Rethink College Park

As Route 1 redevelopment progresses with the East Campus and other projects, there may be opportunities for the public sector to use tax increment financing as an incentive for developers. Tax increment financing, a form of a public-private partnership, is an agreement between a developer and municipality in which future tax revenues are used to subsidize infrastructure or other public amenities.

The idea is that certain projects have such positive economic impacts that municipalities are willing to provide financial incentives to the development community in order to help the projects get built. Because the municipality is borrowing the money, it receives discounted rates on bonds from financial lenders. The money is then used to fund improvements to the project site, which can range from land acquisition to infrastructure improvements.

The municipality realizes that the development will increase its tax base over the life of the project. A percentage of the increase in tax revenue collected within the district is then used to pay off the bonds used to finance the improvements. In Prince George’s County, tax increment financing is typically, if not always, used for specific project sites rather than districts, so the percentage of the increase in tax revenue from each particular project is used to pay its bonds.

Although this method of financing appears to some as a solution to all of Route 1’s problems, too much tax increment financing can be risky for a municipality or county to undertake. Some issues with the financing methodology include the over-allocation of future tax revenues and the unpredictability of future tax revenues. All things aside, if used correctly these partnerships can have positive economic impacts on entire communities.

Hearing to be held Tuesday, July 3rd (7 pm) at City Hall on the proposed downtown parking garage.

A planned 5-level parking garage is proposed to be at Knox Road and Yale Avenue (across the street from City Hall, behind Cornerstone) where there is currently a regular city parking lot. Two houses adjacent to the site were recently acquired at high cost by the city to be part of the garage site . The structure would hold 300 parking spaces and 6,000 square feet of ground-level retail space on Knox Road frontage. Upon completion, city parking capacity would increase by 43%. Barring delays, the garage could be operational by 2010.

Knox Rd and Yale Ave elevations will be primarily brick. South and west elevations would be concrete that is tinted to match the color of the brick. Adding brick to the south and west elevations would increase the project cost. The estimate for the south side alone is an additional $200,000.

The current development budget is $8.08 million to be financed through municipal bonds. Parking meter revenues from the garage alone will not be sufficient to support construction cost. That is typical of similar garage projects. System-wide parking revenues will ultimately support the project cost. This includes an increase in city parking meter rates.

The garage is intended to support current downtown businesses, and to help attract new (hopefully more diverse) businesses. The Downtown College Park Merchants Association is strongly in support of the garage. Some current businesses have already been contributing to a parking district fund for years. Councilwoman Stephanie Stullich encourages citizen attendance at the meeting. She says public input will guide final city council decisions on whether to go forward with the project, as well as decisions on specific features of the proposal.

See the College Park city site for specifics on the proposal including feasibility reports.

According to County Councilman Eric Olson, SHA’s Route 1 project has made it up to #4 (up from #6 last year) on this year’s PG County “Transportation Priority List”. The list, which every county in Maryland produces each year, has “a lot of weight in determining [state] funding priorities” according to an email correspondence with Secretary of Transportation and Former UM administrator John Porcari.

Olson also mentioned that the Purple Line remains PG County’s top transit priority. It’s worth pointing out that Porcari (confirming what was previously pointed out to us by the Coalition to Build the Inner Purple Line) also said that the MTA is producing a much needed electronic simulation of an at-grade light rail right-of-way through campus. He added that such simulations often answer “questions about pedestrian, bus, emergency vehicle, and LRT compatibility.”

Funding, unfortunately, is still a serious issue for transportation priorities all across Maryland as the state continues to project massive funding shortfalls in the coming years. Porcari noted that the Department of Transportation is working closely with legislators to identify and pursue new revenue sources.

Warning: This is quite possibly the longest, most detail-oriented post we’ve ever written. It is intended primarily for the the transportation study consultant team and various policymakers at the city and especially county level. It is not for the faint of heart.

