The Montgomery County Council wants the Corridor Cities Transitway to be a bus rapid transit system. The Rockville City Council could care less.

At least that remains the city’s formal position, Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio said in an interview last week after the County Council voted to back bus rapid transit for the proposed 14-mile transit line between the Shady Grove Metro station and the COMSAT site near Clarksburg.

Last spring, the Maryland Transit Administration rejected a request by the City Council to reconsider the route after King Farm residents asked the city to intervene.

The City Council drafted a letter to MTA in January 2011 asking the state to study alternate routes that would not include transit stations in the north Rockville neighborhood.

The letter was a “response to citizen outcry,” Marcuccio said.

“We are not for or against [the CCT] so much as we were trying to be considerate [of the request by King Farm residents],” she said.

Rockville has refrained from stating a preference between light rail or bus rapid transit and has offered to work with MTA on details to mitigate any impact on King Farm.

Mitigation is also the aim of the King Farm Citizens’ Assembly, said KFCA President Martin Green.

With community members representing different views, KFCA has declined to take a formal position on the form of the CCT, he said.

“If it’s coming, we want to work with everybody to minimize disruption,” Green said.

The organization also has aesthetic and safety concerns about a transit line bisecting the community.

“If it’s coming, we want to work to keep green space,” Green said.

KFCA has spent “$8,000 at least” on landscaping in the right-of-way in the median of King Farm Boulevard that the state has reserved for the CCT.

The homeowners group recognizes that the CCT is part of King Farm’s master plan, Green said.

When the new urban, pedestrian-friendly community began to take root in north Rockville at the end of the last century, the transit project was intended to be a key part of its future and a draw for potential residents.

Marcuccio said she wishes the state had the money to move forward with a light rail option for the project.

“There’s a nicer feeling about rail,” she said. “There’s an element that’s permanent and a feeling that a community has something as an anchor.”

While rail is permanent, it’s also expensive—and potentially more disruptive, she said.

“Bus is a little less upsetting, it’s more tolerable, especially because you have a community that’s already entrenched,” she said.

For now, the city will “pay attention” to the bus option, Marcuccio said.

Meanwhile, King Farm residents await the state’s recommendation of bus or light rail, Green said.

Even once a preferred mode is chosen, questions remain about exactly what it will look like, he said.

There has been no indication whether light rail will look like the MTA light rail in Baltimore or like the system in Seattle, Green said. So far, the state’s message has been: “When we get the money we’ll tell you exactly what we need and what we’re going to put in there,” he said.

According to Metrorail’s master plan, the Shady Grove Metro station in its present form is not adequate to handle light rail, Green said.

That could lead to more questions—questions that King Farm wants to help answer.

“The community wants to be part of any advisory committees,” Green said.