Comments Off on County Council Votes ‘Yes’ on Route 29 BRT
As reported on WTOP, a County Council committee has approved $7.5 million in design funding for the Route 29 BRT as well as funding to continue work on the Route 355 BRT. The Route 29 BRT should begin operations in 2020.
(Courtesy MCDOT)
(Courtesy Sean Emerson proposal)
(Courtesy Sean Emerson proposal)
The current plan, which is set to put 14 buses on the road in Montgomery County by late 2019, would see the express buses run on the shoulders of Route 29 between the Burtonsville Park and Ride and Industrial Drive and in regular traffic between and downtown Silver Spring.
Comments Off on Check out the BRT and White Flint 2 presentations from our community meeting
Here is the presentation that Nkosi Yearwood made at our April 4th Community Meeting updating everyone on the status of and changes made so far on the White Flint 2 plan. (Click on the image below to view his presentation.)
And here is the presentation that Darcy Buckley of MCDOT made concerning Bus Rapid Transit or BRT.…
Comments Off on Takeaways from the MD 355 BRT Open Houses
If you weren’t one of the hundred or so folks who attended one of the recent MD 355 BRT Open Houses, here’s what you missed. (You can view their presentation here… and I urge you to do so. It discusses in detail what I’ve summarized here, and their boards are higher-resolution and easier to enlarge than what you’ll find in this blog.)
Purpose: to present the MD 355 BRT Conceptual Alternatives and review the results of the Preliminary Analysis.…
The Maryland Department of Transportation, in partnership with the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, is conducting a study for developing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along a portion of the MD 355 corridor. Two public Open Houses will be held to provide information on the BRT conceptual alternatives under study and gather community input about potential BRT service from Bethesda to Clarksburg (including along Observation Drive).…
The MD 355 BRT Corridor Planning Study will conduct two Open Houses in the early part of February. The project team will present the conceptual alternatives that we have been discussing during recent CAC meetings and seek additional public input before determining which of those alternatives will be refined for more detailed analysis during the next phase of the study.…
Autonomous or self-driving vehicle technology would allow BRT operators to link multiple buses together seamlessly, adapting to demand and adding capacity as needed. Autonomous systems could be calibrated so that the buses traveled inches apart at all times, often traveling in train-like platoons. In theory, autonomous bus rapid transit could scale up to as many vehicles as needed and it would help operators maintain bus headways when there is congestion.…
Last week, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett launched the start of a naming contest to brand the County’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which in the next few years is expected to transform the transportation alternatives available in the County.
County Executive Leggett said, “I am committed to putting practical, cost-effective transit options on the ground in the near term.…
Comments Off on Where we are today on BRT in Montgomery County
Curious about what’s up with Bus Rapid Transit here in MoCo? Coatition for Smarter Growth wrote an excellent summary which I’m reposting here. (No doubt you’ll notice that almost all of the BRT news concerns Route 29 rapid transit, not Route 355.)
Plans for BRT have taken a few twists and turns over the last five years.
Comments Off on It’s not just MoCo who is looking at BRT — so is our competition across the river
Officials are proposing a bus rapid transit system along Route 7, connecting Tysons Corner and Alexandria. Planners estimate the BRT system could attract about 10,000 daily riders as it passes through 11 miles of Tysons, Falls Church, Seven Corners, Bailey’s Crossroads, Mark Center, and Alexandria.
Falls Church City Councilman Dave Snyder said, “We’re trying to be realistic.…
Comments Off on A brief primer on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
With the Transit Task Force public forum on September 30 and the recent release of the Transit Task Force Draft Report, there’s a lot of chatter online and in the real world about how MoCo creates, funds, and manages an RTS. So I thought it would be helpful to write a quick blog post to provide some background on this complex topic.…
