Design guide outlines how to make Montgomery County streets safer and more accessible.
SILVER SPRING, MD – The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, will jointly present a briefing on the draft Complete Streets Design Guide to the Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday, June 11 at a virtual Planning Board meeting.
View the draft Complete Streets Design Guide.
Complete Streets are a new approach to designing roads in Montgomery County. These roadways are designed and operated to provide safe, accessible, and healthy travel for all users of the roadway system, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and motorists.
The design guide was created in partnership with the Montgomery County Department of Transportation and is an important tool to support Montgomery County’s Vision Zero Action Plan.
About the Complete Streets Design Guide
The Complete Streets Design Guide provides a one-stop guide for designing new streets and reconstructing or retrofitting existing streets following these principles:
- Safety – maximize safety for all (pedestrians, bicyclists, and motor vehicles);
- Sustainability – enhance ecological functions and economic appeal of a streetscape; and
- Vitality – create streets that are great, dynamic places.
This document represents a coordinated focus on planning and designing roads with all county government agencies in partnership. The Complete Streets Design Guidelines is a collaborative effort between Montgomery Planning, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation and other county agencies. Highlights of the guidelines include:
- Four new land use types for streets and roads—Downtown, Town Center, Suburban and Country—that will replace the existing Road Code area classifications and allow more flexibility outside of the current urban core.
- Twelve new street types that provide more flexibility and attention to Vision Zero principles and improve county roads to be safer, greener, more sustainable and active places for all users.
- Reduced travel lane widths and lower target speeds on most roads to reduce severe injuries and fatalities.
- Improved design of intersections to more adequately and safely accommodate all users.
- Intersection signal spacing guidelines that better accommodate pedestrian needs.
- A process for prioritizing design elements such as pedestrian facilities, on-street parking, and median design in constrained rights-of-way. The prioritization of design elements vary for each street type.
Upcoming Schedule
Following the presentation to the Planning Board, Montgomery Planning will hold a virtual community meeting on June 17 from 7 – 9 p.m. This meeting will feature a presentation on the draft guidelines as well as interactive ways to provide comments. Learn more about the online meeting. The schedule for approval of the Complete Streets Design Guidelines is as follows:
- Planning Board Briefing on the Draft Guidelines – June 11, 2020
- Online Community Meeting – June 17, 2020 (7-9 p.m.)
- Planning Board Public Hearing – July 23, 2020
- Planning Board Work Sessions – Fall 2020
- Transmittal of Draft Guidelines & Planning Board Comments to County Council – November 2020
- County Council Review – January 2021
This schedule is tentative and subject to change. The community is invited to provide comments throughout the process. For questions or comments, please reach out to project manager Stephen Aldrich at 301-495-4528 or via email.