You Have To Play To Win

This is a follow-up to last week's post on youth sports.

Silver Spring is a wonderful town by virtue of the dynamic population. I believe it is rare to find a town as diverse. But with the good come the bad.

There are about 300 boys who play football for the Silver Spring Saints. A good portion of them come from single parent households, many others have two working parents. Ironically, since my last post, my team has lost two players who are unable to find transportation to the practices and games. One of those boys played in our program last year, and had been concerned about avoiding gangs in his school. With a single working mother and no extra curricular activity this fall, it raises my concern for him.

I have also been humbled by the immense sacrifices some parents and players make to participate in these programs. Two years ago, a player for my team took two buses to get from school to football practice, and another two to get from football practice back home to Rockville. All in all, every night he had practice was an additional four hours of transportation and walking along unsafe roads. An hour and a half each way between Silver Spring and Rockville on the bus. His single mother had no car, and they relied on coaches to get to and from games. At the time, there was no program in Rockville for which he was eligible to play, and he chose Silver Spring over one other program where he could take the bus to practice from his school.

Many families scrape to come up with the fees to play in a well-organized league. These fees generally run around a couple hundred dollars, and fundraisers and donations are often used to help out families that might not otherwise be able to afford them. When transportation has a negative impact on a child's ability to engage in constructive activities, these children will become isolated and be far more likely to become absorbed into unfavorable activities. No matter how much money is raised, fundraisers and donations will never safely help a young man get to and from our football field. Because of this, how many children will be unable to play youth sports in our region? I know about a handful that had to quit. I'm quite sure there are many more who were never even able to consider it.

Youth Sports and the Automobile

It's August, the time of year where I return to my favorite volunteer activity coaching youth football in Silver Spring. Youth sports, despite my lack of athletic prowess, were a big part of my childhood and were probably the only thing that kept me reaching the age of 20 with any semblance of physical conditioning. To a suburban child, youth sports will offer exercise and teach social integration in a safe environment.

My 2008 squad.

Exercise is a valuable commodity in the suburbs. You don't burn many calories from the passenger seat of a minivan. The extreme, of course, is Saratoga Springs, where a student was recently punished for riding his bike to school. The policy against biking to school is of course disguised in the name of safety. Social integration is also more valuable in the suburbs. Suburban children grow up cloistered in pods that effectively segregate socio-economic classes from each other. And despite the marketing, the suburbs are not the safest place to be a kid. So a program that offers exercise, social integration, and safety ought not be undervalued, be it football, swimming, ballet, or whatever.

Are youth sports a rare positive side effect of suburbanization? The Mid Maryland Football League has 26 programs spread out over Montgomery, Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Howard, Baltimore, Frederick, and Carroll Counties, and could never survive without the suburban infrastructure. I used to think youth football could not survive without it at all.

***

The Silver Spring Saints, for whom I coach, are one of the oldest youth programs still in existence in the DC area. When I played on this team as a youth, however, it was Saint Bernadette's, a Catholic Youth Organization program. CYO football went under in 1995, however, and the Silver Spring Saints rose from the ashes, playing their home games at Saint Bernadette's field. When It was Saint Bernadette's, however, the program had two teams with about 23 or so players per team. At its peak, the CYO had 40 or 50 such teams in Montgomery, Prince George's, and DC, and they were broken into geographic-based divisions. It was the premier youth football program in Maryland for decades.

When the Silver Spring Saints joined the Capital Beltway League in 1995, the one-time parish-oriented program had to struggle to field teams in six weight classes, effectively tripling the size of the program overnight and drawing in players from a much larger area. As it struggled with finding enough players, the notion of playing games close by started to disappear. Montgomery Village, Clinton, Germantown, and Bowie were now the away games as opposed to other small teams in Silver Spring, Wheaton, and Rockville. This season, the Saints have joined the Mid-Maryland League to escape the poor organization of the CBL. They are now required to field 12 teams. Many of them will only have about 15 or 16 players. (For those of you not familiar with the sport, there are 11 on the field at a time. An NFL team has 53 players. 24 is an ideal number at the youth level)

I love the Saints organization, and what it does for young men between the ages of 6 and 14. Growing up in a single parent household, it gave me male role models, goals, and a sense of belonging that every boy should experience. But in the time between when I played and now that I coach, it has gone from a "mom and pop" program belonging to a community organization to a "big box" program. The parish still has a strong influence on the program, which in my opinion has kept it about the players and not about championships and egos (though we win our share of games).

