Prince George's County Council Members Eric Olson (District 3) and Mel Franklin (District 9) have introduced a new bill in that would ensure
that new development in urban centers creates safe connections for people to transit, schools, parks, stores and other destinations by building missing links in essential walking and bicycling facilities
Think of it as complete streets for county planning.
Currently, new developments are only obligated to contribute to road capacity for car traffic in off-site transportation improvements. This means that a developer may be required to pay millions of dollars in road capacity expansions far from the development site but make no investment in missing sidewalks, hazardous crossings, or other basic pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure connecting the property to nearby destinations. This bill helps new developments fill in missing links and ensure that new residents can safely walk or bicycle to the nearest bus stop, Metro station, school, store, library or park. By investing in relatively low-cost sidewalks, crossing improvements, bike lanes, trail connections or other walk/bike facilities, residents will have true alternatives to driving for every trip and can take better advantage of transit and nearby amenities. This builds higher quality communities and takes cars off the road, relieving overall traffic impacts of new developments.By filling in the missing links in sidewalks, bikeways, and pathways, this bill helps build “complete streets,” by designing streets that work for everyone, an important goal of the Countywide Master Plan of Transportation
Act Now county residents (Seriously the vote is later today)
Contact your Prince George’s County Council Member, or the Council Chair, the Honorable Andrea Harrison, and urge them to support this bill. This bill increases safety, broadens transportation choices, reduces traffic and enhances the quality of new development. Let them know that the old way of doing things – only building bigger roads for more cars, while ignoring the opportunity to make walking and bicycling safer and easier – needs to change. Creatingmore walkable communities and better connecting people to transit, stores, schools and jobs makes for safer, healthier and more attractive places to live and work.
The bill will be considered by the Planning, Zoning, Economic Development Committee (PZED) February 15 at 1:30 pm, and if it wins a majority of committee votes, will advance to the full county council for a public hearing and vote
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