In partnership with the Downtown Columbia Partnership and Foursquare ITP, Howard County is updating its Transportation Demand Management Plan for Downtown Columbia.
The purpose of this plan is to identify strategies that reduce the number of trips made, move more people in the same amount of roadway space, and spread the travel demand across more hours of the day to take advantage of space and capacity. The focus of this update to reevaluate the TDMP, determine what isn’t working, and improve it based on what we’ve learned and what’s changed due to COVID-19, though the new normal is still unknown.
As a part of this update we’re exploring different strategies and benefits that include things like pre-tax or subsidies for taking public transit, real-time information bus arrivals, shuttles to/from transit and other key locations, carpool and vanpool programs, reduced-price bikeshare memberships, increased opportunities for telework and alternative work schedules and more.
In Fall 2022, the Downtown Columbia Partnership brought together multiple stakeholders including multiple county departments, one master developer and majority landowner, an indoor mall, and a large HOA to conduct a walk audit of DTC. The outcome was a Pedestrian Improvement Action Plan which included a set of design recommendations organized by geographic area and intended to provide a list of actionable items which DTCP and its partners can use to guide their efforts in realizing a more walkable Downtown Columbia.
The plan can be found here: 2023-05-31 – Downtown Columbia Walk Audits Report – FINAL