Silver Spring Trails

Some things never change.

The Gazette reports at Planning Board unanimously approves Lake Frank trail that local residents argued passionately against building a paved trail adjacent to their neighborhood. From the article:

At the Planning Board meeting, 29 residents addressed the issue.

Those who were opposed to having the trail cited concerns and issues such as pedestrian safety on a bike trail, the detrimental effects of asphalt on the area, fears of increased crime and affecting the natural livelihood of the lake.

“From my understanding, Lake Frank has always been the undisturbed, natural lake and Lake Needwood was the commercial lake where you have the golf course nearby with families having picnics and people fishing and boating,” said Stanley Lorek of Lake Terrace Avenue.

On the other side, supporters of the connector trail said other communities besides the Manor Lake Civic Association should be entitled to enjoy and have equal access to the lake.

“Just because they live closer to the lake does not give them the right to dictate what goes onto park property,” said Janet Buyer of Sunflower Court in the Flower Valley community.

Concerns for pedestrian safety, opposition to asphalt, fears of increased crime, concerns about losing the “natural” setting – we’ve heard this all before from residents opposed to proposed trails adjacent to other neighborhoods, including the Capital Crescent Trail. The pedestrian safety issue was recently raised by Meir Wolf of the Town of Chevy Chase at another Planning Board Hearing, see A bicycling Raceway?.

The Planning Board didn’t fall for these NIMBY arguments against the Lake Frank Trail. Again from the Gazette article:

In his last appearance as Planning Board chairman, Royce Hanson said he acknowledged the neighbors’ concerns in preserving the nature and character of the lake, but that ultimately, the need to expand and build a countywide trail system would provide benefits for a larger representation of people.

“We have a responsibility to be sensitive to the concerns of the community,” Hanson said, “but we also have a responsibility to make it feasible for the public to have access and traverse the area, and allow everyone to enjoy Lake Frank and have different kinds of experiences.”

Hanson also pointed out there had been public objections made to past trail projects such as the Matthew Henson Trail and Capital Crescent Trail, but those trails now have the support of the surrounding communities.

The issue of completing the Capital Crescent Trail into Silver Spring with the Purple Line is different from the decisions to build the Matthew Henson Trail and the Lake Frank Trail connector because completing the Capital Crescent Trail is intertwined with the Purple Line transit. But nonetheless one part remains the same – the way the local neighborhoods tend to act as though the Interim Trail belongs to them, and their opposition to any change in the trail that will open it up to use by other neighborhoods and other user groups.

We are still waiting for the Capital Crescent Trail in Silver Spring.

A recent rash of road rage incidents is being reported at Washcycle. But trouble can follow cyclists onto off-road trails as well, as shown by this incident a trail user experienced yesterday:

“This afternoon while riding my bike on Sligo Trail near Dallas Ave and Sligo Creek Pkwy, I encountered a couple riding their Vespa-like moped/scooter on the trail. They appeared to be intoxicated and upon me telling them that mopeds weren’t allowed on the trail, the male driver pulled out an (unopened) folding knife and told me to mind my own #*&# business and so forth. All this while I had my two young children with me. The park police say this sounds like a couple they are currently looking for for breaking into cars.”

“The male was white, 50’s, scruffy with not much hair. The female was white, 50’s, red hair, missing some teeth. The moped was black, with no license plate. I would suggest anyone who sees these people to call 911 if possible, and avoid making contact with them.”

This sign announces the start of the Georgetown Branch Trail in downtown Silver Spring. It also declares this to be the location of the Future Capital Crescent Trail.

The sign gets the spelling of the “FUTURE CAPITOL CRESENT TRAIL” wrong. Twice. But we’re getting used to that – signs with this misspelling are seen at several other places along the trail, including near Rock Creek Park.

But in addition to being misspelled, this sign also has the location of the Future Capital Crescent Trail wrong.

The sign is at the trailhead to the Georgetown Branch on-road trail on Second Avenue at the north side of Colesville Road, shown above. But the Future Capital Crescent Trail will not be on or along any part of Second Avenue.

The Future Capital Crescent Trail will follow alongside the CSX corridor into downtown Silver Spring on the route described here. It will cross Colesville Road between the CSX railroad tracks and the Metro Plaza Building, one block west of Second Avenue. It will be on a new trail bridge on an alignment alongside the CSX/Metro tracks into the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center, seen under construction above.

I like this sign in spite of its inaccuracies. It serves to call two facts to the attention to those who pass by:
1) the Georgetown Branch Trail is no more than a signed on-road route up a busy street in Silver Spring, and
2) Silver Spring is still waiting for the Capital Crescent Trail after all of these years.

The Montgomery County Planning Board approved the final draft of the Purple Line Master Plan at its April 8 meeting. The final draft incorporated all of the changes approved by the Planning Board at its March 4 work session, reported here.

The only issue that received additional Planning Board discussion on April 8 was whether the trail should be switched to the south side of the Purple Line tracks. The Town of Chevy Chase continues to assert the trail will be better if on the south side, and Town Councilmember Pat Burda was invited forward at the meeting to press their case directly to the Planning Board. But Purple Line Project Manager Mike Madden testified that MTA had already done a systematic engineering study of the trade-offs between a north-side and south-side trail and had presented the results showing the trail would fit better on the north side to the community three years ago. M-NCPPC planner Tom Autrey reported to the Planning Board that he and other M-NCPPC planners had walked the trail the previous day with Town representatives, including Pat Burda, and that M-NCPPC planners remained convinced the trail should be on the north side. Planning Board Chair Royce Hanson said he had walked the trail at the Town earlier this week to see the issues for himself. The Planning Board members expressed their respect for the Town’s concerns, but agreed with the overall finding of MTA and M-NCPPC planners the trail should be built on the north side. The final Master Plan draft approved by the Planning Board is available at the M-NCPPC website at Purple Line Functional Plan.

