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Readying Rockville Pike for Renewal
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"This is huge visioning. The economy is terrible. Nothing that anyone is talking about is likely to come to fruition for several years," said County Council member Nancy Floreen (D-At large), chairman of the transportation committee.
And transportation dollars have dried up amid state and county budget shortfalls, said Jean Cryor, a planning board member and former state legislator. "None of this works unless you have good transit linking it all," Cryor said.
Still, change is occurring on the pike, although not in the highly organized fashion planners say is needed. In the White Flint area, high-rise apartments and businesses are springing up in developments approved by the county several years ago. Residential sales have been slow, but planners and developers think the market remains strong over the long term, in part because of the continued growth of the county's population.
The pike proposal gives planners an opportunity to knit the pieces together.
Much has begun. Shady Grove and Twinbrook have new master plans to add residences, life science laboratories, restaurants and shops near Metro. To the north, Rockville's new Town Center provides an example of what planners say can happen. Although housing sales have been slow, local officials remain pleased with the vibrancy of their new downtown. The city is working on plans to redevelop its own section of pike just south of its new downtown.
Montgomery has no uniform height restrictions like those in the District, so developers can aim to build in the pike's substantial unused air space. There has been talk of buildings as tall as 500 feet, which would tower over buildings that now top out at shorter than 300 feet. Building up, planners say, will help the county absorb expected population growth.
Pike business owner Roy Rodman is among those who see great possibilities.
In 1955, Rodman's father began a pharmacy that has grown to become a specialty food market. The family-owned company has two stores in Montgomery, one at White Flint Plaza, in the heart of an area planners want to transform.
"Adding density at Metro makes so much sense. It hits me over the head that going up higher, adjacent to a Metro stop, is wonderful," Rodman said at his corporate headquarters, about a mile from his White Flint store.
To transform the pike, several things would need to happen at the same time, chief among them an agreement among political leaders, planners, residents and businesses that redevelopment is critical to the county's fiscal health. That consensus appears to be emerging.
"Our number one priority is the existing conditions and the need to make Rockville Pike into a boulevard," said Suzanne Hudson, a resident of Garrett Park and a member of a county planning agency advisory committee for White Flint. The sidewalks are too narrow, she said, making walking highly risky. "They certainly are not safe," she said.
The road redevelopment would work like this: The through lanes would be narrowed, with one-lane parallel service roads built on either side for local traffic and buses. Drivers passing through would no longer be disrupted by cars slowing to turn. Along the side lanes, speeds would be about 15 mph.
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