No, it's hard to imagine youth football now without cars and giant parking lots at each field, where 12 games are played by each program every Saturday and teams drive as many as 80 miles to play each other. But it hasn't been that way throughout the history of the Silver Spring Saints. For their very first game 58 years ago, the first 12 Saints played Saint Micheal's of downtown Silver Spring, two miles away from Saint Bernadette's. To get there, they took a Capitol Transit Bus.

Imagine the Beltway at New Hampshire Avenue

The Beltway is a dangerous road full of daunting lane shifts and bottlenecks that bring the ire of even the most seasoned drivers. The area around its junction with I-95 receives a lot of attention, but the problems on its northern counterpart often go ignored.

Westbound 495/95 is four lanes until the interchange with US-1. Both ramps from US-1 to The Beltway create additional westbound lanes, making it six lanes wide at the 95/495 split. Four lanes continue westbound. The ramps from Southbound 1-95 swell the roadway back to six westbound lanes. One lane splits off as an exit for northbound New Hampshire Avenue. A flyover ramp replaces it, creating a weave-style merge for cars entering the westbound Beltway from NH northbound and exiting the Beltway southbound. After the interchange, the highway quickly bottlenecks from 6 lanes back to four. Sound confusing? Try diving it.

A driver who wants to exit the Beltway at New Hampshire Avenue northbound must cross two lanes of traffic even if they were in the far right lane before the I-95 merger. For drivers wishing to head southbound on New Hampshire, they must still cross an extra lane of traffic and then contend with merging across the cars entering the Beltway.


View NH Av Interchange in a larger map

My idea would be to remove one westbound lane where northbound 1-95 splits off to the north, making the stretch between northbound I-95 and southbound I-95 three lanes. When the two southbound lanes join the Beltway, it will be five lanes wide.

Next, remove the exit to southbound New Hampshire Avenue, eliminating a dangerous merge area. Instead, direct that traffic down the northbound exit to a left turn, much like the Georgia Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, and University Boulevard exits off the westbound Beltway. The intersection at the end of the northbound exit is already signaled, it would only need provisions for left turning (southbound) vehicles.

In addition to making this interchange safer for Beltway drivers, it creates a safer environment for pedestrians on New Hampshire Avenue. Not by much, but it would be a start. But just for kicks, I threw in a small street grid, in hopes that Hillandale may one day be a little more pedestrian friendly. They already have a LEED Gold building, perhaps more positive change is on the way.

Circular Logic

Tonight I did a very friendly thing and helped a buddy of mine move from Columbia to Gaithersburg. It's a cumbersome route to drive, but I was determined to avoid the rush hour freeways and see what little remained of the northeastern Montgomery County rural areas on the back roads. It is not actually a bad route, if not for the constant stop-and-go through Ashton, Olney, and Gaithersburg.

Woodfield Road, which is currently being widened, at Fieldcrest Road. This intersection could have been a roundabout, but instead the county has decided to induce more demand along this route. (Photo by thisisbossi)

Most of my route (MD-108 to Fieldcrest Road/ to Woodfield Road/MD-124) was two lanes roads, but these two lane roads would mushroom to as many as seven lanes at major intersections. This phenomenon is obviously to prevent long backups at these traffic lights. And in such suburbanized areas, people are driving to get anywhere, hence the percieved need to prevent such backups.

But I noticed that, even during the end of rush hour, I would sit at a traffic light for as many as 90 seconds without a single other car at the intersection in any direction. This made me think of something I read via GreaterGreaterWashington's Dinner Links a few days back; roundabouts as a traffic solution.

As time goes by, intersections grow wider, adding capacity to these suburban intersections. the stretches between the intersections are often are widened shortly after. I noticed this happening on Woodfield Road during my drive. Once this happens, the overall capacity of the road is increased, which induces demand, ultimately contributing to more traffic.