These are RTCP’s official comments on the Draft Route 1 Transportation Study presented on May 30th at CP City Hall. Essentially this study builds on past smart growth studies of the corridor and makes recommendations as to how the City and County can implement transportation policies that will help College Park achieve its vision of a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented community. It would be a huge mistake to view this report in a vacuum. It’s part of a larger multi-year effort to completely overhaul the Route 1 Corridor in College Park. The best way we can think to talk about this report is to summarize and explain clearly each major suggestion (avoid nitty gritty details and talk in generalities) contained with it and then follow each with our specific comments and/or concerns. At the end we note overarching problems with the study and make recommendations for improvement that we strongly urge should be included in the final version of the report.

1) Implement a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) District

A TDM district is basically a governing and funding mechanism for reducing parking demand and vehicle trips along Route 1. A TDM can pursue anything from shared parking structures to increased investment in transit, coordinated car sharing programs, and improved pedestrian facilities. It generally gets its funding from parking fees, development impact fees, special taxing districts, and/or government contributions. It would be managed as a non-profit, public-private partnership (which the study suggests could be created) between the County, College Park, UM, and local businesses. Perhaps the greatest advantage of a TDM is that it provides an avenue for developers to address traffic concerns through trip reduction plans rather than instituting roadway and intersection changes (as they do presently) that almost always further degrade the pedestrian environment.

We agree that a TDM district could be a viable mechanism for achieving a livable, walkable College Park. It should only be pursued in a clear and transparent manner which provides consistency and predictability for the development community. Overly complicated/vague regulations will only act to dampen the development environment in the city and lead to the defacto situation where developers are more comfortable with roadway “improvements” than legitimately engaging in the TDM program. If a TDM district is not pursued, we would at least like to see parking maximums on new developments be instituted and parking minimums eliminated. Developers should get credits for reducing parking (and thus car trips) especially when it comes to student housing projects. These and other such credits should be available by-right within the TDM framework or as part of the sector plan if a TDM district is not pursued.

2) Overhaul Transit and Shuttle Service

The study’s main transit suggestions are that bus routes should be consolidated, coordinated, and clarified and that “super stops” should be built where several routes converge. Such “super stops” would include the utmost in rider amenities: seating, electronic bus schedules, etc. Such stops can “define major activity centers along the corridor” and the consultants allude to putting these stop in retail centers and development “nodes” proposed in past studies. They call for “branding” of the bus routes (run by different agencies) to improve visibility of transit in general and increase understanding of routes already in place and operated among several different agencies. Finally, they suggest a U-Pass program be instituted where UM students, faculty, and staff pay an upfront fee to ride all local busses for free.

Most of the transit suggestions are fairly obvious and they are more a matter of political will, collaboration (between agencies with no formal existing relationship), and funding than a failure to recognize the problem. WMATA service reliability and route advertisement are atrocious compared to Shuttle-UM and WMATA could take a lot of lessons from UM’s Dept. of Transportation Services. We do take some issue with the U-Pass program because we feel that a poor understanding of WMATA and “the Bus” routes contribute much more heavily to lack of student riders than the nominal fees it takes to ride these services on a daily basis. Instituting a U-Pass program would be analogous to throwing students’ money out the window if it weren’t also coupled with a bus branding strategy. According to UMD VP of Administrative affairs, the University’s student activity fee committee basically concured with our opinion when they handedly rejected the first proposal for such a U-Pass program at the end of last semester.

3) Rethink Parking Policy

This suggestion was basically already covered in the TDM section above. The idea is to allow developers flexibility in how much parking they build. This is particularly important given the odd lot sizes in the corridor and the large amount of space garages often take up (to the detriment of vibrant street activity). Parking induces auto dependence and auto-ownership is highly correlated with trip generation.

