More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are Trone or Ashwell voting on this? I won’t to find the No person.

This is a county issue. The members of the County Council vote on it. Who is Ashwell?

Alsobrooks.
List Yays list Nays for county to help my list for voting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a visual depiction of this so we can see it our neighborhood will be next to a shi$storm it not? All this verbiage tells me squat of what the actual “vvision” is—drawings pls for the locals.

The Montgomery Planning Department is having FOUR MEETINGS (or three meetings, after tonight's meeting) just so you and other members of the public can get your questions answered.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Are we free to VETO this? Or is it being forced upon us?

You could participate in a meeting and ask the planners this question.

Ask them specific questions like what were the estimates of how many students this plan will generate or how many new housing units will result from this proposal. The planning departments are useless and they usually don't thoroughly evaluate the consequences before proposing this BS.

Well I work in office and only just found out via a late sent postcard so no not possible. Maybe send that postcard out two weeks prior?

There are three more meetings this month.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

[Anonymous]

List Yays County vs Nays County pls so I can vote accordingly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are Trone or Ashwell voting on this? I won’t to find the No person.

This is a county issue. The members of the County Council vote on it. Who is Ashwell?

Alsobrooks.
List Yays list Nays for county to help my list for voting

Members of the US Congress do not vote on corridor plans in Montgomery County, Maryland.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad they’re starting in Silver Spring because none of the advocates there think we need any infrastructure so it will be helpful to see if they’re right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad they’re starting in Silver Spring because none of the advocates there think we need any infrastructure so it will be helpful to see if they’re right.

They also get to do some early gentrification testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a visual depiction of this so we can see it our neighborhood will be next to a shi$storm it not? All this verbiage tells me squat of what the actual “vvision” is—drawings pls for the locals.

The Montgomery Planning Department is having FOUR MEETINGS (or three meetings, after tonight's meeting) just so you and other members of the public can get your questions answered.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Are we free to VETO this? Or is it being forced upon us?

You could participate in a meeting and ask the planners this question.

Ask them specific questions like what were the estimates of how many students this plan will generate or how many new housing units will result from this proposal. The planning departments are useless and they usually don't thoroughly evaluate the consequences before proposing this BS.

Well I work in office and only just found out via a late sent postcard so no not possible. Maybe send that postcard out two weeks prior?

Isn’t this like a basic thing to look at before you decide to upzone large portions of the county. It is beyond me why planing wouldn’t bother to estimate this in areas where schools are already overcrowded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a visual depiction of this so we can see it our neighborhood will be next to a shi$storm it not? All this verbiage tells me squat of what the actual “vvision” is—drawings pls for the locals.

The Montgomery Planning Department is having FOUR MEETINGS (or three meetings, after tonight's meeting) just so you and other members of the public can get your questions answered.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Are we free to VETO this? Or is it being forced upon us?

You could participate in a meeting and ask the planners this question.

Ask them specific questions like what were the estimates of how many students this plan will generate or how many new housing units will result from this proposal. The planning departments are useless and they usually don't thoroughly evaluate the consequences before proposing this BS.

Well I work in office and only just found out via a late sent postcard so no not possible. Maybe send that postcard out two weeks prior?

Isn’t this like a basic thing to look at before you decide to upzone large portions of the county. It is beyond me why planing wouldn’t bother to estimate this in areas where schools are already overcrowded.

Why should the Planning Department estimate the effects of something they are not proposing to do?

You can find a lot of information here, if you look: https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a visual depiction of this so we can see it our neighborhood will be next to a shi$storm it not? All this verbiage tells me squat of what the actual “vvision” is—drawings pls for the locals.

The Montgomery Planning Department is having FOUR MEETINGS (or three meetings, after tonight's meeting) just so you and other members of the public can get your questions answered.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Are we free to VETO this? Or is it being forced upon us?

You could participate in a meeting and ask the planners this question.

Ask them specific questions like what were the estimates of how many students this plan will generate or how many new housing units will result from this proposal. The planning departments are useless and they usually don't thoroughly evaluate the consequences before proposing this BS.

Well I work in office and only just found out via a late sent postcard so no not possible. Maybe send that postcard out two weeks prior?

Isn’t this like a basic thing to look at before you decide to upzone large portions of the county. It is beyond me why planing wouldn’t bother to estimate this in areas where schools are already overcrowded.

Why should the Planning Department estimate the effects of something they are not proposing to do?

You can find a lot of information here, if you look: https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Pls post a LEGO 3D view of this project so EVERYONE can see what this plan is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone post a visual depiction of this so we can see it our neighborhood will be next to a shi$storm it not? All this verbiage tells me squat of what the actual “vvision” is—drawings pls for the locals.

The Montgomery Planning Department is having FOUR MEETINGS (or three meetings, after tonight's meeting) just so you and other members of the public can get your questions answered.

https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Are we free to VETO this? Or is it being forced upon us?

You could participate in a meeting and ask the planners this question.

Ask them specific questions like what were the estimates of how many students this plan will generate or how many new housing units will result from this proposal. The planning departments are useless and they usually don't thoroughly evaluate the consequences before proposing this BS.

