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Prince Georges County Public Schools Superintendent Millard House II and County Executive Angela Alsobrooks visit Hyattsville Middle School on the first day of school in the new building on Monday, August 28, 2023. 

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Montgomery County bus commuters would get 28 miles of new, faster lines under a $580 million expansion of the county’s<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/the-dc-regions-most-ambitious-try-at-bus-rapid-transit-is-coming-to-montgomery-county/2020/10/01/845edbbc-01c3-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html" target="_blank"> bus rapid transit (BRT) system</a> proposed Tuesday by County Executive Marc Elrich (D).

The proposal — part of a larger $5.84 billion six-year capital improvement program that the executive is required to submit to the Montgomery County Council every two years — would represent a tripling of the expedited bus service that the county rolled out on U.S. Route 29 in 2020.

The transportation budget, which totals more than $1.7 billion, makes up nearly a third of Elrich’s proposed expenditures for the next six years.

Elrich, who has long advocated for the BRT system, branded Flash, has allotted more than a third of the proposed $1.7 billion transportation budget to the BRT expansion. Each day, the system offers thousands of riders more frequent service on brand-new 62-foot-long buses with WiFi, bike racks and USB ports that will travel part of the route in a dedicated lane, according to the Montgomery County Department of Transportation.

The BRT system is generally considered more convenient, faster and more reliable than normal bus services, according to the <a href="https://www.transit.dot.gov/research-innovation/bus-rapid-transit" target=_blank>Federal Transit Administration</a>, and can mitigate delays that impede normal bus services like being stuck in traffic. These buses, which can carry up to 80 people, are 20 percent faster than buses on regular routes, said Emily DeTitta, an MDOT spokeswoman.

The current BRT service is a single bus route along Route 29 that connects Silver Spring to Fairland and Burtonsville. Elrich’s proposed budget would fund a revamp of Route 29 and completion of BRT lines along Maryland Routes 355 (which includes Rockville Pike) and 586 (Veirs Mill Road), which have reached the final design stage.

Specifically, these funds would allow construction of the Route 355 section between Rockville and Germantown, which Elrich expects to begin service in fiscal 2029, according to his memorandum to Andrew Friedson, the Montgomery County Council president. The completed line would connect Friendship Heights in D.C. with Clarksburg and run through Montgomery College.

The funds would also help the county complete construction of Route 586 by fiscal 2027, connecting Wheaton with Route 355 at Montgomery College-Rockville.

Elrich has also allocated funding for preliminary engineering of a dedicated bus lane for the reminder of Route 29; currently, 40 percent of it runs in a dedicated lane and the rest in mixed traffic.

The county already has plans to extend Route 29 to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and the Mall in Columbia Transit Center. There are also planned expansions of the BRT system along University Boulevard, Georgia Avenue, Randolph Road, New Hampshire Avenue and North Bethesda in the coming years. But these cannot yet be funded with the county’s financial constraints, said Rachel Silberman, budget and management specialist for the Montgomery County Office of Management and Budget.

The D.C. region’s most ambitious try at bus rapid transit is coming to Montgomery County

The council will review the budget and hold public hearings in the coming months before adopting a finalized capital and operational budget in the spring.

Elrich’s proposed budget comes during an economic shortfall for Maryland that has left the state with a $3.3 billion hole, which Gov. Wes Moore (D) planned to fill largely through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/12/06/maryland-transportation-cuts/" target=_blank>cuts to transportation projects</a>. Last August, Moore attributed the shortfall to a sluggish state economy. Some of the transportation projects outlined in Elrich’s budget, including a redevelopment of the North Bethesda Metro station, are intended to bolster the local economy, according to his memorandum.

Moore’s $20 billion six-year plan, released in December, called for an 8 percent cut to MDOT’s operating budget and further reductions to construction budgets for roads, bridges and transit services. On Tuesday, he announced a one-year $150 million package for MDOT to help fund maintenance and boost the state’s transit system, among other priorities.

The county’s six-year budget, which is $133 million larger than the budget Elrich proposed two years ago, is largely insulated from the state’s budget woes, partly because the county is wealthier than other jurisdictions in the state and doesn’t rely heavily on state funding, county officials said.

But lagging revenue from property recordation and gas taxes has stymied the county’s ability to proceed with some projects, said Rich Madaleno, the county’s chief administrative officer. Under Elrich’s proposed budget, the county would have to defer many projects, including some requested by the Montgomery County Public Schools system. Should the constraints affect the BRT system in the future, Silberman said,<i> “</i>the project will simply not be as effective if the county is forced to implement it sort of in a piecemeal way due to a lack of resources<i>.”</i>

Elrich, who has pushed for a dedicated revenue stream for large projects, has drawn from surplus funds to compensate for the decrease in property recordation taxes, but this hasn’t been a comprehensive solution, Madaleno said. In the next fiscal year, the surplus funds would allow the county to “move many projects forward that would have otherwise been deferred,” Silberman said. In his proposal, Elrich outlined plans to expand mental health and youth development services in public schools, and build more affordable housing, among other things.

The county will feel more of the consequences of the state-level budget constraints this spring, when it will finalize its operating budget, county officials said.

These limitations and revenue uncertainties mean Montgomery County is in limbo with many major projects, Madaleno said. “We have no idea when a project is going to get done because we have no idea where the money is coming from.”

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that Montgomery County plans to extend the Route 355 BRT line to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and the Mall in Columbia Transit Center. Those plans involve the Route 29 line. The article has been corrected.

Vanderbilt University, BA in molecular and cell biology; medicine, health and society

Danny Nguyen is a reporter on The Washington Post's social issues team. 

Danny Nguyen

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Montgomery County bus rapid transit would expand under budget proposal

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