With a grant in place and plans under way, the first project to propose a bikeshare station with integrated public art, Fenwick Station (on the corner of Second Avenue and Spring Street), was reviewed by the Planning Board on April 26.

Fenwick Station Plaza with Bikeshare Facility

Fenwick Station Plan

This is just in time for national bike month!

So maybe we can give DC, named the 6th most bikeable city by walkscore.com, a run (ride?) for their money.

And to make our pedestrian realm a bit more fun, here’s a thought for more interesting bike racks: Louisville’s public art/bike rack solution:

Coincidentally, they happened to be having a biking event one of the days we visited.

Freighter Heading up the Savannah River

MoCo’s economy seems more diverse than Savannah’s, but is becoming focused on the life sciences, especially in the fields of health and biotech research. Our own Life Sciences Triangle is beginning to take form – between Bethesda, the Great Seneca Science Corridor, and the White Oak Science Gateway. Two keys ensuring the success of this vision will be linking these areas together and ensuring that there is a robust, mixed use, 24/7 economy around these key nodes. Generally, the latter is a matter of zoning and these areas are developing (or have the potential to develop) with housing, retail service, and employment opportunities. The former, however, is more difficult. Luckily, the early stages of creating transit links are completed and schedules are moving forward.

In the recently published ULI report, Infrastructure 2012, Montgomery County’s Intercounty Connector (ICC) is highlighted as an example of link connecting parts of our suburbs. Unfortunately, the examples of transit systems implementing visions similar to our Life Sciences Triangle are New England’s Knowledge Corridor and North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

But there is hope. The general alignment for the Purple Line transit link between the Bethesda and New Carollton Metro stations has been set since 2009 and several planning studies are being done for areas around key nodes along the line: Takoma Langley Crossroads, Chevy Chase Lake, Long Branch, and Lyttonsville-Rosemary Hills. Another study is ongoing: the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, which will be followed up by a BRT – Land Use Plan. Of course, the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite is also ongoing and being coordinated so that we will have the zoning implementation tools necessary to help these new opportunities succeed.

BRT Proposed Network

And now, the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) locally preferred alternative was announced by the Governor’s office on May 11th (press release not online yet) and the schedule has been laid out to implement phase 1 – from Shady Grove Metro station to the Metropolitan Grove MARC station, with service to begin in 2020.

CCT Phase 1

Funding is, of course, a huge issue. But, as Infrastructure 2012 points out, that there are numerous options as budgets and federal funding become constricted, such as:

• Fuel taxes
• Vehicle taxes and fees
• Sales and use taxes
• Public/private partnerships
• Tolls
• Vehicle mileage fees; and
• Tax Increment Financing/Special Assessment Districts

There also will remain some Transportation Infrastructure Finance & Innovation Act funds designed to leverage these more local alternatives, and a combination of various sources is likely.

Each of these funding sources have been used by various municipalities and the pros/cons and a few examples are laid out well in the report. It’s time to look carefully at the next steps to implement these links and build on the vision that is just beginning to take shape around our evolving, focused economy.

• A report from the Brookings Institution: restrictive (read, “exclusionary”) zoning may lead to lower test scores for kids.

“As the nation grapples with the growing gap between rich and poor and an economy increasingly reliant on formal education, public policies should address housing market regulations that prohibit all but the very affluent from enrolling their children in high-scoring public schools in order to promote individual social mobility and broader economic security.”

Report.

• An analysis by US Today shows the recession accelerated trends towards urbanization.

“The shift to more urban housing development has been growing slowly during the past couple of decades and thanks to the recession and housing crash, this trend has accelerated. It is probable that the trends that the USA Today analysis points to are the precursors to a long-term shift in suburban development resulting in more in-fill, close-in development and far less growth on the outer edges of metropolitan areas.”

Assessment.

Story.

• Downtown Cleveland is growing while suburban/exurban growth slows or reverses course.

