Rockville’s King Farm was designed as a transit friendly community, with a gridded street pattern lined by street fronting homes on small lots. So that’s the community part. Now that the transit part is coming along, the pull of suburban standards is proving strong.
photo courtesy of thecourtyard
In this article, A Community Planned for Transit Now Resists It, residents are quoted as saying the transit line will create a wall within the community. But this is not the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and King Farm is not Union station.
Why do people never point out that waiting with your neighbor at a station in the morning is a great time to chat and get to know each other–much better than driving home in your car, hitting the remote to open the garage and cruising almost directly to the television?
The cars and lawns of suburbia really do create castles–complete with moats and battlements.
Thayer-D
I guess this answers the chicken and egg question. Build the transit where you think it’s most viable first, then let the developers glom on to it.
Stuart
I know, lets knock down that development and put up a farm.
claudia kousoulas
Or we could farm on the 1/3 of the County that is reserved as ag land.
The idea of buiding the transit first is not as outrageous as it sounds. Plenty of streetcar suburbs around the country, including Chevy Chase were created by developers who could only sell lots that were made accessible by streetcar.
Cars have given us almost complete accessiblity (until you’re stuck on the Beltway), so developers build driveways and garages.
Retrofitting habits and land is tough.