Takoma Metro Development

In 1999, EYA, a townhouse development company, proposed a development plan for the Takoma Metro site. The proposal included a sale of most of the property to EYA and a relocation of the bus bays and other transit facilities on the site to a small portion of the property. Despite continuous concern about the negative impact to transit facilities on the site, the proposal remains largely unchanged. WMATA will gain little profit from the sale of the property.

The Takoma Park City Council has adopted six resolutions that apply to the development at the Takoma Metro site (see Listing of Documents/Videos/Links).

The Takoma Transportation Study was jointly funded by the District of Columbia Department of Transportation and the City of Takoma Park. The City of Takoma Park also contracted with Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associations of New York City, a nationally-recognized transit consulting firm, to analyze the replacement transit facilities proposed for the Takoma Metro station and, later, to show that transit facilities meeting transit needs could be designed for the Takoma Metro station while permitting development at the site.

A public hearing (the “Compact Hearing”) was held on October 11, 2006 concerning the proposed changes to the transit facilities. Community members and elected officials presenting oral and written testimony overwhelmingly opposed the plan: of 159 written comments, 155 opposed the plan, and of 59 persons who testified at the hearing, 54 opposed the plan. Of the 8 persons who either supported or did not oppose the plan, 5 did not support reducing the amount of parking at the station. The City of Takoma Park provided extensive comments, detailed transportation planning studies and a financial analysis as part of its public hearing submission.

In August 2007, WMATA staff issued a staff report on the hearing which was completely unresponsive to the comments submitted for the public hearing. In addition, it was learned that WMATA Board members did not receive the binders of information prepared by the City of Takoma Park as its submission for the public hearing. Neither did they receive the binders with the City’s response to the WMATA staff report.

On October 4, 2007, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett contacted WMATA to inform them of the County’s concerns about safe access for pedestrian and handicapped patrons if the EYA proposal were adopted as presented. The City of Takoma Park, in consultation with Montgomery County officials, then contracted with Nelson\Nygaard to illustrate ways transit facilities could be designed for the site that provide safe access for the patrons. This information was then presented to WMATA. Communications from Montgomery County to WMATA went unanswered until the morning of October 25, 2007, the date of the planned WMATA Board vote on the EYA proposal.

At the October 25, 2007 WMATA Board meeting, discussion of the Takoma Metro proposal took place and several votes occurred. In the end, a decision on the EYA proposal was delayed to a special Board meeting on November 8. The two-week delay was presumed to allow an opportunity to come to agreement on a design that meets the transit safety concerns. The two-week delay was presumably to allow an opportunity to come to an agreement on a design that would meet the transit safety concerns. However, WMATA staff indicated that they had received no Board direction to do so. On November 8, the WMATA Board voted 5-0 to approve the EYA Plan.