“Take the latest population figures in the 5 county metropolitan area [around Cleveland]. From 1990 to 2010, the City of Cleveland shrank, as did many of the suburban areas of Cuyahoga County. The growth mostly occurred in the increasingly exurban fringes of the metro, as well as on the edges of Cuyahoga County. Except there is one outlier: downtown Cleveland. Over the last two decades, the neighborhood’s population grew 96%, with residential totals increasing from 4,651 to 9,098. It was the single largest spike of any neighborhood, suburb, or county measured for the two decades under study.”

Report.

Defining Neighborhoods through Data Tracking

“…a research project called Livehoods, from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, aims to shed some light on how people really inhabit their cities—and how this changes over time—by mapping data collected from 18 million Foursquare check-ins that have been sent out via Twitter.”

Brief.

ITDP Mexico Takes on Traffic

Video.

Rethinking the National Mall

“Many of the world’s top landscape architects and architects presented their designs for three grand projects on the National Mall: Constitution Gardens, Union Square, and the Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theatre. The competition is fierce because all the design proposals offer elegant, exciting, innovative ideas for solving sticky ecological, security, and public space design challenges.”

Blog.

Creativity & Cities

Jonah Lehrer’s ambitious new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, takes a fascinating dive into the world of creativity and how it all works, not to mention devoting a chapter entirely to cities.
Lehrer recently took some time to chat with Atlantic Cities and expand on his ideas concerning the nexus of creativity and cities.

Website.

Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture has a number of advantages for communities, including:

• improving the quality of the urban environment through the introduction of green space and, thus, a reduction in pollution and global warming;
• supporting the reduction of energy use through local production of food, including savings in transportation costs and food storage. Purchasing produce from farmers within a 100-mile (160-km) radius reduces automobile emissions and eliminates packaging waste;
• helping close the urban loop system characterized by importation of food from rural zones and exportation of waste to regions outside the city or town;
• incorporating use of wastewater for irrigation and organic solid waste for fertilizer;
• promoting alternative development options, such as cultivation of vacant urban land for agricultural production;
• helping build equitable responses to food needs by providing local food sources for low-income communities to improve access to fresh foods;
• invigorating the community by incorporating local ideas and engagement; and
• incorporating a cross-sector approach to look at long-term, systemic solutions to problems in cities with the goal of improved health and wellness.

Video.

Article.

Transit Score

Guess who’s ahead of Portland? And who’s right behind?!

Website.

May is National Preservation Month and this year’s theme, “Discover America’s Hidden Gems”, got me thinking about Montgomery County’s rich collection of historic places.

Montgomery County has 430 sites and 22 districts designated in the County’s Master Plan for Historic Preservation. More are identified in the Locational Atlas and Index of Historic Sites in Montgomery County. And more still are waiting to be identified and investigated.

Historic and architectural gems we have. But hidden? In a county just outside the nation’s capital, with a population rapidly approaching a million people, it is hard to think of much as being hidden. Whether or not we live or work in a historic building, most of us encounter historic buildings or landscapes on a daily basis as we navigate the County.

But how often do we stop to appreciate these places, or take the time to discover new places? So to help you, historic preservation staff have prepared a list of places we think people should discover and celebrate.

Some people love lists. I am in another group – the reluctant list-makers – concerned about inadvertently leaving off the list something deserving inclusion. So with the caveat that the following is by no means definitive and advanced apologies if we have left off your favorite building or opened people’s eyes to your much-loved secret place, here is what can only be considered a partial list of thirty-one Montgomery County hidden gems, one for each day of Preservation Month. Some are hidden in plain site; others are known to some, but should be enjoyed by many.

