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Transportation Planners Launch Effort to Review Montgomery County Road Network

SILVER SPRING – Planners propose to review and revise the county’s Master Plan of Highways, an effort that classifies each Montgomery County road, in the first comprehensive update to the transportation network plan since 1955. The Master Plan will cover the entire county, with the exception of the seven municipalities, including Rockville and Gaithersburg, that have their own planning and zoning authority.

On Thursday, transportation planners will bring to the Planning Board the scope of work to update the Master Plan of Highways. The resulting plan, which will take about a year to produce, will update the road network with current classifications, incorporate road changes, and align it with the County Road Code, which was comprehensively updated in 2007.

For example, transportation planners may recommend that some roads be reclassified as “minor arterials” and “controlled major highways,” new classifications in the Road Code that reflect the use of a road. Those classifications also govern when direct access and traffic calming measures can be provided. The plan also may recommend changing or adding to the list of county Rustic Roads, which are preserved to maintain an area’s rural and agricultural character.

To better organize roadway information, the plan will feature an alphabetized list of all roads, their classifications, and details such as number of lanes and the width of the rights-of-way for each road.

The countywide document will bring into sync changes to roads and transitways that have occurred through master and sector plans, a few of which are approved and adopted each year. Overall, planners expect that the new Master Plan of Highways will be a one-stop source for residents and anyone curious about area roads.

As part of the update, planners suggest changing the title to include “transitways” to reflect  Montgomery County’s far-reaching and expanding public transportation system. Planners expect to incorporate results of the county Department of Transportation’s Bus Rapid Transit study into the final product.

Planners will work with a technical advisory team and conduct four public meetings in different quadrants of the county to explain the project and gain input from interested residents.

What:   
Master Plan of Highways Scope of Work

When:   
Approximately 3 p.m. Thursday, November 19

Where:
Park and Planning Headquarters
8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring

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