Category: Maryland

Baltimore, Maryland. Photo by Kevin Labianco via Flickr.

The Baltimore metropolitan area is planning for the region’s future development thanks to a Regional Planning Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

The Opportunity Collaborative for a Greater Baltimore Region spans a diverse landscape ranging from the dense urban streets of Baltimore to the rural, pastoral landscapes of Northeastern Maryland. The project encompasses Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County, Carroll County, Harford County and Anne Arundel County – an area home to more than 2.5 million people.

Join Smart Growth America’s President Geoff Anderson, the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Montgomery County Sierra Club next week for a panel and discussion about transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and smart growth solutions in Montgomery County, MD. Get the latest updates on Montgomery transit projects and join fellow advocates for discussion about smart growth issues in the county.

Years from now, I want my grandchildren to enjoy living in Maryland as much as I do. That’s why I support PlanMaryland.

I want my grandchildren to enjoy the beauty of Patapsco Valley State Park and the bustling downtown of historic Annapolis. I want them to be able to eat food grown in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and to find a job in Maryland. I want Maryland to be a place they will love.

PlanMaryland will help make sure all these things are possible. On Monday, Governor Martin O’Malley signed an executive order on this long-term growth plan for the state, and I completely support his action.

PlanMaryland will save Maryland taxpayers billions of dollars of infrastructure costs, including $1.5 billion on necessary road repair. In addition, the Plan will help Maryland avoid $29 billion in road and school construction costs over the next 25 years, which would be needed to keep pace with current trends.

PlanMaryland will stimulate economic development and revitalization in towns, cities and other existing communities. Many of Maryland’s communities have empty storefronts and vacant homes, and PlanMaryland will help bring people back to these places. The Plan will also support 600,000 new jobs in Maryland by the year 2035.

Property owners in Montgomery County, Maryland, want to make their neighborhood great, and they’re using smart growth strategies to do it.

The White Flint Partnership is a group of Montgomery County property owners working to create an amenity-rich, new urban center for the area that is engaging, accessible, connected, convenient, green, safe and vibrant.

Governor Parris Glendening, President of Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute, spoke earlier this fall at the White Flint Partnership’s second Speaker Series event. Governor Glendening spoke about the principles of smart growth and these strategies are currently being used around the country. He also discussed demographic changes projected to take place in Montgomery County in coming years, and how those changes will impact the area’s development needs. Investments in transit and sustainable design, Glendening explained, are just some of the ways White Flint can meet future demand and improve quality of life for existing residents.

Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which operates Metrorail and Metrobus service in the region, brings large, tangible benefits to the DC-area economy. A new report from WMATA, prepared by AECOM and Smart Growth America, details just how big these benefits are.

“WMATA Regional Benefits of Transit” (PDF) examines Metro’s impact on several aspects of the DC-area economy, including how public transit supports businesses, workers, families, visitors, and the region’s largest employer, the federal government.

The report found that Metro is an outstanding investment of public funds. Access to Metrorail significantly boosts property values and tax revenues for the city. Real estate located within ½ mile of a Metrorail station represents 27.9% of the area’s tax base on just 4% of its land, including 68.1% for DC, 15.3% for Virginia, and 9.9% for Maryland.

Metro supports businesses, and economic activity tied to Metro’s presence is critical to the success of the region. Claude Anderson of the Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Association is quoted in the report’s executive summary:

We have come a long, long way from the bad old days of a deserted, dilapidated and dangerous downtown during the evening hours and few destination retail and entertainment neighborhoods. The establishment and growth of vibrant areas such as Penn Quarter, Ballston, U/14th Street corridors are directly attributable to transportation access for patrons, visitors and employees.

Collectively, Metro saves DC-area families $342 million per year in car operating expenses. Home values may increase near rail stations, but families save significantly on transportation costs each year.

It is not often that a desk-bound policy wonk can grab the attention of a pre-schooler by talking about her day, but I have found a new way to connect with my four-year-old twin boys: toilets, and where stuff goes when you flush them.