1. Acorn Gazebo, Acorn Park | last vestigeof Silver Spring founder Francis Preston Blair’sestate | 8060 Newell Street, Silver Spring

2. Baltzley Castle| Victorian “fantasy” castle, built by the developers of Glen Echo and funders of the  Glen Echo National Chautauqua| 5415 Mohican Road, Glen Echo Heights; visible from MacArthur Boulevard

3. Bethesda Meeting House (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | 1850 Greek Revival church located on a peaceful site overlooking a busy road | 9400 Rockville Pike, Bethesda

4. Bonfields Service Station| a monument to the age of automobiles|  6124 MacArthur Avenue, Bethesda

Bonfields, credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS MD,16-GLENEC.V,1--8 (CT)

5. Boundary Markers of the District of Columbia, Montgomery County locations | stones placed in 1791 and 1792 to mark the boundary of the nation’s new capital | multiple locations

6. Boyds Negro School| a one-room schoolthat educated African Americans from the Boyds’ area from 1895-1936 | 19510 White Ground Road, Boyds

1930 BHS

7. Button Farm | living history center telling the story of 19th century plantation life and the Underground Railroad, located in Maryland resident curatorship property in Seneca Creek State Park|  16820 Black Rock Road, Germantown

8. Carderock Springs (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | A “visual community” of 275 mid-century modern houses designed by Keys, Lethbridge, and Condon and developed by Edmund J. Bennett between 1962-1966 | vicinity of Seven Locks Road and Lilly Stone Drive, Potomac

9. The Cider Barrel(listed in Endangered Maryland 2012)| Roadside architecture | 20410 Frederick Road, Germantown

10. Hawkins Lane Historic District| originally a kinship community founded by a former slave | off Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda

11. Jenkins Broadcasting Station| in operation between 1929-1932, the site of a pioneering television transmission “Radio Movie Broadcasting Station”| 10717 Georgia Ave, Wheaton

12.Madison House| Served as the  “White House for the Day” during the War of 1812| 205 Market Street, Brookeville

Photo by Kmf164, ShareAlike 2.5 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.5)

13. Martinsburg Road| a Montgomery County Rustic Road, one of the few surviving one-lane paved roads in Maryland | Martinsburg Road, between Rt. 28 and Wasche Road fork

14. Montgomery Farm Women’s Cooperative Market| Farm Women’s Market  in the heart of Bethesda | 7155 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda

Photo by allison.scuriatti

15. National Park Seminary (listedin the National Register of Historic Places; listed in Endangered Maryland 2011) | Short-lived resort served as a finishing school for young women and annex to Walter Reed Army Hospital before being savedand rehabbed as a residential community | Linden Lane and Dewitt Drive, Silver Spring

16. Noyes Library | the first public library in the Washington area, now Montgomery County’s children’s library | 10237 Carroll Place, Kensington

Montgomery County Public Libraries

17.Polychrome Historic District (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | Five art deco houses, by innovator John Joseph Earley| Sutherland & Colesville Roads, Silver Spring

18.Rachel Carson House (listed as a National Historic Landmark) | home in which environmentalist Rachel Carson lived when she wrote Silent Spring| 11701 Berwick Road, Silver Spring

19. Rock Creek Woods (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | community of 76 mid-century modern houses designed Charles Goodman between 1958-1961 | vicinity of Spruell Drive and Connecticut Avenue, Silver Spring/North Kensington

20. The Sandy Spring | interpreted as part of the Underground Railroad Experience Trail | Accessible from Woodlawn Manor, 16501 Norwood Road, Sandy Spring

21. Seneca Historic District (listed in the National Register of Historic Places)| more than 3,800 acres of agricultural and parkland rich with historic sites| River Road and Sugarland Road, vicinity of Poolesville

22. Seneca Stone Schoolhouse| restored one room schoolhouse constructed in 1865 | River Road, near Partnership Road, Poolesville

23. Seymour Kreiger House (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | A mid-century modern house, designed by Marcel Breuer in the International style | 6739 Brigadoon Drive, Bethesda

24. Silver Spring Heritage Trail | interpretive markers creating a self-guided walking tour along Silver Spring’s historic main street | multiple locations, Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring

a walk through time

25. Sugarloaf Mountain Chapel | 1861 brick chapel built in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountainby local builder William T. Hilton using bricks fired nearby and slate shingles from Hyattstown quarry | 24700 Old Hundred Road, Dickerson

