Council Takes Up Discussion of Bus Rapid Transit in Silver Spring

Montgomery County Council members discussed on Tuesday the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, which would add up to about 80 miles of bus rapid transit (BRT) in the county.

The work session was the starting point for council discussion about BRT in the county. Rapid bus transit routes, stops and logistics—such as whether to have dedicated lanes for BRT or not—are far from certain at this point. 

“To me the appeal is the rapid part,” Councilman Phil Andrews (D-District 3) said. “You need the dedicated lanes for this to work, for it to be attractive enough for people to use it.”

Councilman George Leventhal (D-At Large) added that “every route now and in the future should be subject to a strict cost-benefit analysis,” adding that he feared the council might commit to a more extensive network than could be paid for with the fare box.

Trying to get people to use buses instead of their own cars will be a difficult sell, council members said. Leventhal pointed out that a nicer bus could help entice a larger section of the population to use the buses.

Councilman Hans Riemer (D-At Large) suggested taking a step-by-step approach to starting BRT in the county, testing community use of BRT along the way. He suggested that the county first finish the Corridor Cities Transitway (a separate BRT system from Shady Grove to Clarksburg)—a “really solid” project, he said—and use it to make the case for other BRT routes.

“We’re going to try. We’re putting [a vision on the map] and we don’t know how we’re going to be able to get to that point,” Riemer said. In some places, fitting in the components of bus rapid transit might not work.

“But it’s a requirement for us, I think, to do this master plan so that we can move forward to get into a level of detail to see what can work,” Riemer added.

One of the most hotly debated segments of the BRT plan is the portion of the Route 355 route that extends south from Bethesda to the Maryland-DC line. That segment of Wisconsin Avenue is heavily congested and mostly urban, and many local residents object to the idea of running rapid bus transit on that route.

Councilwoman Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) said that she doesn’t think it’s a doable BRT section, and pointed out that there is an alternative—Metrorail.

Glenn Orlin, the council's deputy chief of staff, agreed that BRT should not be implemented on Wisconsin Avenue between Bethesda and DC unless DC were to implement a BRT system on Wisconsin Avenue, from the Maryland border south to Georgetown.

Planning Board Chair Françoise Carrier and Councilman Roger Berliner (D-District 1) suggested that the portion of the route on Wisconsin Avenue south of Bethesda could be shown as a dashed line instead of a solid line, as it currently is shown in the BRT plan.