For Immediate Release: Friday, February 24, 2017
Montgomery Council committee to
discuss transportation issues for the
proposed Bethesda Downtown Plan
On Monday, Feb. 27, PHED Committee will address
balance between proposed
density increases and transportation
ROCKVILLE, Md., February 24, 2017—The Montgomery County Council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committee at 2 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27, will continue its discussions on the proposed Bethesda Downtown Sector Plan. Monday’s discussion will focus on how to balance the increased density proposed in the plan with the potential increased need for transportation network and services.
The PHED Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Nancy Floreen and includes Councilmembers George Leventhal and Hans Riemer, will meet in the Third Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The meeting will be will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM), which can be viewed on Cable Channels 996 (high definition) and 6 (standard definition) on Comcast; Channels 1056 (HD) and 6 (SD) on RCN; and Channel 30 on Verizon. The sessions also will be available live via streaming through the Council web site at http://tinyurl.com/z9982v8 .
In information provided to the committee members by the Council staff, it was written: “Achieving this balance in a plan is not an academic exercise: if a plan is not balanced, then at some point in the future a proposed master-planned development would be unable to proceed because it would have no means to meet the adequate public facility requirements.”
The worksession will discuss a traffic needs analysis conducted by the County’s Planning Board staff and an analysis that was contracted for by The Town of Chevy Chase, in association with the Coalition of Bethesda Area Residents (CBAR). Those organizations contracted with Lei Zhang, director of the University of Maryland's National Transportation Center, to perform an independent analysis of future traffic conditions in the Bethesda area. That study used different methods to project future traffic needs.
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Release ID: 17-057