Fourteen Maryland transit stations will be designated for TOD, governor says

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley pledged the state to working on transit-oriented development (TOD) adjacent to rail stations in New Carrollton and elsewhere.

After years of little TOD progress in Prince George's County, the governor is promising much more development at rail stations in the county, The Washington Post reported July 23 in an article available here. The board of directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority approved an agreement allowing Maryland the the transit authority to develop 41 acres they own around the New Carrollton station.

The New Carrollton development will help transform "an area of single-family homes and six-lane roadways into an urban center with 6.1 million square feet of office and retail space and 5,500 residential units," the Post reported.  Prince George's has 2,200 acres of undeveloped land around its stations, more than any other jurisdiction in the Washington region. For years, obstacles have prevented high-quality mixed-use development from rising around the county's stations.

"It's a major shift," Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said of recent announcements by the transit agency and the state. O'Malley is relocating a state agency's offices to one station in Prince George's and has identified 14 stations throughout the state as sites for TOD.