The Traffic Group

Black Hills

Client:

Lerner Enterprises

Location:

Montgomery County, MD

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.

Want to know more?