Family Night tonight at Roy Rogers in Aspen Hill

Tonight is Family Night at the Roy Rogers in Aspen Hill, from 5:00-8:00 PM. Enjoy crafts, games and bingo as Roy Rogers celebrates Valentine's Day in advance.

Buy one adult combo meal, and you'll get one kids meal free (child must be present to receive free meal). Roy Rogers is located at 13884 Georgia Avenue, in the Northgate Plaza shopping center.

MoCo traffic jams worsening, new study shows (Photos)

Typical morning rush
conditions on southbound
I-270 this morning: RED

You know traffic is getting worse when even a Montgomery County government report admits it is. While traffic and intersection tests utilized by Montgomery County planners are notoriously and laughably skewed to make things appear better than they are, the latest one finds drivers are crawling even more slowly than they were six years ago. The Montgomery County Planning Department's 2017 Mobility Assessment Staff Report shows you are moving, on average, 4 MPH slower around the county than you were in 2011. "Unexpected delays and peak congestion are increasing," the report says.

These results - and remember, the real conditions are even worse than they can appear under the lax tests applied for this study, and traffic has slowed much more than 4 MPH on many routes; 4 MPH is the average reduction in speed countywide - clearly indicate that our elected officials' current transit-only strategy has been a failure.

In fact, the study found that Ride On bus ridership has declined 7% since 2010, and Metro ridership within Montgomery County declined 3% over that same period. Metrobus is the lone bright spot. Ridership of Metrobus has increased "just under eleven percent" since 2010. That may be partially because of people fleeing Metro along the major corridors where Metrobus dominates, but certainly positive news in an otherwise bleak period for transit.

What happens when the
Montgomery County Council
approves massive development
in Clarksburg and Damascus,
but doesn't build the
M-83 Highway and
Damascus Bypass

Interestingly, just as planning commissioners and County Councilmembers are saying jamming the maximum development downcounty as possible (and we're not talking about transit-oriented smart growth, but transit deserts like Westbard) is a great idea, the report found that traffic jams have increased the most...downcounty. Oops.

So, let's get this straight: Transit use is clearly trending downward. Cars are moving slower than they were before "smart growth." We were promised exactly the opposite would happen by these same county officials. It didn't.

Amazingly, the Planning Board and County Council just approved the addition of over 3000 people to the Westbard sector plan area along River Road. Yet this latest study shows that the intersection of River Road and Western Avenue is number 3 on the top 10 bottlenecks in Montgomery County! And they've said they have no plans to increase capacity on River Road. This is planning malpractice of the highest order. Criminally, the report does not give a congestion map for River Road between the Beltway and Western - was that because it would show a red line? You betcha.

The County Council has
designated this completely
jammed segment of
Connecticut Avenue as a place
where...thousands more
automobile commuters should
be added!

Check out the red-lined severe congestion during the evening rush on Connecticut Avenue through Chevy Chase Lake - where the County Council recently approved thousands of new housing units. This is unbelievable. What are these people smoking?

Will it be better in
the morning? Uh, no

The Level 5 [traffic]storm
known as MD 355
northbound in
Bethesda

Are we ready for
thousands more cars
in downtown Bethesda
in the morning? Nope

"Kill me now"
- George Costanza

Considering how much growth is coming to the MD 355 (Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue corridor) in the next decade, it should be a red flag that four of the top ten bottlenecks in the county are along that corridor. The others are New Hampshire Avenue, Connecticut Avenue and Georgia Avenue. We can now see the impact of never completing the Northwest Freeway, North Central Freeway and Northern Parkway, as those were supposed to take through-traffic off of those north-south commuter routes.

Aspen Hill is moving
much more slowly;
the top purple number is 2017 speed,
the bottom green is 2011

What happens when you don't
build the Rockville Freeway, Part I

What happens when you don't
build the Rockville Freeway, Part II
(and delay Montrose Parkway East)

Heavy traffic jams shown on Randolph Road and Norbeck Road, as well as sizable decreases in travel speed since 2011 along those east-west corridors, show the impact of failing to build the Rockville Freeway and Montrose Parkway East along the Rockville Facility right-of-way.

In short, we are being led by very stupid people.

None of this is to say we cannot have growth and greater density near Metro stations in our urban areas. What it is saying is that our elected officials have failed to provide the infrastructure necessary to handle that growth. And it is forcing us, as voters, to ask ourselves how much longer we'll allow these clowns to get away with it.

