Montgomery County Department of Transportation Bus Rapid Transit Preliminary Investigation Study Mapping

The Montgomery County Planning Board, part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, is committed to enhancing community life by addressing key issues like growth, transportation, environmental protection, agriculture, historical preservation, and forest conservation. Through its 2013 Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan, the board aims to improve transit opportunities to support economic development and mobility goals sustainably. The plan suggests changes to the transportation network, focusing on densely developed areas, redevelopment zones, and new dense development areas. Notably, the plan includes the MD 355 Flash BRT service, enhancing bus service along MD 355 (Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike/Frederick Road) with dedicated lanes, supplying fast and reliable transit to this bustling corridor. The project fosters new connections and supports growth and redevelopment in key activity centers.

During the design of the BRT routes, establishing surveying control and obtaining design-grade survey mapping were critical parts of the process. Under a joint venture contract, GPI Geospatial played a key role by using its mobile mapping system to collect ground-based lidar. Covering approximately 21.7 miles of existing urban roadway along a busy commercialized highway in the county’s main business districts, GPI Geospatial’s survey crews set and positioned over 300 mobile and aerial targets using RTK GNSS positioning. They established more than 20 primary control stations with NGS OPUS positioning services and CORS stations, determining elevations through precise digital leveling along the entire corridor. The terrestrial lidar and street level imagery are used for extraction of planimetric and DTM data. The aerial imagery and lidar are being used to develop georeferenced orthophotography and bare earth lidar surface data to augment obscured areas.