Perhaps before we widen roads in suburban Maryland, we ought to try putting roundabouts in at these intersections. They would improve the flow of traffic without adding more capacity and inducing more demand. Overtime, this would save billions in construction costs. It would reduce the maximum speeds of the cars driving the routes, making the roads safer. But it would not add more time to the trip. During off-peak hours, it might even speed up trips. Other safety bonuses: roundabouts decrease the number of points for a collision to take place by 75%, and also eliminate people speeding up to make a green light. It would save gas, as the article in the above link mentions, accelerating from a dead stop is the least efficient thing an internal combustion engine can do. This would decrease the need for that greatly. And if Gaithersburg ever decides to return to its once-progressive planning style, it would facilitate pedestrians more safely and efficiently.

The fact of the matter is that this could serve as a solution at suburban intersections anywhere, and even many urban intersections. Once the capacity is added and the demand is induced, however, it would be a lot tougher to implement. So why haven't we started doing this on our two- and four-lane roads? Why perpetuate a cycle of increased traffic when we could more easily perpetuate a cycle of efficient traffic flow on our suburban routes?

Imagine a Better Rail Link to Frederick

I have always hated Interstate 270. Always. It is a little confusing with the local and HOV lanes. It is much, much wider than it ought to be, creating huge bottlenecks in northern Montgomery County and at the Beltway. It is preposterously ugly, unbearably congested, and I feel particularly unsafe driving it. It is, in my humble opinion, very poorly planned. The last thing we need is more of it. But that is what they want to give us.

Lots of people travel this corridor in both directions every day. Frederick County has a population of a quarter million and growing. The Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Frederick corridor has a population encroaching on five times that number, or roughly 20% of the Metropolitan area population. Downtown DC and Frederick are about 40 miles apart from each other. So this is a long corridor with a lot of people on it. A transportation solution must be found.

Obviously MARC's Brunswick Line is not getting it done. Its circuitous route through Brunswick adds several additional miles to the trip. Stops at small stations like Garrett Park, Washington Grove, Boyds, Barnesville, and Dickerson. Only 7000 people are riding this line daily (warning: pdf), and it is pushing its capacity. Even MARC's 2035 plan (pdf) only raise the capacity 26,000 per day (pdf). Meanwhile, between 75,000 and 108,000 vehicles clog I-270 every day. Imagine if we were talking about a solution that was faster than an expanded freeway or an improved MARC.

Widening I-270 is a colossal failure of an idea. Creating a bigger bottleneck at the Beltway for commuters from Frederick is just going to increase the number of cars that will sit on the parking lot that is 270 southbound in the morning. Here is my vision for a rail solution:


View Frederick Line in a larger map

If local transit (light rail, buses, etc.) ferried these commuters to a few stations, the trains could make fewer stops and travel at higher speeds. A system like this, I envision an average speed of 90 mph. Eight stops along the way, that's it. Stops at major transit centers and major suburbs along I-270.

There is nothing on the books for a direct high speed service between DC and Frederick. There are plenty of other transit priorities at this time. And I understand that some people have no choice but to drive to their jobs. I am one of them. But I live six miles from my job. If I am going to subsidize someone else's extra-long commute, I want to do it with a system that will work, not one that will only increase the number of cars that are wasting fuel while sitting idly on a congested freeway.

Do American Highways Make the Grade?

During my recent travels to Germany, I was surprised and impressed by how much I enjoyed driving on the freeways. This past weekend, I realized exactly what it was that was so enjoyable about them. I drove a giant square from Laurel to Bethesda to Frederick and back to Laurel, on Interstates 95, 495, 270, and 70. I never thought I would say this, but our highways are under-engineered.

The A-6 in Germany above grade with an exit to an arterial road running at grade. Photo copyright David Murphy.

