Rethink College Park

University Vice President for Administrative Affairs Doug Duncan will present the Prienkert Drive alignment of the Purple Line tonight, Monday, February 18th, at the SGA meeting at 6:00 p.m. in the Prince George’s Room of Stamp Union. All interested students are encouraged to attend.

We also noticed a presentation PDF from the MTA posted to the SGA website featuring some additional details about the various alignments being studied by the MTA.

Our Campus Drive alignment petition now has over 220 signers.

The UMD administration has completed an “update” to the Facilities Master Plan that reflects changes since the original plan was approved nearly seven years ago. It includes a re-affirmation of many of the original plan’s goals, changes to construction timelines, and tables summarizing changes to campus facilities that have taken place since the 2000 Master Plan. The update also includes updates on the progress of the East Campus Redevelopment Initiative.

The only specific mention the update contains relating to the Purple Line is this text:

“Maximize use of alternatives to driving to campus.”

“Support Purple Line stations on or adjacent to campus consistent with providing central pedestrian movement.”

However, attendees at the recent East Campus Community Review Steering Committee received much different information relating to the Purple Line. Last week, Associate Vice President for Facilities Management J. Frank Brewer gave this presentation containing this illustration overlaying the administration’s preferred Purple Line alignment over the Master Plan map.

We have several reactions:

1. Is this part of the Master Plan update? If so, it should be included on the official version on the Facilities Master Plan website. If it is not, it should not be presented as such to the public.
2. The map omits the two other alignments under official consideration, making it not a planning document but an argument for one option.
3. The plan presents incomplete and inaccurate information annotated on top of the official master plan map. It includes “2,000 units” at the Knox Box area despite the fact the property remains fragmented in different owners and no specific proposal has been made. Even if the owner of much of the land wants to redevelop it, acquisition, design, and approvals would take perhaps a decade. There is a similar situation for a parcel labeled “600″ across from the Architecture Building, no specific proposal has actually been made. It also only includes numbers for housing, not the extensive office and classroom space planned by the university along a new mall.
4. Despite the distortions and omissions above, the irony is the illustration still seems to support a campus drive alignment anyway! If you imagine a Stamp Union station, the 10-minute walking circles would encompass not only the proposed new housing, but also the substantial amount of existing housing on North Campus and excellent access to planned construction there and elsewhere. The university’s plan presents a walking radius that spills over into low density cul-de-sacs to the south.

The Washington Post today ran a story briefly describing the debate about where to locate the Purple Line on campus. While we think the new alignment being considered is superior to the now-abandoned Stadium Drive alignment, we continue to believe Campus Drive is the best alignment for campus. While administrators want to keep it off their “Main Street,” we think that’s precisely where transit belongs.

The Campus Drive alignment brings visitors to the heart of campus, maximizing ridership and minimizing expensive new infrastructure. According to a rough analysis completed last fall the majority of people traveling on Campus Drive today are already on transit, so why should they be relocated to a less convenient location?

We’re far from alone in our views: our Campus Drive petition has topped 200 signatures, including some of the campus’ leading academic experts in transportation planning, and a diverse group of students, staff, and alumni.

This debate aside, we think it’s important to note the community is unanimous in our agreement the Purple Line will be a good thing for both College Park and the region. We look forward to collaborating with all stakeholders to build this much-needed investment.

> Campus Drive Petition
> Previous posts on the Purple Line

The East Campus project is located roughly half a mile from the College Park Metrorail station, adjacent ten bus routes, bisected by a bike trail connected to a major regional trail system, and the future home of a Purple Line light rail station.

The project developers have made a guess as to how much less parking will be needed than what is already required under the existing zoning. Included in their parking analysis revealed last night, they’ve provided parking at 90% of the existing zoning for office, 75% for apartments, 90% for restaurant visitors, 90% for retail, 100% required for the hotel and grocery store, and 95% needed for the Birchmere and cinema. At the presentation last night, the developers boasted of the forward-thinking that produced their estimate that the project would require 15% less parking than Prince George’s County zoning requires. Although the traffic study estimated roughly half of the peak trips to and from the site will be not in automobiles, the percentages above represent how much parking will be provided for each use - a much higher amount.

Thanks to these estimates, the developers plan to build roughly 4,000 parking spaces in the first phase, and perhaps 1,500 in the second phase. For the most part, the parking will be concealed at the center of blocks and in two “enormous” (their word) underground parking structures that will span nearly the entire width of the site. (When they are posted, we’ll add the diagram shared with the committee last night.)

However, the biggest news from last night’s East Campus meeting was about the Purple Line. It seems the MTA, Foulger-Pratt, and President Mote have agreed to plan for the Purple Line on Rossborough Lane, one block south of the route anticipated in early project plans.(The farthest south in the illustration to the right.) On campus, only two alignments remain — Campus Drive, and a new, at-grade southern alignment dubbed by the MTA the Preinkert Drive/Chapel Drive Alignment. Over the next month, the MTA will be completing a detailed analysis of the new alignment in order to compare it with Campus Drive.

