Rethink College Park

The MTA has released a schedule of public meetings this month: “These meetings will include updated information from the Open Houses held this past winter and will be the last round of large public meetings before the Alternatives Analysis/Draft Environmental Impact Statement (AA/DEIS) is released this fall.”

The College Park meeting is this Thursday, May 8th at 5 p.m. at the City Hall.

See the project website for the full schedule, including meetings in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Landover Hills, and Langley Park.

As many are well aware, RTCP is in semi-hibernation mode at the moment. We’re planning on a kickoff meeting to discuss the future of the site sometime in May. Until then there are a couple tid-bits to report despite the dampened state of the real estate market. Thanks to everyone who continues to email and post comments about all the great changes coming to the city….

-> Starview Plaza - The Diamondback reports that Starview Plaza is progressing through the early stages of the approval process. The project, which sits just north of College Park Carwash, has languished for years (at least 5?) and the underlying land is owned jointly by the City and University. Originally planned as a hotel, the developer now plans a 500-bed mixed use student housing project with an impressive LEED Silver rating. As the Diamondback reports, there has been much debate over exactly what materials should be used on the facade. The Sector Plan requires 75% brick and as the Mazza Grandmarc debate showed us, the city and the county in particular hold tightly to that standard regardless of how visible certain parts of the building are. The choice is between hardyplank - a composite of recycled materials which helps a buildings LEED rating - and brick (an energy-intensive material) on the least visible parts of the building. Let’s hope the county council departs from its absolutist ways by avoiding unneccessary delays…

-> Campus Construction - The University has released an updated campus construction map, which shows progress on several different projects we’ve blogged about over time. The new journalism building is progressing, the Tyser Tower expansion at Byrd Stadium is underway, and improvements to the Southwest quad and in front of the business school are coming to a close. Also, North Gate Park, a project mired in bureaucracy, funding constraints, and development SNAFUS for the better part of four years is scheduled to start construction this summer. North Gate Park is a joint venture between the city and university and was designed by undergraduate students. 

-> Parking - Recognizing the serious burden that parking requirement place on private developers of student housing, UMD-DOTS via the university’s strategic plan has agreed that students at select off-campus housing complexes can park on-campus. This is a smart move that we think could pay serious dividends by encouraging more student housing. Building lots on Route 1 are small and shallow, thus making the provision of suburban-style parking ratios extremely difficult for dense mixed-use projects. Hopefully the city/county can capitalize on this new policy to implement their Transportation Demand Management plans.

-> Purple Line - There are signs that Campus Drive advocates are making serious inroads. More to come shortly.

Did you know you can purchase a bundle of one-day parking permits to park on campus, get discounted Metro cards, or even rent a Zipcar on campus?

Many of our readers commute to the UMD campus, and others are effected by the choices made by those who work or study here. To the end of encouraging transit and minimizing the number of cars on campus, the Department of Transportation Services has circulated a list of programs and services that encourage “green” commutes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week the Maryland Transit Administration held the latest information session about the Purple Line, revealing updated results of their work estimating the cost and proposed alignments through campus. We did not attend, but have obtained a copy of the presentation (PDF) and videos presented MTA consultants at the meeting. The Diamondback covered the event and even ran an interview with Joel Oppenheimer, the man who has become the public face of the engineering team at these meetings.

The videos show light rail vehicles in the context of campus along the proposed Campus Drive alignment.

Stamp Student Union

Hornbake Plaza

> See the MTA April 9 Presentation

Thanks to Laura Moore for sharing these materials

Or so Graduate Student Government president Laura Moore characterizes (in today’s gazette) the university’s continued opposition to the proposed light rail line on Campus Drive. Administrators continue to claim that vibrations and electromagnetic waves from the transitway will interrupt sensitive research on campus, yet continue to provide no evidence to support their claims. They continue to ignore that the MTA will avoid and mitigate these impacts just as other transit agencies have done the world over in these instances.

Meanwhile, commentor Joe Dexter points out that  the MTA will be returning to the City of College Park with a focus group scheduled for April 9th at 7-9 pm in CP City Hall (4500 Knox Rd).

Lastly, can anyone interpret this quote from UMD VP Doug Duncan in the article?

‘‘People look at it and say, ‘Well, this is where the traffic is today and therefore we have to have the station there,’ instead of saying, ‘Where do we want the traffic to be?’”

Does Duncan still think he is a transportation planner? I thought we dissavowed him of that.

In a long-planned editorial today, the Diamondback declared the “debate should be over” when it comes to the Purple Line location on campus. In their view, the “people have spoken” in support of the Campus Drive alignment, which “would be the most accessible for commuters, least disruptive for students in dorms and most easily incorporated into the overall layout of the campus.” They argue the Campus Drive alignment would reduce the University’s “heavy reliance” on private automobiles and advance the institution’s stated environmental goals. The editorial critiques the administration’s handling of the debate and has kind things to say about this website.

The editorial also points out University leaders and community members have a stake in the next transportation funding bill Congress will take up later in this congressional session. The re-authorization of the old bill (called “SAFETEA-LU”) will set funding levels and policies for much-needed transit projects like the Purple Line across the nation. While state planners have said they’ll apply for funding before this new law takes effect, it is certainly possible additional delays mean the project would be considered under new rules.

> Diamondback Staff Editorial: “The People’s Line“

For starters, you may have noticed less posting on RCP lately. With one co-founder already away from College Park for a year and the other preparing to graduate, RCP is in need of fresh blood. We’ll be organizing a strategic meeting to bring together our supporters to plan for the future of the site soon, if you are interested in contributing please drop us a line. Recently a community member wrote to ask why we hadn’t written more, but demurred from contributing saying he wasn’t a “writer.” Before blogging, neither were many of our contributors!

What’s new around town? Councilmember Catlin was kind enough to post a short summary as a comment recently. To add to his comments, although rumors have been circulating about the Mazza Grandmarc Graduate Apartments, the developer personally (and vigorously) assured us construction was moving forward and they planned to break ground this year, hopefully late summer or fall.

Today’s Diamondback has two stories of note: a short summary of changes to the 517-bed addition to the University View being planned, and an article describing the over $620 million backlog of on-campus maintenance.

While we have a few posts planned, expect fewer stories until the future of the site is planned in more detail.

After sewing the seeds of dissent for nearly a year, RTCP’s Purple Line legwork appears to be paying some serious dividends. The Diamondback reports today that next week the SGA will give their near unanimous (if not unanimous) support of the Campus Drive alignment (purple on image), thus handing another serious blow to an intransigent university administration. They will join the Graduate Student Government (who voted four months ago) and the Residence Hall Association, which both have passed strong resolutions in favor of the most common sense alignment for the transitway.

Let’s not mistake the SGA’s long wait for this vote as indication of careful consideration. While we’re happy the SGA as a whole has finally come around, their four months of resistence to this vote was unnceccessary. The “Preinkert Drive alignment” (in red on the image) is more symptomatic of the university administration’s anything but strategy rather than an indication of the on-the-ground existence of serious prudent and feasible alternatives to Campus Drive. We commend those within the SGA who had the courage and conviction to stand for everything that an academic community is supposed be - a community of reasoned and informed individuals.

(see larger interactive map)