For Montgomery’s District 3, it’s about new transit vs. more highways

Montgomery County’s District 3 will be at the heart of several key new transit projects in the coming years. Will its new councilmember push to surround them with new, walkable neighborhoods, or move forward with a 1960s-era road plan?

Located in the heart of the county, District 3 contains the cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg, along with Leisure World and Derwood. It’s a fast-growing area, but most new development is designed around the approved Corridor Cities Transitway and a proposed Bus Rapid Transit line on Route 355. It also contains part of the proposed M-83 highway between Gaithersburg and Clarksburg.

After 16 years representing the area, current councilmember Phil Andrews is leaving to run for County Executive. Running to replace him are Gaithersburg mayor Sidney Katz and city councilmember Ryan Spiegel, Rockville councilmember Tom Moore, and local activist Guled Kassim. Only Spiegel and Moore returned their ACT questionnaires.

Candidates agree on complete streets, building near transit

Both candidates unequivocally support the Purple Line and improving safety for pedestrians and cyclists even when that might slow vehicles down. Moore says we must “focus on overall mobility, not cars,” while Spiegel cited his advocacy for Capital Bikeshare and implementation of Gaithersburg’s bike master plan.

District 3 has grown significantly in recent years, adding 25,000 people between 2000 and 2010. Much of that growth is happening in Rockville and Gaithersburg’s existing town centers, or in new, urban neighborhoods like Crown in Gaithersburg, which will be on the Corridor Cities Transitway. And both candidates agree that this is the right way to go.

Moore, who grew up in Montgomery County, cited his support for Rockville Town Center as evidence of his record on building near transit. If elected, he says he’ll “push to concentrate Montgomery County’s housing growth along our existing transit corridors” and along future transit corridors as well.

Spiegel said he supports density in the right places, and has worked to create incentives to focus development at transit. He sees transit as a draw for developers to build nearby, allow building height increases near transit, and would work to steer development away for areas “not appropriate for growth.”

Bigger differences on Bus Rapid Transit and new highways

However, Rockville and Gaithersburg control their own planning and zoning, instead of the county. As a result, the new county councilmember can only ensure that the transportation infrastructure is there to serve future development.

On BRT, Moore was unequivocal in his support for dedicating lanes to buses, saying “person-throughput, and not vehicle-throughput, is the key metric here; a lane converted to bus use is more efficient.” Spiegel said he supports repurposing lanes for transit, but qualifies his answer that he supports it “in targeted locations where it makes sense.”

At the recent Transportation Forum in Silver Spring, both Katz and Spiegel both said they oppose M-83, which has been on the books since the 1960s. But Moore received a “minus” on ACT’s scorecard on M-83; he says opposes it, but is open to learning more. I “would first want to gather all the information and public input I can with the advantages of being a sitting Councilmember,” he wrote.

Other candidates

Katz, a former business owner, has been mayor of Gaithersburg for 16 years, and was a city councilmember for 20 years before that. But his campaign website doesn’t say much about land use and transportation, other than that he supports the Purple Line, Corridor Cities Transitway, and “Bus Rapid Transit and dedicated lanes.” He’s endorsed Councilmember Marc Elrich, who first proposed BRT but is often skeptical of building around transit.

Guled Kassim, a former Marine, immigrated here from Somalia as a child and grew up in Silver Spring before moving to Derwood. While running for District 19 delegate in 2006, he worried that the county’s “rate of growth was too fast,” but expressed support for the Purple Line.

On his campaign website, Kassim says his main priorities for “congestion relief are building the Corridor Cities Transitway and a new interchange at I-270 and Watkins Mill Road, which would serve a transit-oriented development being built at the Metropolitan Grove MARC station. He also supports “big improvements in existing intersections for a freer flow of traffic” during rush hour, though that may make the area’s roads even more impassable for pedestrians and cyclists.

Most people might know District 3 as the home of Rockville Pike and the Montgomery County Agricultural Fairgrounds. But in recent years, Rockville and Gaithersburg are leading the county’s larger shift to becoming a more urban, diverse place. As a result, whoever becomes the area’s next county councilmember will have a big role to play in its future.