To improve transit accessibility, Montgomery County has adopted a Master Plan for over 100 miles of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along nine designated corridors. With its implementation, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation in collaboration with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Transportation Land-Use Connections Program (MWCOG) seized the opportunity to advance flexible and sustainable infrastructure through a new adaptable and customizable BRT station prototype. A menu of interchangeable amenities will allow the station prototype to integrate into diverse community contexts and respond to different levels of anticipated ridership while maintaining a consistent architectural expression and branding. In addition to enhancing the public transportation experience for future BRT riders, the station prototype integrates sustainable strategies, including ‘landscape marker’ trees, stormwater management, photovoltaic panels to mitigate operational costs and drive towards a Net Zero energy goal, and natural materials including CLT and local stone. With construction for the first corridor (US29) completing in May, this presentation will offer a fresh take on lessons learned in design and implementation of the stations, but also early results on ridership and community response and effect.
Learning Objectives: After attending this presentation, participants will be able to: Apply ideas of flexible and customizable design to future infrastructure projects; Identify challenges for implementing their design into existing conditions through the experience learned by Montgomery county to appropriately predict and anticipate future hurdles; Compare their current public process of design elements to the path of MCDOTs public outreach via the MCOG study, in parallel with preliminary engineering; and compare their current public process of design elements to the path of MCDOTs public outreach via the MCOG study, in parallel with preliminary engineering.
Speaker: Christopher Somma, AIA - Associate, ZGF Architects
Credits: 1.5 HSW|LUs