Sometimes when you're waiting for the train, the bus comes first.
Sen. Leonard H. Teitelbaum (D-Montgomery) wants to expand Metro's Red Line from Glenmont to Olney, with a stop along the way at Leisure World, where he lives. He has introduced a resolution to this effect in the Maryland General Assembly.
If approved, the resolution -- co-sponsored by Sens. Brian E. Frosh and Sharon M. Grosfeld, also Montgomery Democrats -- would ask Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) to urge Metro to study the expansion. Jack Cahalan, spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said last week that the issue is not a pressing one. "An extension of the Red Line is not on any priority list that has been submitted to the department by local governments," he said.
Cahalan suggested that Teitelbaum is pursuing his goal in an unusual fashion. Typically, he said, counties define their transportation priorities at the local level and then make them known to the department by writing a letter.
But Teitelbaum is undeterred. His goal is to "generate some steam" behind the idea of improving transit along Georgia Avenue. His effort may bear fruit, although perhaps not in the form of a longer Red Line.
In the course of promoting his resolution, Teitelbaum has learned that a "busway" is on Montgomery County's master plans for the stretch of Georgia Avenue that runs between the Glenmont Station and Olney. A busway is a two-lane corridor that allows buses to glide past traffic jams.
The county has sought its busway in the proper fashion. Since 1999, Montgomery officials have included a Georgia Avenue/Route 97 busway on annual lists of transportation priorities they have sent to the state. In 1998, Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission officials did a feasibility study of the busway, estimating that it would cost $55 million.
"In order to go to the next level," said David Weaver, spokesman for Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), "we need funding from the state."
Cahalan, the Transportation Department spokesman, agreed that the busway appears on Montgomery's priority lists. But he said the busway gets low billing -- in the last few paragraphs of a three-page letter. The state is moving ahead on the county's top priorities, he said.
Teitelbaum is keeping an eye on the problem at hand: congestion. "The traffic is unbelievable right now coming down [Route] 97, and it's just going to get worse."
He said he plans to amend his resolution to include mention of the busway. If that option is less expensive and the most expeditious, he said, "I could certainly support it."
The resolution is scheduled to come before the Senate Finance Committee on March 9.
