SILVER SPRING, MD – A key recommendation for the Gaithersburg West Master Plan that would re-route the proposed Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) was strengthened Thursday when state transit officials endorsed the proposal. The plan is under consideration by the Montgomery County Council.
In an October 22 letter, Donald Halligan, director of the Maryland Transit Administration’s Office of Planning and Capital Programming, cited an up to 40 percent increase in ridership associated with the revised transit route in approving the realignment recommendation. That increase would make the CCT project more cost-effective, the agency letter said.
Halligan urged the County Council to speedily approve the draft Gaithersburg West plan proposed by the Planning Board so the transit agency could seek federal approval for the mass transit project.
The CCT, conceived in the 1970s as a 14-mile-long light rail or bus rapid transit route connecting the Shady Grove Metrorail Station to Clarksburg, has been the lynchpin for the Gaithersburg West Master Plan. The plan focuses on invigorating the county’s Life Sciences Center by creating a more desirable community where people can live, work and enjoy many services.
Planners envision that the CCT, which they recommend run as bus rapid transit, would help create a more walkable community in a Life Sciences Center now dominated by cars. The CCT would serve as a means to cluster houses, jobs, and retail to support activity centers and lessen reliance on automobiles.
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