4) Improve Bicycle Facilities

We essentially covered this issue the other day. Unfortunately the purview of this study is only Route 1, when in reality biking in CP needs to be looked at (and is being looked at) in a much more comprehensive manner. More connections, more intuitive trails, and more signage are all essential to building a bicycle constituency. It all comes down to more money. Despite the best efforts of many, these ideals are a long way off.

5) & 6) Improve Pedestrian Facilities and Route 1 Reconstruction

The study provides a number of technical suggestions to modify the existing SHA Route 1 Reconstruction Plan to make it more in line with a “Complete Street” strategy. All suggestions should be considered by the SHA project team and most if not all of them should probably be pursued if the City and County are serious about changing Route 1 from a rural thoroughfare to a true urban boulevard.

OVERALL ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED FOR THE FINAL REPORT

- Student housing and its tendancy to contribute to a net reduction in trips. There is a possible opportunity apply by-right reductions in parking requirements to student housing projects within the condensed fee waiver zone. Similar actions in other college towns like Ithaca, NY (elimination of parking requirements on student housing) have proven enormously effective at reducing congestion and meeting student housing demand.

- The issue of long term vs. short term parking

- How the University can work more collaboratively with the city in TDM-type solutions

- In its 86 pages, the study only legitimately uses the word “university” about 30 times. Much more needs to be done to examine specific case studies dealing with University TDM strategies and how Universities can work with local communities to capitalize on the uniqure smart growth opportunities that college towns present. The gross misstatement of the breakdown of the campus population and the on vs. off campus split only further shows that this study is more a generalized prescription for transportation solutions rather than a College Park-specific set of recommendations.

- The consultants need to closely examine the link between student housing, transit ridership, and Smart Growth.

- The consultants need to examine parking issues at the soon to be approved Mazza Grandmarc (almost a 1:1 parking ratio of tenants to spaces) and transit ridership (thorough detailed ridership counts are taken by Shuttle UM constantly) at University Town Center and make references to both in the study.

ERRORS IN THE REPORT (A couple indicate little to no coordination with the City of College Park during the drafting of the report)

- The study suggests a stoplight at Hollywood Rd when one is already planned for the Mazza Grandmarc project (also the report wrongly calls this project the “Mazza Commons”)
- The city will definitely take issue with the University View analysis on p. 37 because the complex is not complete. See: READ MORE.
- The existence of the $2.5 million connector road study needs to be addressed on p. 73. READ MORE.
- Should mention that the Purple Line (no longer officially called the Bi-County Transitway) could be included in the U-Pass program (University of Utah and U of Washington do this with their light rail) and that the Purple Line would consolidate several bus routes (RE: the map displayed at the meeting which shows several bus route going along Paint Branch Parkway)
- On p.4 the report suggests that mixed-use development should not have parking in front. We gather that no new development is proposing parking in front or at street level for the most part….
- p.28 the University has abandoned studying the shuttle circulator service proposed in their master plan. The appropriate phrasing would be “reconsider”.
- p.57 a double left turn lane has already been installed at Cherry Hill Rd (northbound Route 1).

The State Highway Administration’s (SHA) Route 1 reconstruction plan (post on it here) and the recently released draft study of our beloved roadway both call for striped bike lanes along the corridor. A five foot bike lane (each way) is being considered between the Beltway and Berwyn Rd. and a six foot lane is being considered between Berwyn Rd. and College Ave. Should the funding gods ever prioritize one segment (or all three segments) of the Route 1 reconstruction project, planners hope these bike lanes, in conjunction with reduced traffic speed (25 to 30 mph), consolidated driveways, and more mixed use projects, will bring more people out of their cars and onto bicycles. Given the huge bike culture in college towns like Davis, CA, Madison, WI, and Cambridge, MA it’s clearly hoped that Route 1 bike lanes will capitalize on the aptness of college students to ride bikes and create a more pedestrian friendly environment for College Park.

