Montgomery County Transit Services (Ride On) in suburban Maryland recently opened the new David F. Bone Equipment Maintenance and Transit Operations Center (EMTOC), named for the late David F. Bone, Ride On’s senior planner from its creation in 1973 until 2000. Agency officials say to their knowledge, it is the nation’s only public transit operations facility named for the planner who designed the system.

Bone was the chief architect of Ride On and involved in every aspect of its development, agency officials said, including creating the service as a neighborhood feeder system to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) rail and bus routes. Bone died in 2009.

“Dave’s genius was in Ride On route design, and he developed a system that was quite unique for those times,” said Ride On General Manager Carolyn ­Biggins. “Rather than staying on main roads, he routed buses into neighborhoods to connect whole communities to soon-to-be completed Metro stations and employment centers. Dave designed routes that fed two or sometimes three rail stations, unlike other suburban bus systems that might provide service to one rail station.

“Thanks to Dave, most of Ride On’s routes are among the most productive suburban bus routes in the country because they have ridership that is balanced in both directions at almost all hours of operation,” Biggins said.

The EMTOC is one of the county’s Smart Growth Initiative (SGI) projects, designed to spur economic development at the Shady Grove Metro station on WMATA’s red line. “By relocating old and overcrowded county government facilities to make way for a sustainable, transit-oriented community near Metro, we are boosting the economic health and competitiveness of Montgomery County,” said County Executive Isaiah Leggett.

The David F. Bone EMTOC is a collection of 12 buildings. The overall project is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.