Alison Bryant/The Gazette "Mostly it's the parking situation. At the building I'm at, the parking belongs to the building in front. My friends park there and get tickets." Arbri Dinaj, 23.

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Alison Bryant/The Gazette "City wide? Oh, my, Rockville Pike. It really is a mess. I had to stop practically every other light. A lot of the streets around town, they should synchronize the lights in order to not have to stop at every other light." Mina Holland
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Alison Bryant/The Gazette "I'd like for the city to address the transportation. [King Farm] is advertised as a premiere pedestrian neighborhood. This excess traffic is sort of contradictory to the initial vision." Melvin Willis, 60

Alison Bryant/The Gazette "Mostly it's the parking situation. At the building I'm at, the parking belongs to the building in front. My friends park there and get tickets." Arbri Dinaj, 23.

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The Gazette is zooming in on five neighborhoods — Twinbrook, King Farm, Town Center, West End and Fallsmead — to learn from residents what they see as concerns. Last week, Twinbrook residents voiced concerns about school overcrowding, development and transit.

So, what do King Farm residents want from the next Rockville Mayor and City Council, who will be sworn in Nov. 28?

The mayoral race features two candidates — incumbent Phyllis Marcuccio and Councilman Piotr Gajewski. Eight candidates — Councilwoman Bridget Donnell Newton, Councilman Mark Pierzchala, Leslie A. Francis Jr., Richard Gottfried, John F. Hall Jr.,Tom Moore, Virginia Onley and Dion Trahan — are seeking council seats. Joseph Jordan, a former candidate, announced Tuesday he will no longer run for a council seat.

King Farm, a 435-acre planned community, features single-family homes, townhouses, apartments and condominiums. And 3,078 occupy those living spaces. Office and retail space also sits on the property.

In 1925, W. Lawton King purchased farmland from the Graff family, and later combined it with three adjacent farms. King called the land Irvington Farm, which later became known as King Farm.

And about 10 years ago, King Farm grew into the pedestrian-friendly neighborhood residents know today.

Road worriers

King Farm, the pedestrian-friendly community in northern Rockville, is a pleasant place to live, residents said this week.

But some worry about the volume and speed of traffic moving through the neighborhood.

“My biggest concern that I fight with the mayor and everybody on is traffic,” said Melvin Willis, a King Farm resident. “Because when they developed King Farm, I think they made a serious mistake by allowing the off-ramp to use King Farm as a cut through.”

Interstate 270 sits to the west of King Farm and Route 355 sits to the east. The two north-south roads make way for large volumes of traffic; a six-lane highway one one side and a three-lane road on the other. An average of 223,731 vehicles daily pass King Farm on I-270, according to the Maryland State HIghway Administration. An average of 45,141 vehicles daily pass King Farm on Route 355 daily.

And tractor trailers and gas trucks use the I-270 off-ramp to use the neighborhood as a shortcut to Route 355, Willis said.

Willis said he worked with a committee with Rockville City Police Department to find ways to mitigate the traffic. Permanent speed cameras operated by city police went up and the police circulated portable speed camera units periodically, he said.

“The response has been very poor on ways to mitigate or improve it,” Willis said.

And for Mina Holland, another King Farm resident, speed factors in to that large volume of traffic.

“People are not watching the speed signs,” Holland said. “I think people who live here are pretty good about it. But the ones who are dashing through to get to the Metro ... those are the ones who really are going too fast and there have been problems here with that.”

Parking used to concern residents, Holland said, but the city began designating areas as permit parking and banning parking without a permit in certain areas from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Otherwise, King Farm is a safe, comfortable home for Holland, she said.

Filling empty space

Irvington Centre, a 90-acre commercial park on the west side of King Farm, includes businesses such as a Sheraton hotel and Nick’s Chophouse, a restaurant. Much of the building space houses offices.

But a vacant lot next to the Sheraton would be a nice location for a federal government building, said Paul Stankus, King Farm resident.

“Trying to lure a large employer with proximity to the Metro in a prime location like that would bring a lot of jobs to Rockville,” Stankus said of the empty lot.

More economic development in general in Irvington Centre could help the community, he said.

A King Farm shuttle takes residents and employees at Irvington Centre to the Shady Grove Metro Station. Three shuttles with separate routes run from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.

abryant@gazette.net