Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Transportation Demand Management topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County hearing splits on repeal of Transportation Demand Management law; staff urges update rather than elimination
Summary
A proposed repeal of Montgomery County’s Transportation Demand Management code (Bill 24‑25) drew divided testimony: county transportation staff urged maintaining a statutory framework for TDM, while developers, employers and some hospital and property representatives argued the current project‑level NADMS approach is outdated and burdensome.
Haley Peckett, deputy director at Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT), told the council that TDM remains 1 of the most cost‑effective ways to reduce single‑occupancy vehicle trips and that legislative authority helps the department coordinate with employers and building owners.
“We found that having a legislative requirement for TDM activities makes a difference in terms of the number of people that we can reach,” Peckett said, while also signaling willingness to work on updated, streamlined legislation.
Opponents including developers and institutional employers argued that the current code’s reliance on a project‑level non‑auto driver mode share (NADMS) metric and pre‑occupancy obligations is outdated, legally risky and administratively burdensome. Testimony from Johns Hopkins Suburban Hospital noted long‑running operational obligations created by a negotiated TDM agreement — shuttle service, bike infrastructure, reporting and other requirements — that continue in perpetuity and divert resources from core mission work.
Proponents of repeal said the county should reframe TDM as a public‑service, incentive‑based program (a “carrot, not a stick”) and align program metrics with regional and employer controls rather than holding individual development projects to region‑level mode‑shift outcomes. Transportation advocates and staff warned that rescinding developer TDM plans could have legal consequences where mitigation agreements were negotiated as conditions of development approvals.
The council’s transportation and environment committee will receive the public record and deliberate whether to repeal, revise, or replace the existing code; officials and many witnesses urged replacement with streamlined requirements that preserve cooperation between the county and employers while reducing undue project‑level burdens.
