5 Comments

1. Deb Stahl

   Not building yet more retail in existing shopping center parking lots might be a good start. Working on flow in and out of the many parking lots up and down the Pike would be great: getting into and out of Congressional and Congressional North can be nightmarish even when it’s not holiday shopping season.

   More education for the public about bus lines up and down the Pike might make using them more palatable for the general public, both for shopping and for those whose personal vehicles clog the Pike going out for lunch from Rockville workplaces. If people knew they could hop a bus and be at lunch in 15-20 minutes and hop the same bus on the way back, or hop a bus to Congressional and Federal for shopping and another one back home without an undue number of transfers, there might be less motivation for them to use personal vehicles to do so. Ditto education about buses from Metro stations to Rockville Pike destinations.

   As part of the re-thinking, it would be fantastic to improve flow across the train tracks. There are many areas of 355 that back up trying to use the relatively few routes that cross the tracks. This morning alone there was a LOT of back-up on Stonestreet Avenue that usually takes Park Road to get out of East Rockville; the current traffic flow and traffic light timing is utterly inadequate to move the current traffic load, and this includes the light at Park and 355. On many afternoons traffic is regularly unable to get onto First Street/911 under the train tracks because there isn’t enough road (left turn lane from 911 to Veirs Mill is entirely too short as well) or a long enough light at Veirs Mill, so when thinking about The Pike, one also has to think about “the other side of the tracks,” and vice versa.

   In In north Rockville at Gude Drive where it crosses the Pike, the combination of too many vehicles (including commercial/industrial), too short lights (especially left-turns onto Gude both ways), and office complex driveways too close to the intersection make that area insane during morning rush, so re-thinking light timing and proximity of driveways to each other and to intersections needs to be part of the plan. Car carriers unloading at car dealerships in this area often are blocking lanes at rush hour, further complicating this intersection. Further north, the numerous driveways for the Shell station (which is routinely backed up into the Pike) and other gas stations and restaurants could be combined into fewer ons and offs for Pike traffic across from King Farm.

   And then there’s making it work for bike and pedestrian traffic. It’s not safe for bikers to actually use the Pike itself in many places; cars turning right and bikes going straight have missed each other (and in some cases hit each other ) more often than I would like to have seen myself. There are long stretches of the Pike that have no crosswalks for pedestrians, despite retail across the Pike from other retail where customers might like to shop, so they’re forced to sprint across the Pike or take significant detours to find crosswalks.

   There are many things about Rockville that I dearly love. The Pike is not on that list. It’s not really car-friendly, but the way it’s set up now it’s not really ANYTHING-friendly except for more and more retail.

2. Herb Winkler

   Deb,
   Using the bus to alleviate traffic sounds like a no-brainer. The ride-on 46 travels the pike every twenty minutes or so. About 10 years ago, they offered free rides on both the 46 and 93 (which also ran the pike) at lunch time. Ride on stopped giving free rides (not even on code red days) unless the rider is a senior citizen or has a handicap.

   The pike is what it is (the place for retail) but it’s difficult to get people out of their cars. Biking on the pike just isn’t safe, so I suggest building a bike path a block to the west, and connecting to the Bethesda Trolley Trail so bikers can get to their destinations. Putting bike lanes in the future bus lane is being considered, but I hesitate to endorse that idea until we exhaust the alternative proposals.

3. Michelle White

   I agree, we desparately need to ease traffic congestion and create a more pedestrian and bike friendly Pike. Safety is a major concern. The sidewalks and crosswalks are not continuous and ramps shift around. I often wonder what difficulties someone using a wheelchair encounters, when it is so difficult to even walk. I would love to bike to work as would some of my coworkers (it is a straight shot down Rockville Pike in Bethesda for me), but the thought of pedaling anywhere near the Pike is scary. The prior idea of a trail that is a block off the Pike sounds great.

   A safer pedestrian & bike friendly Pike would encourage people to linger longer and check out the various stores and restaurants. Right now, I go out of my way to avoid shopping on the Pike. And when I do have to hit the Pike I go into assault mode. My objective is to quickly get in and out of the suburban parking lot wasteland with as little damage as possible to my sanity (and my car).

   I would also encourage more greening of the Pike. A few small spots of green would make a tremendous difference both visually and environmentally. Surround the sidewalks & parking lots with low maintenance trees & shrubs, and people might actually like going for walks on the Pike (and get sidetracked into the many stores along).

4. Temperance Blalock

   My car broke down back in August, and since I anticipated that the repair cost would be considerable, and I am able to function without it due to the convenience of living in downtown Rockville, I spent the last three+months exclusive walking and taking Ride-On buses and Metro. I bought a $30 monthly Ride-On pass that proved to be a great bargain, and so I was able to hop on a Ride-On whenever I needed to get someplace, and I became very familiar with the local routes 45, 46, and 55. 46 is the one that runs down the Pike from the Rockville station, and that would be the route that I would anticipate people using in the “optimum” scenario of encouraging more people to use public transportation for shopping along Rockville pike.

   I quickly discovered how very difficult it is to do “casual” pedestrian shopping along the Pike, anywhere between Wintergreen Plaza and White Flint, mostly due to the fact that crosswalks are few and far between. No one with a modicum of sanity would consider “jaywalking” to cross the Pike (not that I haven’t seen some reckless people, mostly teenagers, doing it), so it behooves everyone to walk to a crosswalk and wait for the light to change, and that can be a time-consuming and dangerous prospect. Crossing a busy intersection, even on a Walk light, is treacherous here in Rockville, what with so many aggressive and distracted drivers turning into and out of parking lots.

   The 46 bus is generally packed to the gills when it leaves the Rockville station south for the Twinbrook station, since it doesn’t run frequently enough to lessen the load during peak times. I’ve found that these buses also don’t run on a very dependable schedule; I sat at the Twinbrook station once for over an hour waiting for a southbound 46, and in that time there were two northbound ones that came by, and several other routes. Ironically, I was waiting there to go only a relatively short way, and I should have simply walked to my destination.

   Despite my complaints, I believe that Ride-On does an adequate job with the resources we provide to it, and I’m sorry that so many people consider riding those buses to be “slumming”. A lot of residents of our sixth-richest county have the attitude that they “wouldn’t be caught dead” on a Ride-On bus, and I suspect that, if we took a survey of Rockville residents, less than 15% would admit to having taken a Ride-On once in the last year, and probably less than 20% of them know what the current fare is.

   I moved to Rockville specifically so that I could avoid using my car as much as possible, and I feel very lucky that I could survive here without a car. Now that I’ve had my car repaired, I don’t even want to drive it around here unless necessary, given the possibility of spending an onerous hour to go two or three miles during rush hour. But this car culture, which is literally crippling our society with its economic and psychic costs, will not diminish until there is a less dismissive general attitude toward public transportation other than Metro.

5. Cindy Cotte Griffiths

   Michelle - We have a post about navigating the Pike in a wheelchair:

   http://rockvillecentral.com/2008/11/contributor-opinion-what-is-rockville-doing-to-be-more-accessible-for-persons-with-disabilities.html/

   Also, Temperance, one of the first things the consultants said is that the bus service is so infrequent that it’s nonexistent for any practical purposes.

   We’ll have to find out what the report suggests for all the Pike’s problems.

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