Temporary and permanent changes are in store as construction on Silver Spring’s transit center begins in earnest early this summer.
New bus-stop shelters will be erected at 16 of the 24 temporary bus bays around the construction site, Don Scheuerman, of the county’s department of public works, told members of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association in mid January.
A transit store and information center will be moved temporarily from its location at Metro Plaza on Colesville Road, to the corner of Wayne and Ramsey avenues. Temporary access to MARC commuter trains will be located at Bonifant Street and Ramsey Avenue, Scheuerman added.
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Bigger changes are planned for the jug handle, the traffic triangle at Colesville Road and Wayne Avenue that directs buses to and from the Silver Spring Metro station. The jug handle will be reconfigured temporarily to include a sidewalk, bus shelter and street lights with one-way bus traffic, Scheuerman said.
Once construction on the transit center is complete, the jug handle and its two-way bus traffic will be eliminated. Instead, it will be converted into a park with grass, loose furniture, trees and a gazebo, Scheuerman told the neighborhood association.
A commuter bike station is not planned for the jug-handle park, but its design does not preclude one from being built there in the future, Scheuerman explained.
Permanent changes include a new crosswalk on Colesville Road between Wayne Avenue and East-West Highway, just north of the rail overpass, Scheuerman said.
Other permanent changes — the installation of traffic lights on Wayne at Dixon avenues, the creation of two eastbound lanes along Bonifant Street, and the elimination of a left-turn lane on northbound Colesville Road at Second Avenue — have already been made.
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Did they talk at all about the final architecture or detailing of the facility? When we last heard anything significant, MoCo told them that it wouldn’t be acceptable to build the dumbed down version that we all saw in the “massing studies” and “concept drawings”. What’s it going to actually look like?
Also, will Foulger-Pratt be constructing the private portions of the site at the same time? Any word on those three buildings?
Where might the plebian society access the drawings for these things online?
Editor’s note: I will try to post those images on The Penguin’s uncooperative Flickr page as soon as possible. — JD (Feb 4, 2008)
The transit hub will make things convenient for us downtown Silver Spring residents, although I shudder to think how quickly it will acquire mounds of bird droppings and homeless-urine stench if it’s run like the enclosed transit facilities elsewhere in Montgomery County (e.g., Bethesda Metro Center and the Ride On loop at Friendship Heights, or the pedestrian bridge at Wheaton).
I imagine it will be the “dumbed down” version (as Woodsider calles it). The economy has taken a sharp nosedive since that controversy hit. If I remember, the bus bays are on an open air, 3 story oval, about the size of a football field.
If it is the dumbed down version, we can be thankful that they tucked it behind three buildings and an entry park (corner of Wayne & Colesville). We keep seeing the renderings from the perspective of someone arriving on a Metro/Marc Train, but the vast majority of us will see it from the street, and therefore the ugliness will be (hopefully) mostly obscured by the new office, hotel and ahem, condos/apartments.
Re: the final architecture of the facility
Don Scheuerman used the same massing study that has been circulating for awhile (the “dumbed down version”) during his presentation to describe the general features of the new transit center.
While he did point out that these were only massing studies and the final design could change, I got the sense from him that the new transit center will, in the end, look very much like the image in the massing study.
Hi, people!
I’ve posted some renderings of the future transit center on The Penguin’s Flickr site.
Enjoy!
Jen, these are the same renderings that were released a long time ago. For those who aren’t familiar with the project, these renderings are what planners call “massing studies” and do not (for God’s sake I hope not) represent the final architectural detailing of the facility.
Editor’s note: You’re correct — These renderings have been around awhile, but they are the most current thing going. And as Penguin reporter Ronald Pace said above, it’s unlikely that any more ‘architectural details’ are forthcoming. — JD (Feb 5, 2008)
Hmmm…I wonder why they wouldn’t release them on such an important public project? Probably because everyone is a critic and they just need to get it built.
It’s 4 Aug, when will construction begin? i was @ SSM on Sat & saw nada.
Also, why eliminate turning L when driving up Colesville towards GA Ave? I hate that!