Well I work in office and only just found out via a late sent postcard so no not possible. Maybe send that postcard out two weeks prior?

Isn’t this like a basic thing to look at before you decide to upzone large portions of the county. It is beyond me why planing wouldn’t bother to estimate this in areas where schools are already overcrowded.

Why should the Planning Department estimate the effects of something they are not proposing to do?

You can find a lot of information here, if you look: https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/corridor-planning/university-boulevard-corridor-plan/

Pls post a LEGO 3D view of this project so EVERYONE can see what this plan is.

Does Montgomery Planning have recommendations for University Boulevard?

Montgomery Planning is in the first stage of this Plan and has not developed any recommendations for any part of the plan area. Montgomery Planning is currently conducting the first phase of community outreach and engagement to learn from community members about their concerns and ideas for the future of this corridor.

What is a corridor plan? Why does Montgomery Planning do corridor plans?

Corridors have occupied a significant place in county planning since the 1964 Wedges and Corridors Plan. Similarly, the idea of focusing growth along corridors is far from new; prior plans, such as the Veirs Mill Corridor Master Plan and the White Flint Sector Plan, have addressed major roadway corridors. Existing corridors, such as MD 193, already play a significant role in the lives of the people who live near them, and what happens on the corridor can affect quality of life in meaningful ways. Additionally, corridors are also where the county envisions high-quality BRT transit, development opportunities, and economic connectivity and serve as connections to centers of activity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.

How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?

You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.

Are you listening to yourself?

I am not the PP, but the PP is a realist. Traffic deaths will NEVER be ZERO. Not really possible. Similarly, poverty will never be eliminated. You can work on the edges, which we should of course do. But ZERO is not humanly possible. Welcome to the real world, where bad sh-t happens unfortunately.

It is possible to have zero car crash deaths, though.

However, for the sake of argument: what do you consider an acceptable number of people killed in car crashes?

The acceptable level is determine by how much the government can reasonably afford to spend to reduce it and the impact on overall commute time. This is no different than society determining that there is a maximum amount that is reasonable to spend on medical care to prevent one death. The government cannot afford to spend (and should not) spend 1 million dollars on medical care for a cancer therapy that boost a persons life expectancy by one year. Spending exorbitant amount of money for small gains it wasteful and it allocates resources to activities that provide minimal benefits to society. There is a absolutely a value that must be assigned to human life because no government has unlimited resources. We need to prioritize spending where it has the largest impact and benefit for society.

Currently it's about 40 people killed in car crashes every year in Montgomery County. Is that an acceptable number for you?

It depends on how much it costs to reduce the number. If we can reduce average traffic deaths by 1 person per year for a reasonable upfront cost, then no it is too high. If the county is going to spend $15 million upfront and it cost taxpayers an extra 100k a year on gasoline from additional time spent in traffic. (To prevent one traffic death on average, then I would say it’s a waste of money. It would be more useful to use that money elsewhere, (eg. Providing free high blood pressure screening and medication for low income households) this would help a lot more people and prevent more many more deaths than the one person saved each year from reducing traffic deaths. So it depends on how much it costs. If we are going to spend 100 million to reduce annual traffic deaths by 15% in the county, then yes this would be a huge waste of money and the current level of deaths is acceptable.

Montgomery County may do things differently, but you can absolutely reduce crashes in ways that pencil out in the long term. That's even if you don't value the lives/injuries of the people involved.

Just one example is to replace signaled intersections with roundabouts. You'll reduce crash frequency, crash severity, maintenance costs and increase resiliency during storms/disasters. You also make traffic flow better since people are stuck at red lights constantly. Carmel Indiana replaced most of its lights with roundabouts over a 20 year period and has a fatality rate about half of Montgomery's despite being even more car-centric.

There are plenty of other cheap/easy/long term beneficial changes that increase safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.

How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?

You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.

Are you listening to yourself?

I am not the PP, but the PP is a realist. Traffic deaths will NEVER be ZERO. Not really possible. Similarly, poverty will never be eliminated. You can work on the edges, which we should of course do. But ZERO is not humanly possible. Welcome to the real world, where bad sh-t happens unfortunately.

It is possible to have zero car crash deaths, though.

However, for the sake of argument: what do you consider an acceptable number of people killed in car crashes?

The acceptable level is determine by how much the government can reasonably afford to spend to reduce it and the impact on overall commute time. This is no different than society determining that there is a maximum amount that is reasonable to spend on medical care to prevent one death. The government cannot afford to spend (and should not) spend 1 million dollars on medical care for a cancer therapy that boost a persons life expectancy by one year. Spending exorbitant amount of money for small gains it wasteful and it allocates resources to activities that provide minimal benefits to society. There is a absolutely a value that must be assigned to human life because no government has unlimited resources. We need to prioritize spending where it has the largest impact and benefit for society.

Currently it's about 40 people killed in car crashes every year in Montgomery County. Is that an acceptable number for you?

