More News

Some Montgomery County leaders worry they are falling behind Fairfax County. Montgomery needn't worry, but it should also choose the most sustainable development policies to ensure long-term competitiveness.

Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest, best educated and successful counties in the nation. It is home to cutting edge research and companies. The county combines conservation of parks and a nationally recognized Agricultural Reserve with the bustling transit centers of Bethesda and Silver Spring.

The Agricultural Reserve attracts employers and employees to Montgomery by providing the quality-of-life benefits of nearby farmland, local food, resource conservation and recreational opportunities. The annual agricultural value alone is more than $251 million with negligible impact on public services. All residents can share in Montgomery's economic success and high-quality education because of the pioneering moderately priced dwelling unit policy, which provides affordable housing opportunities close to jobs and transit.

Fairfax and Montgomery counties each have competitive advantages. But Fairfax doesn't have a beautiful, productive agricultural reserve or the wealth of existing Metro stations. With just five Metro stations today, compared to 12 in Montgomery, Fairfax is racing to catch up and to create its own transit-oriented centers.

If there is any difference in recent economic activity, some might be traced to increased defense spending and contracting, which has favored northern Virginia. Yet, the coming years and decades will see growing health needs for an older population and major investment in the health sector. That's where Montgomery is dominant.

But in the rush to capture the health and life sciences market, let's not create other problems and miss opportunities to prepare for a sustainable future. It's great that Johns Hopkins University wants to invest in Montgomery County, but at what cost in terms of infrastructure and energy consumption?

Smart, efficient locations will mean everything in the future. The problems with the Life Sciences Center include a location that will be far more auto-dependent than others in the county, will exacerbate the east-west jobs imbalance and increase long-distance commuting and will require costly interchanges and other new infrastructure when there are a range of existing transit-served locations available.

White Flint and other Metro developments should receive top priority. Redevelopment at these locations ensures we fix roads like Rockville Pike and upgrade other existing infrastructure. This is important because our country is nearly broke. We certainly cannot afford to continue to spend billions of dollars for new infrastructure and also fix the maintenance backlog. Montgomery's aging water and sewer mains are exploding on a regular basis and need replacement, and redevelopment allows for the private sector to share in the cost.

We also face a high energy price future and need to fight climate change. The high-tech, energy efficient approach for JHU, other universities and corporations is to develop at existing Metro stations where transportation energy use is minimized. Addressing the east-west jobs/housing imbalance within Montgomery County (the southeastern side needs more jobs) will also help to reduce costly long-distance commuting, traffic and energy consumption.

For us, there is no doubt that Montgomery County remains competitive and that to maximize its future competitiveness, it should put priority on completing build-out at its transit stations, addressing the jobs/housing imbalance and networking its high-tech jobs via the Metro system.

We urge the County Council and county executive to support White Flint and other Metro station development as their top priorities, and to scale back the Johns Hopkins and Gaithersburg West proposals to the level that the current infrastructure can support.

Stewart Schwartz, Washington, D.C.

The writer is executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.