Black Hills

Located at the northern terminus of Crystal Rock Drive west of I–270 in Montgomery County, Maryland, Black Hills is a mixed-use Transit Oriented Development (TOD) with 1,500 residential units, 1 million square feet of office space, and 90,000 square feet of retail. Traffic Impact Analyses, internal road designs, and 11 off-site intersections requiring Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) improvements were necessary for the project. The owner wanted an urban style and design of the internal arterial roadways with a redundant grid system. The Department of Transportation (DOT), however, wanted to keep the high-speed suburban design, as called for in the County Master Plan. The Traffic Group conducted an analysis and introduced a roundabout at the road terminus to create a 90-degree turn instead of a 400-foot radius sweeping curve. The results of the analysis swayed agencies in favor of the recommendations, resulting in significantly smaller roads, narrower rights of way, and slower design speeds.