Imagine Grosvenor

I have often heard the question as to why Montgomery County's western Red Line has not enjoyed the vibrant urbanism or Arlington's Orange Line. There are several reasons for this, of course. The Red Line's stations are much further apart and further from the downtown core. MD-355 does not have the supporting road network that Wilson Boulevard enjoys. MD-355 also has several obstacles to maintaining urban continuity, such as the Georgetown Preparatory School campus, The Naval Medical Center, Rock Creek Park, and the Beltway.

But the constant comparisons between the two areas have perhaps driven Montgomery County to try to live up to the Orange Line. The White Flint plan has been taking effect in recent months, complimenting the 2007 completion of Rockville Town Square. But these two developments are islandscompared to the continuous row of urbanism in Arlington. It will be difficult to fill in the gaps, as the Red Line's stations are further apart, but it can be done.

Which brings me to Grosvenor, at the southern end or Rockville Pike. It is an important station, as it is the western terminus for half of the Red Line's rush hour trains, and thus recieves more service than any station to the north. It serves Strathmore Hall, MoCo's prominent center for the performing arts. But don't expect to get dinner nearby the idyllic odieum, there is nowhere to eat in walking distance. In fact, apart from some town houses, some apartments that would make LeCorbusier hot and bothered, and a couple of huge private school campuses, there isn't much near Grosvenor station. There is, however, ample space.

The Georgetown Prep campus (one of the oldest in America) is a solid obstacle against integrating TOD around Grosvenor to the planned urban fabric of White Flint, but it could grow them much closer together, and make Grosvenor a bit more of a desination stop. Surface parking replaced with parking garages, a more continuous street grid, and a couple bistros near Strathmore Hall might make this possible. It could also make the Metro station more accessible to the nearby Garret Park community. As it stands, several nearby amenities in walking distance are inacessible to pedestrians because of the overt suburban design of the area. not the least of these amenities are the two high schools practically touching the station.

Here is what I imagine for a road network that would support this sort of development in Grosvenor:


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Unfortunately, I presume that the station's location at a major interstate junction (I-270 and I-495) would be expected to have enormous parking requirements. Given the affluence of the area, however, I wonder if this parking could be consolidated into garages so that a walkable development could emerge. I also fear that this would be nearly impossible to accomplish without the destruction of a lot of housing stock, primarily because of the wasteful land use of the existing developments, which are laid out with the towers-in-the-park mindset. Unfortunately, the "park" in towers in the park is usually automobile parking.

Grosvenor will probably never see anything quite this urban, but hopefully someone will invest in the ample dead space, taking advantage of the Metro station and performing arts center. Perhaps a high end restaurant could become the hot reservation on performance night. Until then, Grosvenor will just be a questionably placed station at the junction of Rockville Pike, the 270 Spur, and the Beltway, not a destination station.

Top 10: Schools that Need Train Stations

Catholic University, Gallaudet University, and University of DC sit atop Red Line stations. Tiny Southeastern University is right outside Waterfront station on the Green Line. Bowie State has its own dedicated MARC station. What's great about this is that it connects these students to a city that can offer experiences and opportunities that add value to any type of education. It creates a higher standard of living for the students, and it makes the campuses more accessible to people who want to learn. It connects communities to the cultural exchanges that occur on college campuses: the concerts, the plays, the sports, the festivals. It better prepares students for the real world, and to some degree, it prepares the real world for them.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to go to college around here if you have a car, particularly if it is a school where you can't live in the dorms. We all know a forced bus-to-train transfer automatically decreases the likelihood of ridership, so I compiled my list of colleges and universities that most need train stations.

All figures are from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted.

10. Columbia Union College
This is basically just a commentary on how Takoma Park needs a trolley or something running through that town. Adventist Hospital, the shops at Carroll and Philadelphia Avenues, and the dense-ish areas of the town are a tad isolated from the rail infrastructure. Columbia Union College has only about 1100 students, but I believe the community could benefit from connecting this school to the outside world.

