Audubon Naturalist Society, Sierra Club, Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Surface Transportation Policy Project, who have been very active in the development of the White Flint Sector Plan. CSG started ten years ago to oppose plans by the Disney Company to create a new theme park in the Shenandoah/Piedmont area of Virginia, and since then has branched out to incorporate “smart growth” topics throughout the metropolitan area.

CSG has just issued a newsletter with a description of the White Flint Sector Plan. The page says:

Never before has it been more important that Montgomery County grow in sustainable, innovative ways while creating great, desirable neighborhoods. With increasing traffic, limited money for new infrastructure, and the urgency of climate change, Montgomery County can’t remain sustainable and economically competitive if we continue to grow in the same auto-dependent, spread out way.

Walkable, Vibrant, Efficient, Convenient, Sustainable

Instead of adding new jobs in hard-to-reach locations, such as the Life Sciences Center in Gaithersburg, how about locating them right at existing transit stations?

The White Flint Metro Station is a convenient location for jobs and homes, and neighborhoods designed to be walkable can reuse acres of parking lots while improving conditions along Rockville Pike. In addition, focusing growth at White Flint will create sustainable, environmentally-friendly communities that reduce driving, energy use, and climate changing emissions.

You can read the newsletter page here: http://citizen-networks.org/csg/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=28193120

Barnaby Zall

Just call it North White Flint and be done.
posted by Bob
Superb post, Dan! Yes, let's remember that not everyone drives, BUT *everyone* does need transportation. There is a percentage of people who do not own a car. Then there are children, teens, and older folks who don't drive. When you combine the zero-car folks with these others, the combination, while perhaps not a majority, *is* a significant portion of our population. Let's provide these people with a good means of getting around -- and while we're at it, I'm betting that some current "car commuters" will want to join the folks on the bus. (Frankly, I see my transit trips as chances to catch up on my reading or pulling together my thoughts & writing them down --- hard to do when you're stuck in traffic, feeling cranky & cussing!!) Bottom line is this --- as we are expanding, we need to preserve routes for transit.
posted by Tina Slater
(And there are polls on other sites, too. The subject comes up at the planning sessions and neighborhood association debriefings, meetings with the developers, even the walkabouts)
posted by Frank
Yes, i get the joke. Perhaps my comment best belongs on another , earlier post. It was intended to express my frustration over the fact that we keep getting bombarded with "suggestions" and polls by developers and the like, all hyping North Bethesda as the new name for the area currenty known as White Flint. Yet WF usually tops their poll results. So, they try again. There are many developers among the "Friends of White Flint"--- what do thy have to say?
posted by Frank
That's awesome! It sounds like some really great events. I'm going to have to actually get to one of them :)
posted by Mara

Friends of White Flint

Promoting a Sustainable, Walkable and Engaging Community

Coalition for Smarter Growth Promotes White Flint Plan

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Barnaby Zall

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Walkable, Vibrant, Efficient, Convenient, Sustainable

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 in FOWF Business