Councilmember Roger Berliner says a new, more transit-focused director for the county’s Department of Transportation could be the key to realizing Montgomery’s bus rapid transit dreams.
County Executive Isiah Leggett disagrees.
“It is naive to think that appointing a new DOT director means that he or she will wave a magic wand and state and federal funding for the county’s future transit needs will magically appear,” Leggett said Friday. “The issue is additional funding.”
In a newsletter sent to email subscribers this week, Berliner said Leggett’s much-criticized attempt to create an Independent Transit Authority was the wrong step for trying to find that funding.
“What we need most of all at this moment in time is to find a Director of our Department of Transportation that is a nationally recognized transit expert,” Berliner wrote. “We have not had that at DOT, and we absolutely need it. Instead of working around a road centric culture, let’s change the culture.”
Veteran MCDOT administrator Al Roshdieh is serving as acting director of the department after former director Art Holmes retired late last year.
“If our procurement process threatens our transit goals, as it stifles almost everything else, then it is just one more reason to roll up our sleeves and reform our procurement process,” Berliner wrote. “If we do those things, and our transit leader tells us several years from now that we can’t accomplish our goals using traditional approaches, that we have met our public engagement responsibilities, and that we need an alternative structure, that will be the time to have a serious public conversation about an ITA.”
Leggett’s search for a new permanent MCDOT director is on hold while he weighs the Independent Transit Authority, a spokesperson said.
Leggett said he has not given up on the proposal, which could give the Transit Authority taxing authority outside the county’s charter limit to help fund the bus rapid transit system.
After heavy criticism from civic groups, the county employees’ union and others, he tabled a request for the county’s Annapolis delegation to pass a bill that would’ve enabled the concept.
“Regrettably, the controversy over the County Executive’s proposal to create an Independent Transit Authority (ITA) and allowing for our county to exceed the charter limit in order to fund the operating costs of our transit system moved us backward, not forward,” Berliner wrote. “Many saw the authority as providing less public accountability when we had promised more.”
The proposed countywide Rapid Transit System of 10 corridors and more than 80 miles could cost anywhere from $800 million to $1.5 billion to build.
“I have challenged others to put on the table an alternative that we will get us there,” Leggett said Friday. “I’m still waiting. Instead, some are playing games. That’s not leadership. That is kicking the can down the road.”
County and state transportation officials are now studying costs, ridership projections and service treatments for four corridors, including Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue between the Rockville and Bethesda Metro stations.
Those studies are expected to be complete by the summer of 2016.