26. Takoma Park, Main Street and Farmers Market | Montgomery County’s only Main Streetcommunity, Takoma Park’s historic downtown is an attractive destination | Takoma Park

27. Walter Johnson House | Home of the “Big Train,” Washington Senator Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson, who had a chicken farm here in Bethesda | 9100 Old Georgetown Rd, Bethesda

28. Warren Historic Site, Love and Charity Hall(listed in Endangered Maryland 2008)/Warren M.E. Church/Warren M.E. Church Cemetery| a rare surviving collection of a church, school, and social building associated with the African American community, recognized by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center as a Local Legacy| 22625 White’s Ferry Road, Martinsburg

29. Washington Grove (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) | known as “a town within a forest,” Washington Grove is an incorporated town that evolved from a religious camp meeting and later a summer retreat | vicinity of Grove Road, Washington Grove

30. Wilkins Estate| Wilkins family summer home, designed by John Russell Pope, now part of Parklawn Cemetery | 12800 Viers Mill Road

31. WTOP Transmitter Building | Broadcast home of WTOP, designed in 1939 in the International style | vicinity of University Boulevard and Amherst Avenue, Wheaton

Keep in mind that many of these places are privately owned, so if you visit, please respect their owner’s privacy and limit your visits to looking at building exteriors from publically accessible locations. Additional information about many of these resources is available in Places from the Past and from the sources linked-to in the preceding list.

And don’t forget our County’s other, less hidden gems: including our Montgomery Parks heritage sites, history and heritage museums, Heritage Area attractions, and National Park Service sites.

We hope you will get out and visit our county’s great historic resources during Preservation Month, and tell us what would be on your list? To help you with your list, use our interactive mapping tool to discover historic places across the County.

On April 24, the Prince George’s County Council passed a law that requires developers to make improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists to ensure adequate public pedestrian and bikeway facilities in County Centers and Corridors.

The Washington Post article, “Prince George’s Backs Plan to ease the way of pedestrians and cyclists,” on this progressive measure, however, does not fully portray similar measures already in place in Montgomery County to improve the environment for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and trail users. Montgomery County has had similar requirements for developers for almost a decade, and has moved on multiple fronts to further strengthen measures to achieve a pedestrian, bicyclist, and transit-friendly and accessible environment.

With each application considered by the Planning Board, developers must submit counts of vehicles, bicylists and pedestrians at each intersection in the affected area. The counts and the identification of deficiencies in the area may trigger a requirement that developers pay for substantial transportation improvements, such as sidewalks, bikeways and trails.

The developer of the Fenwick Station project also set aside land for Montgomery County’s first bike-sharing station, similar to the Capital Bikeshare stations in DC.

Other policies approved in the last decade also set the stage for enhanced pedestrian and cyclist use:

• In 2002, Montgomery County’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety included a recommendation for a Pedestrian Impact Statement in its final report. Two years later,  the County began requiring that Pedestrian Impact Statements be submitted as part of the traffic studies for development applications requiring Planning Board approval. The pedestrian impact reports were  codified in the  Local Area Transportation Review and Policy Area Mobility Review Guidelines that accompany each development application, as well as bicyclist accommodations.
• In 2007, the County required that the statement be submitted for all County-funded projects.

Montgomery County’s creation of the Pedestrian Impact Statement is cited by several organizations and publications as a contributor to improving public health:

• By the Active Living Network as a model practice on their website.
• In a technical report on public health by the Centers for Disease Control
• In a technical paper entitled “Trimming Maryland’s Waistline” that recommended that all Maryland counties follow Montgomery County’s lead and require developers to submit impact statements
• In the 2005 book Building Healthy Cities – Legal Frameworks and Considerations by Wendy C. Perdue

We’ve seen the payoff here in Montgomery County. Recent examples include the Montgomery General Hospital expansion project in Olney, Fenwick Station residential development in Silver Spring, Falkland North mixed-use development in Silver Spring, and Woodmont 7200 development in Bethesda. The developer of the Fenwick Station project set aside land for Montgomery County’s first bike-sharing station, similar to the Capital Bikeshare stations in DC. In addition, another developer will be contributing almost $200,000 toward the design and construction of the County’s first stand-alone bike station in Gene Lynch Urban Park, where bike owners will be able to leave their bikes in a secure facility adjacent to the Silver Spring Transit Center. The bike station may include additional amenities such as repair facilities.