Silver Spring construction update: Taylor Gourmet (Photos)

Progress continues at the long-awaited Taylor Gourmet, located at 8535 Fenton Street in downtown Silver Spring. 

First look: BBQ restaurant replacing A.G. Kitchen in Silver Spring (Photos)

The Restaurant Group promised it would replace its shuttered A.G. Kitchen at Downtown Silver Spring with a new concept. It turns out that concept is barbecue. Here's a sneak peek inside the new restaurant, which should be opening in the coming weeks. Bonus points if you can count how many pigs are displayed as part of the decor.

This will be the latest attempt to bring a real barbecue joint to Montgomery County, which BBQ aficionados who don't share my love of McDonald's McRib assure me we don't have yet.

MoCo Council humiliated again as Rosslyn scores Nestle corporate HQ

750 jobs are coming to...Rosslyn, not Montgomery County, as Northern Virginia handed the impotent Montgomery County Council their briefcases again in the economic development game this week. Monday Properties announced Wednesday it has signed Nestle as the anchor tenant at 1812 N. Moore Street, a 35-story office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia. Nestle's corporate headquarters will relocate to the building from California, a state with an increasingly-poor business climate like MoCo.

$16 million in incentives from Arlington County and Virginia (humiliatingly, a small fraction of the $62 million-and-counting MoCo and Maryland taxpayers had to shell out just to move the Marriott deck chair down the Titanic deck from Rock Spring to downtown Bethesda) were just part of the success story. More business-friendly tax rates and regulations, Metro proximity and direct highway access were some of the advantages Rosslyn enjoyed. "Virginia offers a business-friendly environment," Nestle said in a press release Wednesday.

"Easy access to transportation" was a major factor, according to the Washington Post. 1812 N. Moore is right at the Rosslyn Metro station, and has direct highway access to I-66, I-395, the Whitehurst Freeway, Jefferson Davis Highway, and the George Washington Memorial Parkway, plus straight shots to Reagan National and Dulles airports.

Virginia was already home to over 70 corporate headquarters, and to many more Fortune 500 corporate headquarters than Montgomery County or Maryland. Nestle is a Fortune Global 500 company.

According to the Post, Virginia had been courting Nestle for over a year. Not a word was spoken about pursuing Nestle by Montgomery County elected officials during that time. As the top food company on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Nestle would have been a good fit for the White Oak area, near the FDA. Or in an office tower above the Wheaton or Bethesda Metro stations. The Council didn't even try.

And so, the humiliation continues. Montgomery County has failed to attract a single major corporate headquarters in two decades. It is the only jurisdiction in the D.C. region to suffer a net loss in private sector jobs since 2000; all others around us had a net gain. Our elected officials' intentional failure to complete our master plan highway system has left us with the worst traffic congestion in the nation, and no direct access to Dulles International Airport, the preferred flight hub for international companies.

As a result, Montgomery County finds itself a bedroom community for the job centers elsewhere in our region. Our private sector economy is moribund. The County is running a long-term structural budget deficit, as expenditures continue to swamp revenues. Even our once top-rated school system in now in a steady decline.

It's clear our County elected officials don't understand how the private sector business world works, and have no interest in learning. Time and again, they've proven they can't hit major league pitching when it comes to economic development. The results are being borne by the taxpayers in the form of record taxes, to make up for the low revenues our incompetent County Council has generated through its failed policies.

Voters will have to finish the job in 2018 they began by approving term limits in 2016. Throw the bums out.

Banta Baa restaurant coming to Takoma Park

Banta Baa, a restaurant serving West African cuisine, is coming soon to Takoma Park. The restaurant will be located at 8000 Flower Avenue, in a small strip mall.

Fatality in Wheaton pedestrian collision

The Silver Spring woman struck by an automobile on Georgia Avenue on January 15 has died. Consuelo Mary Anglarill, 82, of Bonnywood Lane in Silver Spring, passed away on Sunday, January 29. She had been hospitalized since the crash.

Police continue to investigate the circumstances of the collision, including what the traffic signal indicated at the time of the collision, and whether Anglarill was in the area of the crosswalk when she was struck.

Anyone with information regarding this collision is asked to contact the Collision Reconstruction Unit at 240-773-6620.