Also last night, the developers presented their traffic impact study that found the road network would be able to absorb the traffic from the project for the first phase, and for the second phase suggesting several modifications needed including new turn lanes and modifications to traffic lights. As expected, University Park resident Bridget Warren grilled the developer’s traffic consultant over the finer details of the 57-page traffic impact study.

The developers said that now that the Purple Line route has been settled, they will begin to refine and finalize the block structure and architecture of the project. At the next meeting, a committee including the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation Dean Garth Rockcastle will present a “design principles” document they have created, and the committee will discuss the overall development principles for the project.

(See interactive map)

After throwing together a handful of alignments, including the “chapel field alignment” (in blue on map) last month, we are getting word that the University is pursuing yet another alignment. Once again (deja vu) realizing the impracticality of a tunnel under campus, the administration is proposing a slightly altered chapel field alignment (in red on map), which veers south of Lefrak hall at street level (instead of across and under the historic Morrill Quad). The sharp turns and narrow right-of-way (shared with heavy pedestrian traffic) between South Campus Dinning Hall and Lefrak make this latest alignment nearly as ridiculous as the proposed tunnel under Morril Quad. Meanwhile the East Campus Developer has been forced to cease designs of that $700 million development out of uncertainty over the Purple Line alignment.

At this point, is the University just trying to save face or is it proposing alignments that are actually practical? We’re leaning towards the former hypothesis. The debate is beyond throwing new alignments into the mix. The UMD administration will find it far more fruitful to work with MTA to refine the Campus Drive alignment to suit the needs of campus. If they preffer to come to that conclusion kicking and screaming, then so be it.

At the University Senate, several faculty members expressed concern that the Purple Line would cause vibrations, interfering with research on campus.

This is an important concern. We raised it with the Maryland Transit Administration’s engineers, who said that it was a problem that could be solved through track engineering. Indeed, that’s why Light and Heavy Rail transit lines can travel through or near a number of campuses doing similar research as at the University of Maryland. At the University of Washington, the Seattle-area Sound Transit is installing shock absorbers under the rails in a Light Rail line that will travel through the campus.

In order to get some perspective on the issue, a friend wrote to Dr. Mark L. Schattenburg, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Space Nanotechnology Laboratory. The laboratory he directs is located roughly 800 feet from Boston’s Red Line subway (right). Here’s the answer he sent:

Vibration from vehicles certainly can effect sensitive instruments of many kinds, including electron microscopes. atomic force microscopes, nanolithography tools, etc. Specially designed buildings and instrument vibration isolation systems can reduce the effects of vibration, but this can add millions of dollars to the cost of a research facility.

At MIT the green line does go by my lab a block away, but truthfully the street traffic, elevator, electric generators, MIT steam plant (across the street), rooftop fans, etc., are much worse offenders.

We will continue to research the issue, however we have not heard the locations of existing laboratories and the tolerances required. As Dr. Schattenburg notes, vibrations can have many sources and the heavy on-campus traffic of trucks, buses, and automobiles no doubt already creates significant background vibrations. Replacing many of them with a well-engineered Light Rail may very well enhance the ability of scientists to conduct nano research on campus. The Purple Line is not going away, and the quicker campus leaders and MTA officials can begin substantive discussions about current and future vibration levels the better.

On November 19th, UMD Vice President of Administrative Affairs Doug Duncan wrote a letter to, his predecessor, MD Secretary of Transportation John Porcari. In the letter, Duncan and his staff attempt to clarify UMD’s Purple Line position by continuing to express the transitway’s supposed incompatability with the Campus Master Plan, aesthetic concerns, and concern over the implications for pedestrian safety.

On December 6th, we responded by pointing out several innacuracies and contradictions in Duncan’s original letter and laying out perhaps our most comprehensive case for the Campus Drive alignment to date. As of today, December 26th, there has been no formal response from the Administration, nor any attempt (publicly or privately) to answer any of the following questions we raised regarding the University’s continued adcovacy for only non-Campus Drive alignments:

1)       If Stadium Drive is a convenient transit route, why don’t all the current campus transit (Shuttle UM and commuter) routes run along it?   Long ago the university located its main transit hub in the heart of campus, where most commuter students, faculty and staff wish to go. What specifically about light rail necessitates parting with history?

2)       The Administration actively opposes an alignment which connects some of the area’s key existing daily destinations (the Green Line Metrorail station, the Student Union, UMUC) with important future activity centers (East Campus and M-Square). Can the university really justify a more circuitous route (Stadium Drive or Mowatt Lane) that bypasses key campus activity centers and plainly hurts ridership?

