How to Get an “A’” in Campus Transportation
The latest installment in the campus debate about the proper location of the Purple Line on campus comes in the form of two op-eds, one by graduate student Danny Rogers and another by myself today. In mine, I analyze some of the data released by the Maryland Transit Administration last week. It turns out a majority of the people on Campus Drive are already riding public transit. Furthermore, I describe some of the serious drawbacks of President Mote’s proposed location:
No professors on our campus will accept “F” work. In fact, according to university policy, students receiving an “F” in a class receive no academic credit. Unfortunately, university President Dan Mote is failing transportation planning. Between classes, Campus Drive is at what planners describe as an “F” level of service: gridlock. And Mote’s proposed solution - moving all vehicular traffic and the Purple Line to Stadium Drive - fails to maximize access, efficiency and safety on the campus. […]
MTA has proposed closing Campus Drive to private vehicles and reserving it for buses and trains only. Let’s assume the 17 percent of cars just passing through the campus choose different routes and 10 percent of the remaining car commuters choose to ride buses or the Purple Line (which seems reasonable with housing being built nearby and huge increases in bus ridership as it is). The result is a net reduction of 1,391 vehicles from campus during the day on this road alone! Reducing the number of vehicles on the campus is something everyone can support and a goal supported clearly in the Facilities Master Plan.
> Diamondback Op-Ed by Rob Goodspeed (11/9/07): Purple on Campus Drive
And Danny Rogers urges the University to champion the project:
Any visitor to San Diego or Denver knows that light rail and pedestrian traffic are not mutually exclusive, nor is light rail an aesthetic death knell. The point of the rail line is to make the campus more accessible. Right now, the Metro station is inconvenient and dangerous to walk to. Why would we make the same mistake again by placing the Purple Line stop somewhere as inaccessible and inconvenient as Byrd Stadium?
Diamondback Op-Ed 11/6/07 by Danny Rogers (No connection to Rethink College Park): Purple and Green
Click here to view our interactive project map
November 10th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Rob’s op-ed rightfully points to the key to UMd’s future - a policy of protecting the pedestrian oriented campus core by sticking and expanding policies that focus on moving people, not cars, through the area.
The success of east campus as a mixed use commercial and residential district that helps continue the upward movement of UMd’s reputation while being a source of pride for the College Park community also depends on this transit oriented vision, for that is what will separate it from mundane commercial centers like the College Park Marketplace and that is what will ensure that it does not choke the College Park road network.
It is really unbelievable that a university that houses the National Center for Smart Growth just does not seem to get it. The university is faced with an incredibly important set of decisions and seems to be leaning the wrong way on all of them. The shameful parading of cabinet members and other senior administrators before MTA at the recent College Park focus group meeting felt more like a politboro meeting than a meeting in an academic community that prides itself on open debate and discourse.
By ignoring the planners - their own, MTAs, the City of College Park’s and Prince George’s County - and by resorting to a system of doublespeak, the university have politicized the Purple Line AND east campus discussions in a way that will have negative impacts on the institution for years to come. The shifting of positions over the past several years would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high.
Fortunately, while the university is increasingly operating like a petty third-world dictatorship, the College Park area has numerous politicians who know a bum steer when they see it. Senator Rosapepe and Pinsky, Delegate Pena Melnyk and other members of the District 21, 22 and 47 delegations, Councilmembers Olsen, Harrington and Campos, Mayor Brayman and members of Council, and let us not forget Governor O’Malley, it is time to insert yourselves into this process as the duly elected officials. Stop the madness. Demand smart growth. Fight for the Purple Line, bike ways and limitations on cars running through campus.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Danny Rogers is incorrect: the Inner Purple Line provides absolutely no relief to the Beltway, similar to the Intercounty Connector.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
What the Purple Line does is give tens of thousands of people an alternative to driving on the beltway. As far as campus goes, the more people persuaded to come to campus without their cars the less education $ required to build expensive parking garages (now costing $15,000 a space!).