Holiday Schedule for Christmas and New Year’s

Montgomery County government will observe the following holiday schedule for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays:

Ride On – Saturday, December 24: Saturday schedule with limited late evening service. Trips scheduled to depart from the terminal at 10:01 p.m. or later will NOT depart.  Sunday, December 25: Sunday schedule.  Monday, December 26: Sunday schedule (Christmas Day - observed).  Sunday, January 1: Sunday schedule; Monday, January 2: Sunday schedule (New Year's Day - observed)

Metrorail and Metrobus – Information available at www.wmata.com.

TRiPS Commuter Stores (Silver Spring and Friendship Heights) – closed

A complete list of schedules for other County services is available online.

Roshdieh Joins High School Artists in Unveiling “Knee Wall” Mosaics at County Bus Stops

As other student artists look on, Joanna Vigil-Coello talks about her knee wall mosaic "Furry Ball at an event with
MCDOT Acting Director, Al Roshdieh (far right)

On January 12, Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Acting Director Al Roshdieh joined Arts on the Block Director Jan Goldstein and student artists from Rockville, Wheaton, and Richard Montgomery high schools in unveiling one of 20 mosaic designs installed on the “knee walls” of County bus stops – located at Hungerford Drive and Jefferson Avenue in Rockville. Read more.

This Knee wall mosaic is called Furry Ball and provides seating for those waiting for the bus.

Each Knee wall features a plaque with the student's name and title of their artwork.

Maryland Commuter Tax Credit Available for Employers

Maryland employers, including 501 (c)(3) organizations, may claim a tax credit for 50 percent of the eligible costs of providing commuter benefits, up to a maximum credit of $50 for each participating employee per month. The tax credit can be taken against personal income tax, corporate income tax or insurance premium tax. Employers must submit a registration form to the State before the last day of the taxable year in which the credit will be claimed.

Learn more from the Maryland Transit Administration and the State of Maryland Comptroller's Office.

Texas A&M Transportation Institute Again Rates Washington DC as Having the Worst Traffic Congestion in the Nation; Report Methodology Questioned by Many

The Washington D.C. region once again has the dubious distinction of being rated by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) 2015 Mobility Scorecard as having the worst traffic congestion in the nation. According to the report, congestion wastes time, fuel, money and productivity and in 2014 cost the nation $160 billion. Read the full report.

An item in City Commentary lists several critiques of the methodology used by the TTI researchers, including that compact, walkable communities rate poorly on the Scorecard, despite having good quality of life ratings. 

Citizen Advisory Boards to Host Capital Improvements Program Budget Forums in June and July

Individuals and groups are invited to provide input into the County’s next six-year capital construction budget by attending public forums that will be held in June and July by local citizen advisory boards. The forums will help define construction and planning priorities for the various regions in the County as officials begin developing the Fiscal Years 2017 to 2022 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) budget.

The CIP includes costs for new or renovated major projects such as roads, public schools, Montgomery College facilities, water and sewer lines, parks, libraries, health and recreation facilities, and other public buildings and projects.

The schedule for forums in each regional area is listed below:

• Bethesda-Chevy Chase – Monday, June 22, 7 p.m. at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional
    Services Center, 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, 240-777-8200;
• Mid-County – Tuesday, June 23, 7 p.m. at the Mid-County Community Recreation Center, 2004
   Queensguard Road, Silver Spring, 240-777-8101 or 240-777-6820;
• Eastern County – Thursday, June 25, 7 p.m. at the Eastern Montgomery Regional Services Center,
   3300 Briggs Chaney Road, Silver Spring, 240-777-8414;
• Silver Spring – Monday, June 29, 7 p.m. at the Silver Spring Civic Building, One Veterans Place,
   240-777-5307; and
• Upcounty – Monday, July 13, 7 p.m. at the BlackRock Center for the Arts, 12901 Town Commons
   Drive, Germantown, 240-777-8040.

