A recommendation to eliminate double left-turn lanes along Veirs Mill Road, designed to balance pedestrian safety with steady traffic flow, met opposition from a County Council committee on Monday.
In the Veirs Mill Corridor draft master plan — a document that spells out long-range development goals between Rockville and Wheaton that aims to implement methods to increase pedestrian safety, encourage use of public transit and preserve the character of neighborhoods — a proposal to remove all double left-turn lanes would increase traffic substantially, most notably for westbound drivers in the morning.
“I drive this route every day and I agree eliminating double lefts at all these intersections would dramatically increase wait times,” Council member Will Jawando said. “What we’re facing is how we balance the desire all of us have to increase pedestrian safety and not significantly back up traffic.”
Without double left-turn lanes, commute time would jump from an average 18 minutes to 47 minutes, but retaining double turn lanes the commute would increase by an average of four minutes, according to a council staff report.
Morning eastbound commute time would double without double turn lanes and increase by about 10 minutes with two turn lanes.
Double turn lanes increase the width of a roadway, meaning pedestrians spend more time crossing the lanes, county planning staff said. The more time a pedestrian spends in the roadway, the risk of collision increases, staff said.
Despite the expected traffic congestion, efforts to decrease pedestrian crashes will require making some difficult decisions, Council President Nancy Navarro said.
“We shouldn’t fool ourselves here and think we will have car throughput and at the same time have all these treatments that curtail speed and help pedestrians, and somehow this commute will be equal or faster,” Navarro said. “If we have list of items we should definitely utilize (to increase pedestrian safety), we should do it.”
Planning Department staff and council Planning, Housing and Economic Development committee members conceded softening language in the plan to indicate double left-turn lanes should be permitted on a case-by-case basis.
“This is a transportation master plan, the first under Vision Zero, and we have a real opportunity to figure out how we make that goal happen,” District 1 Councilman Andrew Friedson said. “Vision Zero isn’t just a reflection of our communities changing in the way people are living, but also the significant safety issues we all recognize.”
Montgomery adopted a Vision Zero traffic safety initiative in February 2016 to eliminate pedestrian fatalities by 2030.The program was developed in Sweden in 1997 and targets systems in place, instead of human fault, when working toward creating a safer environment, which means examining issues such as accessibility and road design.
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