Obviously we encourage any movement towards pedestrian-friendliness in the city. That being said, we doubt strongly whether these bike lanes, like so many other bike lanes in the area, will be used to any considerable degree as they are currently proposed. Take for instance several “biker-friendly roadways” that are already in existence around campus. “Bike lanes” on these roads are nothing more than narrow, gravel-strewn, storm drain-ridden car shoulders which only the hardiest of bikers dare ride on. We aren’t willing to forfeit the potential for new bike lanes on Route 1 because we think (if done right) they could be a valueable addition to the area and could work well if connected well with the Paint Branch Trail (not far to the west) and the Trolley Trail (not far to the east).

SHA should consider further modifying their proposed bike lanes by adding color treatments (as picture above) rather than simply adding a narrow asphalt lane. Studies show that colored bike lanes increase awareness of bicycles, improve pedestrian safety, slow traffic, and avoid confusing lane convergences at intersections. Such bike lanes (colors vary across countries) have been used for years in the Netherlands (red), Denmark (blue), and France (green). From what we can gather, such lanes are technically not allowed (on any road!) in the U.S. by the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, but College Park could conceivably apply to the FHWA via the MD-SHA for “permission to experiment” with them as has been done in cities like Arlington, Denver, and Portland, OR among several others.

It seems that street seperated bike lanes like the one below (in Silver Spring) are not being considered at all for Route 1. Probably because the on-street bike lane can be used by emergency vehicles whereas off-street ones can’t.

We’ll have a full recap of last night’s transportation meeting as well as our official list of suggestions to the consultants within the next few days. Until then feel free to read the Draft of the report (PDF) and comment on anything you please.

This Op-Ed article was written by James Garvin, a College Park resident and user of the College Park Municipal Airport. The views expressed here don’t necessarily reflect the views of Rethink College Park. This article is in response to our recent post about the conflict between the airport and development in the Northgate area.

I am a city resident and user of the College Park airport. I live here because I wanted to move within walking of an airport where can fly. I come from a family with a heritage of flight and I am trying to pass that on with my household. College Park Airport is my home base. Please help keep the airport open. Now, new development on Route One is threatening our airport. Not only is the airport a unique part of College Park’s history, I believe it should be part of its future. Small aviators are part of the transportation system, and transportation based in small airports is more efficient than the large commercial airlines.

The University View building has greatly impacted my use of the airport. I don’t believe the County’s Airport use policies adequately protect the interests of users of small airports. The University View is serious factor to any approach to Runway 15 at College Park airport. It is a death knell to an airport to have large structures off the end of the runway for obvious reasons. One is bad, but more large structures will be a lot worse. Big buildings in walking distance of transportation facilities are great, and I want them too, but they should not be constructed at the business end of an airport runway.

People tend to confuse us middle class aviation users with upper class jet users. We are “little people” in College Park who have small aircraft we use on business trips and for personal transport when ever practical. We hate using airlines just as anyone else does. A small Cessna 172 going direct to the destination is much more convenient than riding a 727 with multiple layovers along the way. This efficiency also makes general aviation transportation greener than buying a ticket on the big airlines. However this always seems to be overlooked, and we are seen with the same “greenness” as filth belching 707’s — like lumping a Prius in with a Mack truck!

There is also the future to consider. Will new companies make it possible for small groups of people to go where they need to go inexpensively, efficiently, quietly, and with a small carbon footprint? Already the Florida-based Dayjet company provides on-demand flights in small aircraft to business travelers. Is it really efficient to fly 240 people from a place they don’t want to go (hub 1) to another place they don’t want to go (hub 2) because it’s better for the big airline? I’m sure in the future we will be flying more efficient, quieter, smaller, and higher tech aircraft that can utilize small airfields and don’t need big hub airports. Destroying small airports is like tearing up railroad track beds, once they are gone they can never come back to provide transport solutions for the future.

The onerous and confusing security measures adopted since 9/11 at College Park have also threatened our very survival as an airport. Although the fliers have come to terms with these unreasonable requirements and are rebuilding our vitality as an airport, now we face the challenge of new development.