To be more specific, my work recently has dealt with septic tanks and their challenges. The fascinating world of state sewage regulation got even more fascinating last summer when Maryland’s Task Force on Sustainable Growth and Wastewater Treatment gathered to work through the complex relationship between septic systems, sprawling subdivisions, and the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Maryland’s Department of Planning estimates that each new household that relies on a septic tank will generate about 23 pounds of nitrogen per year, compared to just 2.5 pounds per household connected to a wastewater treatment plant. If the coming decades’ growth follows current trends, roughly 26% of new households coming to Maryland will rely on septic systems. That quarter of the population will be responsible for three-quarters of the future nitrogen pollution load. What’s so bad about nitrogen? When it leaches into soil and drains into the Chesapeake Bay, nitrogen encourages the growth of algae that use up oxygen and block out sunlight, eventually creating dead zones.

Decades of underinvestment in regular repair have left many states’ roads in poor condition, and the cost of repairing these roads is rising faster than many states can address them. These liabilities are outlined in a new report by Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense, released today, which examines road conditions and spending priorities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report recommends changes at both the state and federal level that can reduce future liabilities, benefit taxpayers and create a better transportation system.

Repair Priorities: Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads found that between 2004 and 2008 states spent 43 percent of total road construction and preservation funds on repair of existing roads, while the remaining 57 percent of funds went to new construction. That means 57 percent of these funds was spent on only 1 percent of the nation’s roads, while only 43 percent was dedicated to preserving the 99 percent of the system that already existed. As a result of these spending decisions, road conditions in many states are getting worse and costs for taxpayers are going up.

“Federal taxpayers have an enormous stake in seeing that our roads are kept in good condition,” said Erich W. Zimmermann of Taxpayers for Common Sense at a briefing earlier today. “Billions of precious tax dollars were spent to build our highway system, and neglecting repair squanders that investment. Keeping our roads in good condition reduces taxpayers’ future liabilities.”

“Spending too little on repair and allowing roads to fall apart exposes states and the federal government to huge financial liabilities,” said Roger Millar of Smart Growth America. “Our findings show that in order to bring their roads into good condition and maintain them that way, states would collectively have to spend $43 billion every year for the next 20 years – more than they currently spend on all repair, preservation and new capacity combined. As this figure illustrates, state have drifted too far from regular preservation and repair and in so doing have created a deficit that is going to take decades to reverse.”

The high cost of poor conditions
According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, every $1 spent to keep a road in good condition avoids $6-14 needed later to rebuild the same road once it has deteriorated significantly. Investing too little on road repair increases these future liabilities, and with every dollar spent on new construction many states add to a system they are already failing to keep in good condition.

State and federal leaders can do more to see that highway funds are spent in ways that benefits driver and taxpayers. More information about the high cost of delaying road repair, how states invest their transportation dollars and what leaders can do to address these concerns is available in the full report.

Click here to read the full report, state-specific data and view the interactive map.

Crossposted from Farmland Preservation Report.
Originally written by Bob Heuer

Buy-in from farmland owners on suburbia’s edge can accelerate efforts to create compact, walkable communities in metropolitan regions nationwide. So says Parris Glendening, president of Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute. This Washington-based non-profit agency helps local governments implement strategies that target housing and transportation investment near jobs, shops and schools.

Stable urban-edge farm economies will encourage urban reinvestment by acting as a market-based firewall to impede suburbia’s outward march, according to Glendening—a national leader for smart growth during two terms as governor of Maryland, serving from 1995 to 2003.

The Glendening administration created a number of innovative incentives for local governments to encourage more compact patterns of development. Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program, one of Glendening’s most successful programs, has preserved large blocks of agricultural and natural land. Less successful was a law that targeted state assistance to “priority funding areas”—i.e. urbanizing locales that met smart growth criteria.

“I used to say the best tool against sprawl is a prosperous agricultural community,” Gov. Glendening recalls. “People who are opposed to sprawl often don’t understand the importance of farmers remaining economically viable. And the ag community was often hostile towards smart growth. They view their land as their own IRA and want to protect their right to the very logical alternative of selling for development.”

Maryland’s initiatives helped boost local farm economies by expanding both the supply and demand for farmers markets products. Yet, the focus on environmental outcomes like open space and habitat protection sparked a political impasse.