Letter on the Closing of Campus Drive
May 9, 2010
Dear Dr. Mote:
The Action Committee for Transit, in its mission of advocating for better transit and better communities in Montgomery County and Maryland as a whole, is very concerned about the University of Maryland's plans to close Campus Drive to all traffic this summer. While we support the closure to most automobile traffic, the closure to most buses, including Metrobus, TheBus, and almost all ShuttleUM routes, would diminish student, faculty, and staff access to campus via transit. It also seems designed to strengthen the University administration's efforts against a Campus Drive Purple Line alignment. Relegating ShuttleUM, Metrobus, and TheBus to the edges of campus along with private cars would force many students to transfer buses to reach the College Park-UMD Metro or other destinations outside campus. It will lengthen transit trips and reduce ridership, in contradiction with University of Maryland and Maryland policies. Many of the Metrobus routes run through both Prince George's and Montgomery Counties, and are therefore funded by both jurisdictions through Maryland's WMATA appropriations process. Any rerouting to the fringes of campus will increase travel times on the buses, and consequently increase expenses to both counties.
According to the Maryland Transit Administration, 750 transit vehicles use Campus Drive between 6 am and 7 pm on a typical school day, compared to 5,500 private cars, mostly containing only a single passenger. Banning private cars while still allowing transit vehicles would reduce vehicular traffic by 88% -- certainly enough to make Campus Drive a pedestrian-centered area while still permitting convenient campus access for students, faculty, and staff. Meanwhile, Shuttle UM ridership has soared as the University builds more off-campus student housing connected to the campus by shuttles. Is it consistent for one University policy to support transportation to campus by shuttle and for another policy to ban those very same shuttles from the heart of the campus? Closing Campus Drive to transit vehicles also runs counter to goals established in the Master Plan and Climate Action Plan to encourage alternative transportation use.
In addition, as you know, the undergraduate Student Government Association opposes the closing. In a recent email to Purple Line Now, a coalition of which the Action Committee for Transit is a founding member, SGA Director of Environmental Affairs Joanna Calabrese wrote, "I strongly believe that students will react negatively to this current plan [to close Campus Drive to transit vehicles]. The Stamp is a central transit hub and a primary destination of students and visitors. Denying transit access to the such a central place would make it difficult for visitors, staff, students, and faculty to reach a prime campus destination and would unnecessarily complicate area transit routes." Students are experts about getting to and around campus because they do it every day. Because of their daily experiences, their views on campus transportation
The administration has been fighting a Campus Drive Purple Line alignment for years, citing concerns that the trains would harm sensitive experiments in the basements of the bio-sciences, physics, and engineering buildings that are on Campus Drive. However, the Department of Physics has been planning on moving its most cutting edge, electromagnetically sensitive experiments to a new building on Regents Drive between Stadium and Farm Drives, almost a quarter of a mile away from the Campus Drive Purple Line alignment.
Finally, closing Campus Drive to all vehicles, including transit vehicles, seems to signal the University of Maryland's continuing and unwise refusal to take advantage of the many benefits of the Purple Line running through campus. Transit access to the Washington, D.C. area is one of the University's major competitive advantages over other state flagship research institutions. When I was a freshman, I lived in Ellicott Hall. The College Park Metro Station is a 25-30 minute walk from my old dorm. I learned that if I could get to the Metro, I would be able to explore the region. (I didn't grow up in the area and didn't even know what a subway system was when I first moved in.) I found out that one of the buses that stops in front of the Stamp Student Union on Campus Drive is a shuttle that goes to the Metro. I walked over to the Student Union, caught the bus to the Metro, and later that day walked around a major city unsupervised for the first time in my life. I owe much of my great undergraduate experience and valuable experiences as a young adult in the Washington, D.C. area to the University of Maryland's location inside the Capital Beltway.
As a University of Maryland alum (B.S. Physics, 2003) and Action Committee for Transit board member, I implore the University of Maryland to listen to the Student Government Association. Closing Campus Drive to all motorized vehicles, including buses, and a future Purple Line would immediately create a tremendous inconvenience for the large portion of students, faculty and staff who ride buses to campus. It would require rerouting buses to streets that are not well-equipped to handle them. It would require transit-oriented students, faculty, and staff to walk much farther to reach classroom buildings, most of which are clustered near the Stamp Student Union. It would also make the University of Maryland less attractive to prospective students because the campus would not be using its locational strategic advantage to its full potential.
Sincerely, Cavan Wilk, Board Member