My name is Adam Pagnucco and I am a resident of Forest Estates.  I speak tonight in favor of building a Forest Glen Metro Station entrance on the eastern side of Georgia Avenue.

When the Forest Glen Metro Station was built in the late 1980's, the only entrances to the station were built on the west side of Georgia Avenue.  This leaves the 2,800 residents in our neighborhood two choices for accessing the station: walking across the intersection or
driving across.  Each choice has its problems.

Those who choose to drive must confront what the county government has labeled the most congested intersection in Montgomery County.  According to the State Highway Administration, 85,000 cars pass through the intersection on Georgia and 7,000 more use Forest Glen every day.  We often have to wait through three red light cycles to go through the intersection.  So why would anyone choose to drive to the Metro station?

Because the alternative – walking – may just be worse.  Georgia Avenue is not a road – it's a six-lane highway with two turnoff lanes.  I won't forget the first time I walked across it. I was swimming through a great milling sea of cars.  Even when the cars are all just idling, I have to yell in my wife's ear just to be heard.  Cutoffs, illegal lefts, frustrated drivers and even accidents are more common than grass on a lawn.  And at night, the rushing, roaring cars bang along like pinballs.

Tom Perez calls the intersection a pedestrian nightmare.  The pastor of the Montgomery Hills Baptist The founder of the private school in the church is terrified of taking his class of 30 kids across the intersection to the Metro. Pregnant women trying to get to Holy Cross Hospital – which delivers more babies than any other hospital in the state – struggle to make it across the street. And last April, two children ages 5 and 2 were struck trying to cross.

The police recorded 104 collisions there between 2004 and June 2006. Doctors in the Forest Glen Medical Center laugh at this statistic; they have 911 on speed dial and call it at least twice a week. The intersection's ills have become so legendary that it now has its own website – crossinggeorgia.com – that chronicles its wretched infamy.

We ask the county council for three remedies. First, we need to be listed in the county’s annual state priorities letter to our statehouse delegation. Our District 18 legislators have promised to work for state funding, but the county must ask for it first. Second, the county council asked for a study of the intersection last fall but the agencies have not moved on it yet. This is a good idea and we’d like you to help move it along. Finally, we would like to be listed in the CIP. Protecting pedestrians and encouraging mass transit use is worth the investment. Thank you.