It depends on how much it costs to reduce the number. If we can reduce average traffic deaths by 1 person per year for a reasonable upfront cost, then no it is too high. If the county is going to spend $15 million upfront and it cost taxpayers an extra 100k a year on gasoline from additional time spent in traffic. (To prevent one traffic death on average, then I would say it’s a waste of money. It would be more useful to use that money elsewhere, (eg. Providing free high blood pressure screening and medication for low income households) this would help a lot more people and prevent more many more deaths than the one person saved each year from reducing traffic deaths. So it depends on how much it costs. If we are going to spend 100 million to reduce annual traffic deaths by 15% in the county, then yes this would be a huge waste of money and the current level of deaths is acceptable.

Montgomery County may do things differently, but you can absolutely reduce crashes in ways that pencil out in the long term. That's even if you don't value the lives/injuries of the people involved.

Just one example is to replace signaled intersections with roundabouts. You'll reduce crash frequency, crash severity, maintenance costs and increase resiliency during storms/disasters. You also make traffic flow better since people are stuck at red lights constantly. Carmel Indiana replaced most of its lights with roundabouts over a 20 year period and has a fatality rate about half of Montgomery's despite being even more car-centric.

There are plenty of other cheap/easy/long term beneficial changes that increase safety.

Car crashes cost the US an estimated $340 billion in 2019 (one year of crashes that killed an estimated 36,500 people, injured 4.5 million, and damaged 23 million vehicles).

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019

Something for that PP to consider during their extra 30 seconds of driving time because the county put in stop signs at an intersection near an elementary school..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to drop the missing middle rezoning proposal and just do this one maybe that is a reasonable compromise, but upzoning everything is a bad idea. Vision zero is idiotic and unrealistic though. The goal of reducing traffic fatalities attainable, but we need to balance operational concerns with safety improvements. The only way to achieve basically zero traffic deaths would be to reduce speed limit to 15 mph everywhere. Ridiculous policy goals like vision zero will harm society more than it helps.

How many deaths do you think it's worth for you to get somewhere 5 minutes faster in your car? How about 10 minutes faster in your car? Also, is it ok for people in your family to be killed or seriously injured in a car crash, or should car crash deaths and serious injuries be limited to people in other people's families?

You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this.

Are you listening to yourself?

I am not the PP, but the PP is a realist. Traffic deaths will NEVER be ZERO. Not really possible. Similarly, poverty will never be eliminated. You can work on the edges, which we should of course do. But ZERO is not humanly possible. Welcome to the real world, where bad sh-t happens unfortunately.

It is possible to have zero car crash deaths, though.

However, for the sake of argument: what do you consider an acceptable number of people killed in car crashes?

The acceptable level is determine by how much the government can reasonably afford to spend to reduce it and the impact on overall commute time. This is no different than society determining that there is a maximum amount that is reasonable to spend on medical care to prevent one death. The government cannot afford to spend (and should not) spend 1 million dollars on medical care for a cancer therapy that boost a persons life expectancy by one year. Spending exorbitant amount of money for small gains it wasteful and it allocates resources to activities that provide minimal benefits to society. There is a absolutely a value that must be assigned to human life because no government has unlimited resources. We need to prioritize spending where it has the largest impact and benefit for society.

Currently it's about 40 people killed in car crashes every year in Montgomery County. Is that an acceptable number for you?

It depends on how much it costs to reduce the number. If we can reduce average traffic deaths by 1 person per year for a reasonable upfront cost, then no it is too high. If the county is going to spend $15 million upfront and it cost taxpayers an extra 100k a year on gasoline from additional time spent in traffic. (To prevent one traffic death on average, then I would say it’s a waste of money. It would be more useful to use that money elsewhere, (eg. Providing free high blood pressure screening and medication for low income households) this would help a lot more people and prevent more many more deaths than the one person saved each year from reducing traffic deaths. So it depends on how much it costs. If we are going to spend 100 million to reduce annual traffic deaths by 15% in the county, then yes this would be a huge waste of money and the current level of deaths is acceptable.

Montgomery County may do things differently, but you can absolutely reduce crashes in ways that pencil out in the long term. That's even if you don't value the lives/injuries of the people involved.

Just one example is to replace signaled intersections with roundabouts. You'll reduce crash frequency, crash severity, maintenance costs and increase resiliency during storms/disasters. You also make traffic flow better since people are stuck at red lights constantly. Carmel Indiana replaced most of its lights with roundabouts over a 20 year period and has a fatality rate about half of Montgomery's despite being even more car-centric.

There are plenty of other cheap/easy/long term beneficial changes that increase safety.

Replacing a single traffic light intersection with a round about will cost in excess of a million dollars. There are more than 875 intersections with traffic lights in MOCO. Some of these intersections are larger than 1 or 2 lanes, so they will cost multiple millions to replace rather than a few. So the total cost of replacing all of suitable intersection traffic lights with round abouts will be in excess of 2 billion dollars. If this works similarly to Caramel you are still spending at least 50 million dollars to reduce yearly traffic deaths by 1 person. That is an incredible waste of money. There are numerous other things that the county can spend 50 million dollars on which will provide much greater benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad they’re starting in Silver Spring because none of the advocates there think we need any infrastructure so it will be helpful to see if they’re right.

If people there don't want it then why is it a good idea?

[Anonymous]

Pls explain the new housing multi unit — where is this going? Up the entire blvd?