I drove through five different Western European countries on my recent business trip to Germany. The highways in all of them were straighter and flatter than our highways. Because of this, their footprints were much smaller, the lanes were not as wide, and their speed limits were much higher, if there was a limit at all. This placed much of the highway on bridges and in cuts, allowing for far less impact on the local road networks (which was already minimal because European freeways rarely run through cities like our interstates). The terrain of Germany, France, and the low countries is at least as hilly as Maryland's, so it was a very notable comparison between the grading of their freeways and ours.

Interstate 270 to Frederick is one of the straightest highways around DC, but after driving on the Autobahn it was very obvious that there are many more minor curves, and the road tightly hugs every elevation change along the way. The A-6 in Germany, by contrast, tended to remain flat through the dips and rises of the terrain. The sight lines were far greater; I could probably see at least a mile ahead at most points on the freeway. Speed limits were generally 100-130 km/h (62-81 mph) and most of Germany had no speed limit except around major interchanges. (Where Germany has speed limits, they are strictly enforced). Combined with laws prohibiting passing on the right and requiring slower cars to make way for faster cars coming up behind them, I saw little congestion on European highways, even during rush hour, even through construction sites.

On Sunday while driving down I-270 just south of Frederick, traffic slowed to about 20 mph for no apparent reason. Perhaps if this road had been properly graded when it was constructed, they would not be considering widening this stretch (pdf). Adding lanes will only generate more traffic (pdf) and make the bottleneck at the Beltway even bigger. Does this mean we should completely regrade I-270? Of course not. But it does mean that perhaps lack of lanes is not what is making traffic so annoying on 270.

Obviously, grading a highway this way is much more expensive. However, if it facilitates better traffic flow, in the long term it pays off. It pays off even faster when considering that the footprint of the highway will be significantly smaller. More even grading and straighter carriageways will also save fuel. Over time, this will add up to quite a bit of fuel. Perhaps it would help lower our per capita road deaths a little more. Right now the only thing decreasing our highway fatalities is the rising fuel costs. Instead, we allow new sub-par meandering freeways like the ICC wind their way through our rural landscapes without putting the structure into the infrastructure. It is no wonder traffic projections predict that the road will not alleviate traffic on any other area highways.

Am I saying we should tear up and rebuild all of our freeways in America? Absolutely not. But love them or hate them, freeways are the most important part of America's transportation infrastructure right now. Before the inevitable new highway is approved, it should be facing scrutiny over curves and small elevation changes like the ones on existing area highways. It could allow for better connectivity, more efficient land use, and it might even save fuel, money, and lives.

Imagine A Seperate Green and Yellow Line

Naturally, there has been much written about the terrible Metro crash on the Red Line earlier this week. Had this been a nasty pile-up on the Beltway, we might have heard about it by by this point, we probably would have stopped talking about it by now, and it certainly never would have been international news. It is out of the ordinary, tragic, and was a failure of public infrastructure, unlike traffic accidents, which are usually the failures of individual drivers (we'll forgo the argument that fault may lie in road design). The fact that service disruptions continue on the Red Line is another reminder of this horrible accident. After all, these disruptions have a far greater impact on Metro than a bad traffic accident has on area highways.

If there is an accident on US-29 in Montgomery County, I can drive on Georgia or New Hampshire Avenues. But the stations that were shut down the past couple days isolated eastern Montgomery County from the rest of the Metro System. Originally, I tinkered with a map showing a separated Yellow Line for the sake of greater capacity and more geographic coverage for the Metro System. This week's accident has shown that adding redundancy to the system can be just as valuable as adding capacity.

Realizing the need for more redundancy on the system in the wake of this tragic crash is not an original idea. The Purple Line would obviously create alternate routes throughout the system. The Purple Line is both necessary and long overdue, however separating the Yellow and Green Lines would add capacity to existing track, much like separating the Blue and Orange Lines. In the case of the Yellow Line, it would allow for increased capacity on its Potomac River Bridge. If separated, the entire Green Line and the Yellow Line north of Pentagon would have the same capacity as the Red Line.

Here's what I would do with a separate Yellow Line:


View Separate Yellow Line in a larger map

This alignment is not 100% original either. Bringing Metro to North Capitol Street and Georgia Avenue is in no way a new idea. In these cases, however, people seem to want it for the geographic coverage, and not the additional capacity or system redundancy. Coverage is good, it brings transit to a new area. Capacity and redundancy, however, improve the entire system.