9. University of Maryland, College Park
Hopefully soon this will not be an issue. Flagship University of the State of Maryland, largest employer in Prince George's County, and educating over 36,000 students, This school is underserved by a Metro station miles away from the campus center. The forgotten factor: UMCP also houses University of Maryland University College, which has over 90,000 students. Most of these are online, but several classes are taught on the campus, and plenty of jobs are located at its headquarters near the proposed Purple Line West Campus station.

8. United States Naval Academy
Considering its proximity to the Nation's Capital, the Naval Academy's 4,400 midshipmen do not have a single rail line connecting it with DC. Since it's also part of a military base, there would be dual purpose to have the option to connect it to facilities located around the district.

7. Howard University
Supposedly served by the Shaw station on the Green and Yellow lines, Howard ought to have better rail access. The current station serves the medical center well, however another station on/under Georgia Avenue could also serve the campus a bit better.

6. American University
Similarly to Howard, American is "served" by the Tenleytown station. In practice, it's almost a mile from campus center to Tenleytown station. With over a thousand full-time and adjunct faculty and nearly 10,000 students, and a popular venue like the Bender Arena, transit ought to evenutally be able to come a little closer to this prestigious institution.

5. Prince George's Community College, Largo (no dorms)
The flagship campus of PGCC, the Largo campus could feasibly be served by a Purple Line that connected from New Carrollton through Largo Town Center. 37,000 students attend PGCC, mostly at the Largo campus. As PG County begins its renaissance, educating the community is of utmost importance. Rail access to the community college will make this happen.

4. George Mason
I have no idea how this campus got it's name on the Vienna Metro station. It has to be two to three miles away. The Fairfax Campus is home to the majority of the school's 30,000 undergrad and graduate students, as well as the Patriot Center, a popular concert and sports venue. But don't take the Metro unless you are wearing your hiking boots. It's a pedestrian-unfriendly trek.

3. Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale (no dorms)
Serving over 63,000 credit and a quarter of a million non-credit students, NVCC is the second largest multi-campus community college in the nation, and the largest educational institution in Virginia. Unfortunately the headquarters is in Annandale, with nary a train station to be found. The Annandale campus serves the most of the eight campuses, 23,000 students according to NVCC's website. One look at the giant parking lot on the campus and you can guess the preferred method of reaching the campus.

2. Georgetown University
Here's a campus where the students don't even have a fixed transit service to watch their beloved Hoyas basketball team play at the Verizon Center! Set in a very walkable part of town, the closest Metro station is across the Potomac in Rosslyn. Perhaps the city's most prestigious institution of higher learning, Georgetown holds over 6,800 undergrads and almost 7,300 graduate students, as well as a hospital. The Blue Line may eventually be diverted from Rosslyn to run under M Street, which would serve the school and the hospital. Right now, students and faculty will have to settle for the walk across the Key Bridge.

1. Montgomery College, Rockville (no dorms)
Nearly 60,000 students from all 50 states and 170+ countries (more than any Ivy League school) attend what is certainly amongst the world's most diverse institutions of higher learning. Over half of them attend the Rockville Campus, which, like the other MC campuses, has no housing. The critical flaw is that the campus is situated in the middle of a three mile dead zone along the Red Line between Rockville and Shady Grove stations. An infill station at Montgomery College would likely have high ridership, and make the Rockville Campus more accessible to the Takoma Park Campus (the second largest campus, Germantown is the smallest of the three Montgomery College campuses.) Considering the array of demographics that attend Montgomery College, this would greatly assist in educating the lower socio-economic groups, which is good for them and great for the region as a whole. And all we have to do is build a station on the existing track right across the street.