Chapter 49 of the Montgomery County Code (the Road Code), which governs the classification, design, and construction of roads in the county, as well as use of the public right-of-way, was revised in 2007 to promote pedestrian and bicycle safety and accommodation and to make our roads more environmentally friendly. Executive Regulations were developed the following year to translate the law’s requirements into standards that would be used to design and construct these roads. This Complete Streets effort is continuing via a collaborative process between the Planning Department and County Executive agencies.

Downtown Silver Spring enjoys wide sidewalks that typically are filled with pedestrians.

Last but not least, Montgomery County also has worked with the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) to ensure that those areas where we have the most pedestrians and bicyclists are designed to accommodate them safely. The White Flint Sector Plan area was approved by SHA on January 31, 2011 as Maryland’s first Bicycle-Pedestrian Priority Area (BPPA). This designation requires SHA to consider changes to the location, construction, geometrics, design, and maintenance of the State highway system to increase safety and access for bicycle and pedestrian traffic in the BPPA, and to consider the use of various traffic control devices to further those goals. SHA is already working on a plan of pedestrian and bicyclist improvements for this area and expects to complete this plan shortly.

In the last few weeks, Montgomery County has designated two additional areas as BPPAs – Takoma-Langley Crossroads and Wheaton – in the Sector Plans for those areas, which now await SHA approval.

We also will include many additional BPPAs around existing and proposed transit stations in the staff draft of the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, anticipated to be reviewed by the Planning Board later this year. The plans and guidelines that SHA prepares for BPPAs will be incorporated into the recommended pedestrian and bicyclist improvements required of developers who work in these areas.

We’re glad that Prince George’s County has taken this important step and look forward to working together to make sure our shared goal of improved accommodation and safety for bicyclists and pedestrians is achieved.

 
Cherian Eapen and Ed Axler contributed to this post.

The Walk Your City Kickstarter project will provide open source access to crisply designed signs that can be zip tied to telephone poles to encourage people to walk. As the signs point out, if it’s only a seven minute walk to a local park, why not?

The project has gotten a lot of media attention (fat, lazy Americans, etc.) but beyond addressing the surface problem–where to go and how to get there–the signs open a larger discussion of what is valuable in a community. What places are we proud of? What does it really take to make a place pedestrian-friendly?

It’s more than just sidewalks, there has to be a place to go, within a reasonable distance. The overall scale of a place has to be walkable.

a sidewalk to nowhere?

He makes a point that’s long frustrated me. Sooner or later, we all walk, even if it’s only from the parking lot to the mall. Something inside us loves to stroll. What is a mall if not a re-creation of an urban boulevard and witness the success of retail neo-main streets.

But we spend so little of our time, money, and thought on establishing and securing pedestrian environments. Even the fact that I describe it as a “pedestrian environment,” as a place apart and separate, rather than woven through our lives and communties–speaks to our separation from our feet.

Check out what Vanderbilt has to say…

Designed by architect Edwin Weihe in 1960, the American National Bank Building, at 8701 Georgia Avenue, is a fine example of an International style office building. When it opened in 1961, it was the tallest building in Silver Spring and featured several design innovations.

Architect Edwin Weihe placed the building’s heating, cooling, and elevator equipment in a low roof penthouse, designed so that it is not immediately apparent from the streetview. Real estate columnist Joseph Byrne, of the Washington Star, observed that Weihe’s design followed advice of the Washington Fine Arts Commission to avoid ugly penthouses prominent in Washington’s skyline by 1961.

 The structure has precast quartz mullions that are welded to the steel frame.  Each mullion is 6 inches wide, 8 inches deep and 10 feet tall, and weighes 800 pounds.  Two metal plates are embedded into the cast mullions and welded to metal plates sunk into the concrete superstructure. 