In addition to the University View, the proposed Northgate and Hilton could further diminish the usability of the airport. I call upon all readers to continue to speak out to keep this vital part of College Park open.

In preparation for tonight’s Route 1 Corridor Transportation Study special meeting (7 pm, College Park City Hall), we will share with you the design tips we gleaned from a lecture we attended last night on pedestrian safety through good street design.

Last night’s lecture Designing Complete Streets: How to create safe and efficient streets for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers hosted by the National Capital Planning Commission featured a presentation by Michael King, a principal at Nelson\Nygaard planning consultancy. King is widely considered the nation’s preeminent pedestrian crossing expert and has worked on projects for various cities worldwide.

King provided some good insights on designing streets to enhance pedestrian safety, a concern particularly relevant to Route 1 in College Park. Since issues of pedestrian safety usually involve walking along streets or crossing streets, King’s design advice applied mostly to crosswalks and sidewalks. As more development projects emerge in College Park, citizens, planners, and developers should keep in mind these recommendations for sidewalk design:

• Sidewalks should provide at least three feet of passing room at all times (even the occasional utility pole reduces the width of the passing room).
• Sidewalks should be intuitive and straight (whimsically serpentine walkways may amuse newcomers, but become a nuisance to regular users).
• Parked cars, planters, trees, or a strip of grass should buffer all sidewalks from travel lanes.
• Bus shelters should never be placed so as to obstruct or divert the flow of pedestrian traffic.

As for crosswalks, King made several good points:

• Each crosswalk should connect on opposite sides of the street to ramps at least as wide as the crosswalk itself. “Why should we need to trip?” King asked, referring to the unnecessary curbs.
• Wide medians actually slow drivers (as a psychological reaction) and provide adequate crossing refuges for slower pedestrians such as young children and the elderly. (Fortunately, the state’s plan for reconstructing Route 1, as we have reported, includes tree-studded medians.)
• Though one car may stop for a pedestrian at a non-signalized crosswalk (as is the law), other drivers will often dart around the stopped car, nearly running down the crossing pedestrian who has the right-of-way. Thus, even mid-block crosswalks require traffic signals.
• Crosswalks should line-up with existing sidewalks and pedestrians paths; pedestrians rarely detour from the most direct path to cross at inconveniently placed crosswalks.
• Unnecessary delays annoy pedestrians just as much as drivers; crosswalk signals should be designed to eliminate any unnecessary wait-time for pedestrians. A long wait-time for a short cross signal should earn an intersection a failing “level of service” grade with government transportation authorities.

This last point is especially useful for College Park, where light cycles are unnaturally long for both pedestrians and drivers and where the need to press a button to elicit a crossing signal further frustrates the hundreds of pedestrians who cross Route 1 downtown each day. The lights on Route 1 are timed clearly to prioritize traffic passing through College Park to the detriment of the pedestrians (and drivers) within College Park. Facilitating cross traffic and accounting for pedestrian behavior are necessary steps in transforming Route 1 from the its current role as “traffic-sewer” into a pleasant pedestrian-friendly boulevard that all residents desire.

King, like many other architecture lecturers, sprinkled his presentation with photo examples from all over the world, including such places as China, Brazil, Mexico, the UK, Cape Town, Seattle, New York, DC, and— drumroll— College Park! Unsurprisingly, both College Park examples featured bad pedestrian designs, including a picture of an overly wide driveway entrance on Route 1 as well as the ramp between eastbound University Boulevard and southbound Route 1. King used car-pedestrian crash studies to show how the ramp design enables car travel at speeds that would surely kill a pedestrian in a collision at the poorly placed crosswalk (below, green arrow) on the ramp. Thus, even New York-based architectural consultants are well-aware of the sorry state of Route 1! Hopefully, tonight’s Route 1 Corridor Transportation Study special meeting at City Hall at 7 pm will help bring these desperately needed improvements closer to fruition.