Mr. Mendelson's letter (June 20 on the subject of bus rapid transit asks, "Why should Montgomery County be handed only the choice of a dedicated bus lane..."

The implicit argument is that since Baltimore got a light rail, so should Montgomery County.

One good reason for a bus (rather than rail) transit system for intra-Montgomery County service is that our county has become egregiously anti-development and to some extent anti-business and thus is less likely to develop the land-use density on the transit lines that would result in high ridership per mile.

Baltimore, although the light rail ridership is currently only about 1,000 daily boardings per mile, is at least pro-development and might someday increase land-use density enough to make significantly better use of their light rail system.

For what it is worth, the Cleveland light rail system which Mr. Mendelson mentions only has about half the daily boardings per mile that Baltimore has, while some systems (such as the ones serving Phoenix, Denver, Seattle and Minneapolis) have quite a bit more boardings per mile than the system serving Baltimore and, of course, each system has unique characteristics regarding operation, fares, etc.

Martin Weiss, Potomac