Perhaps I added a few too many stations, but they are just suggestions. While this would add service to the North Capitol Street and Georgia Avenue corridors, it would add redundancy to both the Green and Red Lines via Silver Spring, Georgia Av/Petworth, Union Station, and L'Enfant Plaza.

If this line existed already, the station closures on the Red Line might only have meant an additional transfer for Montgomery County commuters instead of the shuttle services to which Metro resorted after the crash.

First Car Trip Back in the US, I Witness a Bike Accident

My first day back in the United States, the very first car trip I take (after jump starting my car, God help you if you don't drive them for 60 days) Just as I am acclimating myself back to American roads, I slammed on my breaks. The Ford Mustang driver in front of me had hit a cyclist. I did not see exactly what happened, but I did note that it occurred as the driver of the Mustang was pulling his car onto 198 from a curb cut entrance to an apartment complex.

The boy was okay, a couple nasty legions, but the bike was ruined. I offered my phone number and got the heck out of there, partly because I was in a hurry, and partly because I didn't want to take anyone's side int this one. After all, I didn't actually see what happened. The Mustang operator was polite and offered assistance, but when they you (probably about 19 or so) wanted to call the police, both occupants of the Mustang and another driver who had stopped after the incident insisted that the cyclist was at fault.

Again, I did not see the actual accident, but I can tell you for sure that on MD-198 in Laurel and Maryland City, the planners of the road were probably at fault. 198 is a six lane highway wrought with curb cuts. The sidewalks are widely traveled, but are only about four feet wide. And, in typical Prince George's and Anne Arundel County fashion, there are no bicycle lanes.

Ironically, as I was driving down the road, I was thinking about the best way to write about my recent travels in Europe and how easy it is to get around without a car. This was a sobering reminder of where I live, and how unwelcoming a place it can be. unless, of course, you are in your car.

Back In the States

I have returned from Germany (the university town of Darmstadt, to answer previous inquiries) with a renewed sense of appreciation for the cities of both Europe and the United States. I will probably have several tales to tell about my travels on the Audobahn, local tram system, high speed trains, and airports.

The E-25 in Belgium. Photo copyright Dave Murphy.

It dawned on me that today marks a year of running this site (although there have been several obvious periods of lull) I have been most fortunate to have a good number of followers and I wanted to take the time to thank them, even the ones who don't often agree with me. This has been a fun and worthwhile extra curricular activity for me.

Naturally, while in Europe, I took advantage of the walkability and the ample mass transit. But what really surprised me was that I fell in love with the freeway system. I didn't drive often, mostly only on day trips to neighborhing cities, but Germany's Audobahn and European freeways in general are fun and exciting to drive. One thing in particular I noticed was that the expressways, often only two lanes in each direction, have much smaller footprints than interstate highways, and much less traffic. They are generally straighter and flatter than interstates, which allows the carriage lanes to be slightly narrower and the travel speeds to be higher (unlimited in Germany!). It made me wonder, for example, if the Beltway through Montgomery County might be able to survive with three straight, flat lanes instead of four lanes curving and weaving along Rock Creek.

Another thing I liked about the expressways were the ample underpasses. In the rare few areas where the expressways traversed an urban area or even a small town, the street grid was not sacrificed to make way for the new freeway. In Luxembourg, I noticed that it was common for freeways to tunnel underneath entire towns, something probably more affordable in a country as affluent as Luxembourg. The parts that run through forest or farmland are more engaging to their surroundings, making the drive much more scenic and pleasurable than say driving I-95 between Washington and Baltimore. Often in wilderness areas, bridges of vegetation would go over the roads to allow wildlife to pass across the highway. I know these exist in the US, but they were seemingly ubiquitous in the Ardennes Forest. In addition to being functional, they ad a bit more scenery to the highway.

