Montgomery Traffic Fixes Are Ineffective, Study Says

Some of the report data are based on projections about how new projects will improve local traffic. The study used a model that included the intercounty connector, which is under construction, but did not include the proposed Purple Line transit route that would connect Bethesda and Silver Spring. The planners looked at projects that are in the county's capital budget through the 2012 fiscal year, which does not include the Purple Line, Vaughn said.

County Council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), who chairs the transportation committee, said the report is a useful tool for officials "to tell us where we should be focusing our resources. In most years we have made the standards tighter, so you flunk the test more frequently."

She said some residents expect that there will be smoothly flowing traffic on local roads. But that's not realistic, she said.

"Is it rational to expect that in an urban environment, in a jurisdiction next to the center of the free world?" she asked.

Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), who has questioned the planning staff's methods of calculating traffic flow and delays, said other jurisdictions put more emphasis on calculating waiting time and backups than Montgomery does. That skews the results by understating how heavy traffic actually is, he said.

"Things are going to get worse before they get better. We have all this approved development that is going to get built under the old growth policy." He said that there are about 28,000 housing units that will be built under the old rules, which allowed more traffic and required less effort by developers and the county to reduce it.

"This is a real, real disaster," he said.