Educating the region is important. Educated people are good for the economy. They are less likely to commit crimes. They are more likely to embrace the abundance of diversity that this region boasts. Unfortunately, school is expensive. It's even worse if you have to own a car to get there. Additionally, college campuses are a great place to breed a culture that releases itself from car ownership. People are walking everywhere; to school, to work, to leisure activities. With a transit connection, we're not only linking students to opportunities to learn, we're teaching them the value of getting out of their cars. What could be better for the urban environment?

Did I leave anyone out?

More Rockville Pike

Rockville Pike indeed. There was recently a charette for the Pike. GreaterGreaterWashington did a nice piece highlighting it. Not only did this charette embrace the grid idea that I was pontifficating, it also appears to be embracing innovative storm drainage techniques. I don't know much about water runoff engineering, but this seems really cool to me. I understand that it's cheaper than conventional storm runoff, and it makes plant life a functional part of a streetscape.

I hope one day I have the time to attend these sorts of things. Perhaps after I move and I'm spending less of my life in the car...

Imagine Rockville Pike

In high school, I spent a lot of time at Silver Diner at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Montrose Road. That diner had a '50's feel to it, and though it's surrounded by hundreds of acres of parking, you feel like you're in a small town when you order a strawberry malt and a slice of pie with your high school buddies on a Friday night.

Now, that intersection is getting ridiculous expressway built beneath it. Certainly this will not help the few suicidal pedestrians that choose to walk about the Pike. Instead, it will likely promote more Ford Explorers with a sole driver idling in a left turn lane burning $4.59 a gallon waiting to turn into a giant parking lot so they can do their part for the economy.

Why is Rockville Pike just a conglomeration of strip malls and parking lots with no street life? Why isn't it more like, say, Wilson Boulevard in Arlington? Greater Greater Washington has a nice piece talking about why Arlington works and Rockville Pike does not. He argues, among other things, that the stations on the Red Line are spaced too far apart. I agree. But I think there's more to it than that, and it can perhaps be fixed without infill stations all over Rockville.

Arlington has a grid road system (albeit an irregular one) which siphons traffic along parallel thoroughfares. Rockville Pike is choked off in a couple of places, notably by the Bethesda Naval Medical Center, the Beltway/270 Spur interchange, Georgetown Prep and Holy Cross High Schools, and, most needlessly in my opinion, Woodmont Country Club. Every bit of traffic between Bethesda and Rockville is funneled down Rockville Pike. Pedestrians be damned. All the TOD around Grosvenor, White Flint, and Twinbrook stations won't turn the Red Line into the Orange Line.

So what would it look like if Rockville Pike had a bit of a grid to it? Perhaps a few centralized parking garages, a bunch of pedestrian improvements, and of course my imaginary strip of Metro rail running between Silver Spring and Twinbrook with a stop at Nicholson Lane? Maybe throw a couple decks over the trains, connect the street grid, and make Rockville a city instead of an unsightly mash of strip malls.

Once again, I remind everyone that I am not an engineer. I'm sure this would be prohibitively expensive, and MoCo NIMBYs are the worst, and would probably have some problems with this. I'm sure parts of it are impossible to engineer. But I think it's important to envision Rockville Pike as part of a network, and not the single point of traffic failure.

I imagined Rockville Pike:

(Upper)
(Lower)The purple indicates decks over the train tracks. The Orange indicates Metro facilities. The big change is extending Jefferson Street up through part of the Woodmont Country Club. I'm sure they can relocate those two (of their 36) holes. I opted not to place any other proposed building lots down, partly because this is a huge area, partly because parts of it are under development, and partly because I'm tired. Suffice to say many of those parking lots would cease to exist.

Would this street alignment make Rockville look more like Arlington? Perhaps. It would certainly promote walkability and reduce the number of car trips (especially if you have ever driven across a massive parking lot to get to another store in the same strip mall!) and likely decrease traffic through the area. But no, instead we're getting the Montrose Parkway and a mid-20th century wasteland between the downtowns of Rockville and Bethesda.