Expressways rarely run through cities, however. They are connected by arterials that cross the freeways outside the cities. In the center cities, there is usually little if any vehicular traffic at all. Most cities that I visited have large pedestrian-only areas, but areas that are on the street grid. In Darmstadt, the main two streets drop below the center of town and intersect underground at a stop sign, a rather exotic layout by American standards. All of this made way for various layers of pedestrian, bicycle, and transit routing, roads often sharing all four modes of transportation.

Driving in general is not as dumbed down. driving through towns or even on the expressways is not quite as intuitive as it is in America. It makes American roads seem overengineered, oversigned, and generally dumbed down for drivers. Interestingly, Germany has far lower incidence of fatalities on the road compared to the US. The entire time I was in Europe I only saw a single traffic accident, whereas it is not uncommon for me to see two while driving the six miles from my house to work here in Maryland. Anecdotal evidence that our overengineering of roads results in drivers paying less attention to what they are doing.

Another great design of European Freeways: they focus your attention at a point on the horizon. Naturally, the narrower streets, usually lined with three storey buildings, direct attention straight ahead. But the expressways were often flanked closely by trees. One Expressway in the Netherlands is lined by 100-foot tall rows of trees, almost like a grand hallway welcoming you onto the freeway. In addition to looking nicer, I believe that this focuses the eyes forward and therefore makes driving that much safer on the road.

I found getting around Germany, France, and the Low Countries to be very easy on all modes of transportation. I was quite surprised to be so taken with the highway system. More posts will come as I get settled back in to the groove here at home. Thanks again for making the last year of blogging so enjoyable.

Update From Germany

I am staying in a medium-sized city of about 120,000, or about the size of Columbia, MD. Any other similarity to Columbia ends there.

The city is very ethnically diverse, with lots of Turks, Africans, Russians, Irish, Americans, and Koreans, as well as countless others. It is mostly middle to lower middle class. The city is connected to the Audobahn by a spur. No freeways run through the town, and only one runs by it, with two lanes in each direction. The width of that entire freeway is barely more than a third of the footprint of I-95 in Howard County.

There is a light rail train with a complimenting bus service, all of which lead to a rail station with IC train service, meaning if I step out of the front door of my apartment, I can walk 100 feet to a tram station and get anywhere in Europe without getting into a car, taxi, or airplane.

The entire city is also covered in bike lanes. They have their own traffic signals seperate from cars and pedestrians. Their lanes cross into pedestrian sidewalks about as often as cars have to share lanes with buses and streetcars, which isn't much.

There is very little crime, people walk around care free and confident virtually all parts of the city at all times of day.

My (American government) job requires me to drive daily. The city streets are 2 meters (about six and a half feet) wide and rarely more than one or two lanes in each direction, if that. The automiobiles of residents are parked in courtyards. At least half the street parking is metered. Iäd say I've never had trouble finding aparking space in town, but I have never driven anywhere in town because I generally walk when I am not working.

Since I have landed in Europe, I have yet to see a single car accident, and I have driven over 1000km in two different countries. I have also not been in a single traffic jam that was not construction related.

The down is distinctly separated from other towns by large tracts of farms and forests. Virtually all buildings are

The city center is closed to automobiles except taxis. It is about a square mile of apartments above shops and businesses, including a shopping mall that is two blocks from the nearest legal parking space.

Best of all, I have been in my apartment for only two weeks and I am on a first name basis with my grocer, the proprietors of four restaurants, the staff at two bars, three of my neighbors, and the gentlemen who run this internet cafe. By contrast, I have lived in Laurel for five years and the only people who know my name are three of my neighbors and my barber.

I am not exactly staing in Mayberry, either. This is a very blue collar industrial town in Central Europe. There are no skyscrapers, no large business headquarters, and no attractions you are likely to find in most guidebooks. If anything, this is a sub-standard European town by comparison to the others I have visited. But the quality of life here is phenomenal.

This experience really makes me stop and wonder what places like Columbia, MD are doing wrong. Columbia certainly boasts a wealthier population that here. But this town has more parkland, more greenspace within walking distance, less traffic, less crime, and a community of people that actually know each other.

This would be an interesting litmus test for many of us: How many people in walking distance to your house know your name? For me, 4 in Laurel, and 14 here. That is the difference of living in a community focused on itself.