The following links provide more detailed information:

• Master list of CIP projects -- http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/omb/projects.html;
• Open Budget (Montgomery County’s new, highly interactive open data budget websites covering
   departments, agencies, projects and much more) -
   http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/omb/openbudget.html; and
• Office of Management and Budget Publications -
   http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/omb/publications.html.

Suggestions and comments from participants will be considered by the regional citizen advisory boards for inclusion in the funding priority lists they submit to the County Executive. The lists will also be shared with County departments and agencies for their consideration as they formulate the CIP for their departments.

Sign language interpreter services will be provided only upon request with notice as far in advance as possible, but no less than 72 hours prior to the event. If these or other services or aids are needed to participate in this activity, please call the number listed for the forum.

U.S. Transit Ridership Reaches Highest Level Since 1956

Transit ridership in the U.S. grew 1.1 percent in 2013 to 10.7 billion trips, the highest total since 1956, according to data collected by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). A trip is considered any segment of a passenger’s commute. For example, taking a bus to the subway and then riding the train to work constitutes two trips.

Since 1995, transit ridership is up 37.2 percent, which outpaced the national population growth of 20.3 percent, according to Michael Melaniphy, APTA president and CEO. The nation’s trains, buses and commuter rail carried more trips last year than in 2008, when gas prices soared to $4 to $5 per gallon and many were forced out of their cars by necessity. That year saw the highest ridership totals since 1957

Melaniphy said that public transit systems in large and small cities and in suburban and rural communities are seeing ridership increases.

Ride On’s ridership dipped last January due to the snow storms, but, overall, is up slightly from a year ago.

Alan Pisarski, editor of the Commuting in America report series, notes that while transit carried more trips last year than at any time since the Eisenhower administration, its share of the transportation mode – that is, the percentage of commuters who take transit versus driving, walking, etc. – is still well below what it was in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. He stated that in 1960, 12.1 percent of commuters took public transportation. That dropped to 8.9 percent 10 years later and to 6.2 percent in 1980. By 2000, the percentage was 4.6 percent, but it rose at the end of the decade. In 2012, transit’s share of the transportation mode was 5 percent.

(Source for national data: USA Today, March 10, 2014, as noted in Transit Intelligence eNewsletter, March 10, 2014.)

Accident Rates Improving for Older Drivers

A decade ago, safety researchers expressed concern that traffic accidents would rise as the nation’s aging population increased the number of older drivers on the road. Now, they say they've been proved wrong. Today’s drivers aged 70 and older are less likely to be involved in crashes than previous generations and are less likely to be killed or seriously injured if they do crash, according to a study recently released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. That’s because vehicles are getting safer and seniors are generally getting healthier.

The marked shift began in the mid-1990s and indicates that growing ranks of aging drivers as baby boomers head into their retirement years aren’t making U.S. roads deadlier. Traffic fatalities overall in the U.S. have declined to levels not seen since the late 1940s, and accident rates have come down for other drivers as well.

(Source: Boston.com (Boston Globe newspaper), March, 2014, as reported in the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety eNewsletter, March 14, 2014.)

Latest Census Data Reveal Region’s Commuters Shifting Away from Solo Driving, But Slowly

(Source: Transportation Planning Board (TPB) Weekly Report on The Yardstick, May 23, 2013)

Commuters in the Washington region have been shifting away from driving alone as their primary method of getting to and from work, according to the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau, which was analyzed recently by the Transportation Planning Board.

Commuters leaving their cars at home in favor of public transit increased from just over 11 percent in 2000 to 15.4 percent in 2011. With federal jobs increasing in the region over the past 10 years, federal workers have led the shift. The rate of federal workers taking transit increased from 19 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2011. The report cited the $240 per month transit subsidy offered to federal workers as a “likely contributor to this shift.”

The biggest drops in driving alone came from the District and Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Arlington counties.

See the full report online.