Gaithersburg West Master Plan: A Mess

This is from our friends dealing with the Gaithersburg West Master Plan

Hi Everyone,

I know you are probably as weary of this master plan process as I am but this is very important. Please take a moment to read it.

As we all know the Gaithersburg West Master Plan is a mess. It was contrived and contorted to meet the expectations of Johns Hopkins. Therefore the basic assumptions are wrong and many of the calculations in the traffic analysis and fiscal analysis are incorrect. As I have said before, it doesn’t really matter how many people can be stacked cheek to jowl in the Life Sciences Center and on Belward Farm. It’s about the traffic. Our roads cannot be expanded ad infinitum. We don’t want multilevel roads to go with the multilevel interchanges. We will never have a Metro station in this area and the Corridor Cities Transit will only be marginally helpful in moving the people. Our roads can only handle a certain number of people.

The bottom line is the master plan must be built on a comprehensive traffic analysis. We don’t have that and the county did not use the tools available to get an honest and comprehensive traffic analysis. So, to say that we want the master plan scaled back and to come up with a number...we would have to make it up! We have nothing to base it upon. The PHED Committee would be doing the same thing...making it up. Nobody knows how much traffic our roads can handle because the proper traffic tests and analyses were not done and the conclusions were built on faulty assumptions, yet Johns Hopkins and some of the Councilmembers seem determined to push this through despite all the glaring problems. There should not be a sense of urgency to approve this plan. There is time to make it right and that needs to be done.

I have talked to our Councilmember, Phil Andrews, at length about this dilemma. He said the County Council will soon be dealing with a very difficult budget and they will not be able to devote the necessary time to have this master plan properly rewritten...especially because the Planning Department does not have accurate traffic data. Therefore, the master plan must be sent back to the Planning Board with instructions to get the right tools that are available from the state highway folks, run comprehensive traffic tests, do an honest and accurate analysis and then...only then...can they determine how many people this area can handle and how the transportation infrastructure can be properly planned. This will provide a sound rationale for scaling the plan back so it fits our community. Also, an accurate and honest fiscal analysis must be done without trying to gerry-rig the numbers to make the financials sound better than they are.

The Cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg recognize these problems and are considering resolutions to ask the County Council to send the Gaithersburg West Master Plan back to the Planning Board to have a comprehensive traffic analysis done. Their meetings to consider the resolutions are tomorrow (Monday the 8th). As I said in an email encouraging them to be the voices of reason and request that the master plan be sent back...there is no emergency to pass this fundamentally flawed master plan at this time. The current 1990 plan has enough unbuilt space to accommodate 17,000 more jobs and 500 homes. The Germantown Master Plan was approved for 68,000 jobs and 16,000 homes. Another big consideration, the commercial vacancy rate in Gaithersburg is 26%. There is no emergency to pass this horribly flawed plan. Johns Hopkins has hired Mike Subin to lobby the Mayors and the Council members from Gaithersburg and Rockville so you know they are pulling out all the stops. They do not want this master plan to be reexamined...it is built to their specifications, they like it, and they don’t care what it will do to our community. They don’t think that four and a half Pentagons would be a problem for our community.

I’m writing to you for two reasons:

1. If you are a resident and have not written to the City of Gaithersburg or the City of Rockville to encourage them to sign the resolutions requesting that the Gaithersburg West Master Plan be sent back to the Planning Board for a comprehensive traffic analysis, now is the time. Both groups are meeting on this tomorrow.

· The email addresses for Rockville can be found at: http://www.rockvillemd.gov/government/mc/index.htm

· The addresses for Gaithersburg can be found at: http://www.gaithersburgmd.gov/poi/default.asp?POI_ID=258&TOC=256;258;

2. I wanted you to be aware of the shift in thinking before the Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday in the Quince Orchard High School cafeteria, from 7 – 9 PM. Please make every effort to attend. This will probably be our LAST opportunity to speak directly to the Council members.

This may sound like one of those requests we get in emails every day, but please take a moment to forward this message to each person in your address book who lives in Gaithersburg, Rockville, North Potomac or Potomac. This master plan will affect us all and the process is getting intense. There are still a lot of people who are unaware of the profound effect the Gaithersburg West Master Plan will have on our lives. More information on the plan can be found at www.scale-it-back.com .

Thank you and best regards...and I will see you on Tuesday evening,

Donna Baron
Coordinator
The Gaithersburg - North Potomac - Rockville Coalition