I think it would be a good idea whether it is affordable housing or not.

Virtually every other housing option in Rockville will support a lifestyle involving car ownership. Surely 212 households would find this attractive.

People who own cars typically pay several thousand a year for payments, repairs and insurance. This proposal would give people access to housing at a reduced rate and access to a car when they need it while sharing the costs with your neighbors. It’s well served by transit and can provide affordable housing and affordable transportation. Requiring a parking garage at Beall’s Grant II would add over $4 million to the cost, making the housing that much less affordable.

The millions in savings by not building a garage can not only pay for bikes and car-sharing, it could provide other nice features that can draw people to choose this option over the standard mandatory parking approach.

Given our current circumstance, no housing is approved for construction at Beall’s Grant II, so you can keep your car and sleep in it. I think we can do better. This is an idea that has worked in Europe. This isn’t an elitist dismissal of people’s needs – it is an innovative approach for better meeting people’s needs.

Carl

You must ride bikes, you must share rides with others.

This is the only way you will get a place in Rockville.

The Henn has spoken.

Regarding biking in West End, I bike there regularly and find some streets quite safe and others (Rockville Pike for instance) a complete no-go. There is a safe, enjoyable route from Beall’s Grant to the Rockville Pool for instance, and to a number of nearby churches. Bicycles provide another transportation option. The notion of providing bikes and bike parking enough to serve all residents in an apartment complex is different enough from normal practice that it may draw attention away from the more pedestrian aspects of the plan. You can walk to most of what you need in Town Center, and few places are better served by transit in this area.

This plan clearly discriminates against people whose life requires transportation to distant places that aren’t served by transit. It doesn’t discriminate based on age or infirmity. Many elderly people ride bikes. The apartment could provide three wheelers for people with balance issues and cargo bikes to expand the type of trips that a bike can serve. Perhaps providing shopping carts to wheel groceries home in is a good idea as well. Many people aren’t capable of driving, so that an apartment complex designed for people without cars would be a great advantage. Many people can’t afford a car, while they could afford car sharing. Car sharing is a step up for people who currently can’t afford a car and for others who impoverish themselves for a car that they must have for occasional use. I wouldn’t propose that all new affordable housing be car-free by contract. But at this point, none of the affordable housing in the County is set up this way. Hard to believe I wrote a thousand word essay without mentioning Peak Oil, but car-free by contract will serve us well as world oil production enters decline.

Carl Henn

However, thoroughly banning car ownership at BGII would be too draconian. Implementing additional rental charges for a parking space would largely serve the same purpose. Without a viable alternative, like car sharing that REALLY works, residents would be stranded when attempting to do something like visiting a doctor who is not close or on a good bus line. Most of my doctors are on Medical Center Way, by Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, and the bus service out that way is very poor.

Riding bicycles is a noble concept, but is currently not very feasible, especially restricting that as the only option for BGII residents. Most employers don’t offer shower facilities or bike storage facilities; that makes a very big impact on the practicality. The biggest factor, though, is that it is VERY dangerous, especially in downtown Rockville. Since the current driver culture is extremely aggressive, riding a bike in the actual street is simply not an option for a sane person. Although Rockville and the county have spent a lot of time and effort creating bike paths, downtown Rockville and the West End are not part of that network. Thus, bicyclists simply must resort to riding on the sidewalk, and there are conflicts when this happens. Until we can educate car drivers to respect bicyclists, I think it would be irresponsible to force a large number of people to use only that form of transportation.

Restricting BGII residents to bicycling-only would discriminate against those who are elderly or middle-aged, and those who are not very physically fit. I am 54 years old, and am now starting to develop hip problems.

Three years ago, when I was living in Gaithersburg and working in downtown Rockville, I experimented with commuting by bicycle. I was riding south on 355 from Shady Grove Rd, and I was riding on the sidewalk. The biggest problem was the fact that there are so many entrances/exits off 355 onto side roads, and I was forced to stop at every single one of them to look for cars that were turning in or out. I was compelled to actually stop almost every time, because I knew that cars would be oblivious to a bicyclist, and would make the turn and probably strike me if I was riding across that part of the sidewalk. This constant stopping more than doubled my commuting time, and made it extremely tedious. I feel an obligation to follow the traffic rules, since I expect the same in return from cars (although I did not receive it), and thus the onus was on me to be cautious.

Every morning and afternoon when I cross North Washington Street, cars blast through the intersection after the light has clearly turned red. We have allowed car drivers to get away with very bad behavior toward pedestrians and others who are not also driving a vehicle, and so until we can effectively educate drivers to change their behavior, and can bring ourselves to genuinely enforce current traffic laws, then forcing a group of people to resort ONLY to bicycle transportation would be a bad idea.