A historic view of this building shows how little it has changed.  The horizontal band at the streetlevel connects the parking lot entrance to the main building.  This element remains in place today.

The modernist building with green porcelain panels certainly bear witness to the influence of such a landmark as Gordon Bunshaft’s Lever House which dates from 1952.  Lever House, Park Avenue, New York City, was a harbinger of the glass curtain wall technology that predominated mid-century commercial buildings.  Note the horizontal section next to the tower, and the Le Corbusier style pilotis, both echoed in the American National Bank building.

 Architect Edwin Armstrong Weihe (1907-1994) had a major influence on the development of downtown Washington.  Known as “Mr. Zoning” for his active role in modernizing city codes, he pioneered the innovative use of concrete in Washington, DC, and was known for his use of pedestrian arcades and graduated setbacks.

Specializing in office buildings, hotels, apartment buildings, mixed use buildings and other commercial structures, Weihe’s firm designed more than 90 office buildings in the K Street corridor and elsewhere in the District, and more than 100 large buildings in Crystal City, Bailey’s Crossroads, and other urban centers.  In Montgomery County, Weihe designed several other mid-century projects in the Silver Spring area including a store and apartment at 7614 Georgia Avenue NW (1940); Rock Creek Gardens apartments (1948), near Grubb Road and East West Highway; and Cape Cod houses for Carroll Knolls subdivision of 200 dwellings (1948), Forest Glen; and the F. W. Woolworth & Co. store (1954), Flower Avenue Shopping Center.

A member of the AIA from 1946, Edwin Weihe received the first lifetime achievement award ever bestowed by the Washington Chapter of the AIA, when he was presented with the Centennial Award in 1991.  He was recognized for being the first architect to promote flat plate concrete construction as a solution to the city’s building height restriction, as well as for his pioneering the use of precast concrete as building cladding in the District.  Edwin Weihe retired from active practice in 1987.  He died in 1994, at the age of 87.

 In the design phase, the Silver Spring office building was originally called the Bank of Silver Spring but by the time it opened it was renamed the American National Bank, which company occupied the first and lower levels.  It is now known as the Zalco Building.

Looking at other examples, in London and New York, it seems these are a retail opportunity for branding,  and by-the-way, an urban pheonmenon. London’s very cool Shoreditch box park describes itself as “low-cost, low-risk, unique, and flexible,” meant to draw tenants like local artists and artisanal manufacturers.

boxes full of nothing you really need

At New York’s Dekalb Market, tenants are a roster of hipster cliches from an excessive number of bakeries to dog apparel. But tenants at Shoreditch also include some mainstream retailers like Levi’s and Oakley, and that ultimate example of suburban blandess–Dockers–a company clearly looking to introduce themselves to a new market in a very particular way.

And the branding works for the retail development as well. Would shoppers and residents be as excited if the box parks included very quotidien uses like auto repair and dry cleaners? And what about institutional or resdential uses? Would you live in one if your actual home hadn’t been lost in a natural disaster?

Another box park is proposed at D.C.’s Nationals Stadium, where every square foot must be monetized to make the franchise profitable. A new, cool look may attract shoppers beyond baseball fans. One online commenter made a pitch for a kids play-space so parents can kick back before the game.

First it was malls, then reconstructed main streets, now it’s box parks, anythign to keep the retail experience fresh. Or you could just stay home and shop online!

But there are other changes as well, as documented in this Washington Post interactive map tracking racial changes in the ‘burbs. The map allows you to see the mix of people in the region as well as in various census tracts.

It also shows change since 1990, and not surprisingly, some places change very little. The quick pattern I see is that most tracts are less exclusively white than they used to be, but overall patterns in the region are the same.

As the Post points out, it’s still rare for whites to move into minority neighborhoods, but the acceptance of people who look different is widespread. Maybe the suburbs have the effect of evening out differences. Everyone is there for the good schools and the backyards.

Check out your zip code and meet the new neighbors.