3)       If the Administration is so concerned with pedestrian safety on Campus Drive, why has it not pursued any of the transportation suggestions of the nearly seven-year-old Campus Master Plan? ( e.g. closing Campus Drive and other roadways to automobiles, initiating an internal a high quality internal campus shuttle loop, replacing the dangerously low level of lighting, and paying for other major streetscape improvements.)

4)       Considering the dreadfully worn state of Campus Drive, how can the Administration forgo an estimated $2 million in streetscape improvements— street treatments, street lights, crosswalks, landscaping, a potential bikeway— that would accompany the Purple Line?

5)       In light of MTA’s traffic analysis, what makes MTA’s proposal for Campus Drive more dangerous than the status quo?   Many cities across the nation and internationally successfully accommodate Light Rail in heavily populated places, even in busy public plazas.   What makes the University of Maryland an exception?

6)       Considering the importance of the ridership, which group will maximize use of the Purple Line— Terp fans or daily commuters?   Certainly the Administration and the MTA should prioritize the needs of the thousands of daily commuters over occasional, though passionately loyal, visitors.

7)       You note in your letter that the Master Plan calls for minimizing Shuttle-UM busses on Campus Drive in favor of an internal campus shuttle that links to commuter routes that would stop on the periphery of campus. Why isn’t the university pushing the internal shuttle and what would the added transfers mean for existing Shuttle-UM ridership? How is the Purple Line not consistent with this plan were it to ever actually be implemented?

8)       Does the Administration have enough confidence in its “analysis” to continue to go against a highly standardized, multi-year, multi-million-dollar public planning process?   The MTA studied alignments based on what experts’ opinions (not armchair analysis) believe to be the most useful and that which is most likely to receive Federal funding.  Is the Administration prepared to reject the Purple Line in any viable form?

–> Read the full letter from Doug Duncan to John Porcari (PDF)

–> Read our response (PDF)

 

Unsatisfied with the Maryland Transit Administration’s preferred Campus Drive alignment, several sources have told us that President Mote is urging the agency to consider yet another route. This new, southern route (blue line on the interactive map below) would run along Campus drive by the Architecture Building, then south on Preinkert Drive, then would veer eastward to climb the steep hill along the southern edge of the historic Morrill Hall (1898 - second oldest building on campus), then down the steep quad. At the bottom of the quad (pictured above), near the Skinner Building, the route would then run along the street between Marie Mount Hall and the Chapel. From there the route would descend Chapel Field, pass directly north of the Rossborough Inn (circa early 1800s) and would wriggle its way across Route 1 and into East Campus.

View the interactive map

Pres. Mote’s latest alignment, while an improvement over his Stadium Drive proposal (orange), poses numerous and perhaps insurmountable problems. For one, the route requires several steep grade changes, especially around Morrill Hall, which crowns a hill 167 feet above sea level (for comparison, Route 1 lies 80 feet above sea level at the Ritchie Coliseum). Though steep grades are possible to navigate, such a route could require costly tunneling or the digging of a trench that would present a depressed gash everyone wants to avoid.

Furthermore, Pres. Mote’s latest route would disqualify Campus Drive from the state- and Federally-funded streetscape improvements it desperately needs. Most importantly, this new route cannot compete with the Campus Drive alignment’s chief virtue of serving the center of campus.

The centrality of a transit stop increases the convenience to riders and thus maximizes ridership. Campus Drive by the Student Union sits between North and South Campus providing a convenient location for all.* Why else do so many ShuttleUM routes serve Stamp?

Though it is good policy for governments to consider the wishes of stakeholders, of which the University is an important one, Pres. Mote must keep in mind that the Maryland government does not exist solely to indulge each of his new alignments. Preliminary engineering studies are costly and further delay the project. Pres. Mote can suggest a web of new routes, but it is unlikely he will discover a new alignment that beats the MTA’s current proposal in convenience, respect for federally protected historic resources, practicality, and cost-effectiveness. Pres. Mote might find it more fruitful to submit to the MTA his own suggestions for improvements to the Campus Drive alignment the state has had on the books for several years.

It is notable that brief UMD advocacy for a Knox Rd/Mowatt Lane alignment met immediate and universal criticism. it was a non-starter for local politicians who rightly demanded that the Purple Line must be routed through East Campus if the university ever wants to see that development built. Hence administrators came up with this latest iteration…

We always encourage your feedback and this topic certainly elicits much of it. What do you think of this new alignment? What advantages and disadvantages does it provide over the other two routes?

*Centrality is particularly important since Maryland Athletic Director Debbie Yow at the October Purple Line community meeting stridently demanded a transit line convenient to the Comcast Center and Byrd Stadium. Certainly she would maintain the consistency of her position and oppose this new, southern route since it would prove inconvenient not only for regular commuters, but especially so for game fans.