If you haven't had your fill of zoning rewrites with DC's, you can now get involved in Prince George's County's rewrite. Via RPUS, they're holding listening sessions on it this week starting tonight in Riverdale.
This is mostly relevant to the issue of bike parking design and how much is required. The Evaluation and Recommendation Report notes that
The only places in the current Zoning Ordinance that include bicycle parking standards are the UC zones established in Subtitle 27A. They include bicycle parking standards that are comparable to standards found in modern codes used in other urban and town-center contexts.
The standards are based on the number of vehicle parking spaces required on the site,84 and specify where the bicycle parking should be located, and limit wheel-based racks (where bicycles are affixed to a rack only by their wheel and not their frame) from counting toward the minimum number.
In addition, the current Subdivision Regulations include a requirement for adequate public pedestrian and bikeway facilities (Sec. 214-124.01, Subdivision Regulations) that includes provision of bicycle parking “at transit stops, commercial areas, employment centers, and other places where vehicle parking, visitors, and/or patrons are normally anticipated.”
And it recommends (I removed non-bike elements from the list) that
To modernize the parking and loading and bicycle parking standards to implement Plan 2035, we suggest the following changes be made to the current regulations.
First, establish different parking standards for the urban and other contexts in the County (versus the “one size fits all” set of standards in the current parking standards table). We suggest three different set of parking standards for the following areas:
- Centers (The Regional Transit Districts (including the Downtowns), the Local Transit Centers, Neighborhood Centers, Town Centers, and Campus Centers);
- Areas in the County “inside the beltway;” and
- All other areas in the County.
Second, review and modify the current parking standards in these three areas to bring them into conformance with current best practices.
- In the Regional Transit Districts (including the Downtowns) this will include:
- Making more proactive use of Transportation Demand Management strategies during the development review process to further reduce parking requirements;
Seventh, add the following type of bicycle parking requirements:
- In the Regional Transit Districts (including the Downtowns), establish requirements both for bicycle parking on-site (especially in parking structures or adjacent to building entrances, and to include covered and secured facilities for long-term bicycle parking intended for transit commuters or all-day employees of uses in the center) as well as in public right-of-way as part of a streetscape, with the latter to be located in places convenient to principal building entrances.
- In the Local Transit Centers, Neighborhood Centers, Town Centers, and Campus Centers establish requirements for bicycle parking on-site as well as in public right-of-way as part of a streetscape.
Eighth, encourage and incentivize the use of bicycle parking in other locations by establishing basic requirements for retail establishments of a certain size, office zones that permit a certain amount of intensity, and for any office, retail, multi-family residential, community facility or hotel use located on streets designated as bicycle corridors in an official bicycle facility master plan adopted by Prince George’s County; these requirements should also specify acceptable types of bicycle storage.
Refine, expand, and consolidate the range of flexibility provisions that can be used to address parking standards, through administrative approval by the Planning Director. This should include:
- Reductions in parking for Transportation Demand Management programs in zones where more development intensity will occur over time, with more specific guidance on estimated levels of reduction that an applicant may expect from implementing and agreeing to provide a particular TDM measure as part of a development; and
In addition to bike parking, there's a whole section on Transportation, Pedestrian, Bikeway, Circulation Standards. For that section the report recommends
A new set of basic street design standards to apply in zones associated with Regional Transit Districts and Local Transit Centers. To complement the mixed-use, urban, and transit-supportive character of development in these areas, the standards emphasize local vehicular circulation, pedestrian activity, on-street parking, street and bicycle network and connectivity, and access management. The concept of complete streets will also be explored in these areas. The regulations will also provide developers significant flexibility to propose alternative mobility and connectivity plans that demonstrate equivalent compliance.
As well as other ideas that would make cycling better, like encouraging roundabout intersections and a grid network; limiting culs-de-sac and requiring pedestrian access to other local streets or pedestrian systems access when they're allowed; traffic calming; creating incentives for the provision of bicycle facilities.
If you want to see better biking in PG County, better zoning regulations are a key step towards that end. Meetings are being held the next three nights.
January Countywide Listening Sessions
North County
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 [Update: rescheduled for Feb 10th]
Parks & Recreation Administration Building
6600 Kenilworth Avenue, Riverdale, MD 20737
6:00 - 8.00p.m.
South County
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Southern Technology & Recreation Complex
7007 Bock Road, Fort Washington, MD 20744
6:00 - 8.00p.m
Central County
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Wayne K. Curry Sports & Learning Complex
8001 Sheriff Road, Landover, MD 20785
6:00 - 8.00p.m.
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