The Master Plan Draft will now be transmitted to the County Council for deliberation and adoption. The Council can make changes to the Plan. The Council will likely hold a public hearing in June. The Council has already approved the Purple Line locally preferred alternative (LPA) by unanimous vote, so it is unlikely the Council will make major changes to the Master Plan before it gives final approval.

The Planning Board made the right decision for the Trail yesterday in spite of all of the noise the Town of Chevy Chase was making. But the Town was given more deference than it deserved during both this and the March work session. Pat Burda was invited to come forward and present the Town’s position at both Planning Board work sessions, and no other Trail stakeholders were given that opportunity even though other stakeholders were present in the room. Other neighborhoods and trail groups would have welcomed the opportunity to address the Planning Board at the work sessions, if they had known they could do so after the public hearing and after the public comment period had closed. M-NCPPC planning staff only walked that small part of the Trail at the Town with Town representatives the day prior to the last work session. What about the rest of the trail, and the other neighborhoods along the Trail? Was the East Bethesda Citizens Association, which is on record in opposition to switching the trail to the south side, given opportunity to also be present at the trail walk so they could show the planners their issues? Were Riviera House residents and other neighbors on the north side of the corridor opposite the Town given equal consideration to show their issues? What trail user groups were given equal consideration to walk the trail with M-NCPPC planners – WABA, CCCT, MoBike??

If the County Council chooses to deliberate on the north-side vs. south-side trail issue, I hope the Council will keep in mind that only a small part of the Trail borders the Town of Chevy Chase. Other neighborhoods are equally important stakeholders. The Town speaks primarily for the town residents and not for trail users. The Town has a right to be heard, but the Town should not be presumed to speak for us and should not be given deference over other stakeholders. The Trail is much larger than the Town.

March 16 update:

At 10 a.m. today a MCDOT work crew with a truck, wood chipper and chain saws had just cleared a tree that had fallen across the trail near Mile 2.0, and was working its way west cutting bamboo back. A crew member indicated they were aware of the bad patch of bamboo ahead, and intended to get to it. The trail should be much better now.

March 10, 2010:

The County Executive’s proposed CIP budget would delay building the Metropolitan Branch Trail. The Montgomery Gazette reports:

“It makes us look like we aren’t serious,” Councilwoman Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring. “… D.C. probably gets an ‘A’ or ‘A-minus’ for bike-friendliness but if you were grading Montgomery County, we would be about a ‘C-minus.’”

I sometimes think I should give Montgomery County DOT more credit for understanding their responsibility to build and maintain decent facilities for walking and bicycling transportation modes, as well as facilities for motor vehicles and transit. But then we see the County Executive single out the MCDOT bikeways maintenance budget to be completely eliminated during budget reductions. And we see this -

A full five weeks have passed since the end of the February snowstorm. It has been nearly four weeks since MCDOT cleared the snow from all roads. The Interim CCT is probably the most heavily used trail that is maintained by MCDOT. The effort, and cost, to clear away this patch of downed bamboo and snowpack on the Interim CCT would be slight.

When MoCo and MCDOT consider an important trail like this to be important enough to keep open, without prodding and badgering from trail advocates, then I will believe they are serious.

Ten days after the big snow storm, the Interim CCT looks like this:

Interim CCT
near Stewart Ave.
on Feb. 20

The snow is still deep, the walking tracks cut into the trail are very uneven, so that walking or running is very difficult. Conditions on all the trails in the area are much like this, see the CCCT website and WashCycle blog for reports of conditions on other trails.

We are finally enjoying a period of sunny days, with the snow pack starting to melt away. But we will likely be waiting for several more weeks before the trails are clear if we do nothing to help mother nature. Foot paths on the trails create ice pack, which will take much longer to melt than snow that has not been compacted. The trails are wooded in many places, and even though the trees do not have leaves their branches still block the effectiveness of the sun to a surprising degree. It took a full 30 days for the last of the ice pack to melt from the CCT after the snow storm of December 19-20. This Feb. 9-10 snow storm left much deeper snow.

Yet another problem – Snow plows have blocked access to trails.

Shown here:
the access to the Interim CCT at Stewart Ave.

Many sidewalks and trails are blocked at corners and curbs by these high mounds left by the plows. These mounds are not just snow – they are “plow wash” that is compacted, heavy, refrozen snow that requires a pick or chisel style shovel just to break it up. It is not reasonable to expect adjacent homeowners or brigades of volunteers with regular hand shovels to reclaim the sidewalks and trails from these mounds.

Snow plows have cleared many of the neighborhood streets from curb to curb in my part of Silver Spring. Bobcats and front end loaders were brought in to truck out snow on streets where there was no room to push the snow to the side. I am impressed, and grateful, for the amount of work that has been done to dig us out of the worst snow storm ever recorded. But we are far from done.

Richard Layman blogged recently about a Maintenance of way agenda for walking. The principles he outlines for maintenance of way in D.C. apply here too. Clearing snow to enable transportation and mobility means more than just clearing road lanes and restoring curb side parking for our automobiles. Sidewalks and trails are essential to our safe transportation and mobility too. We should demand our county and state governments take more responsibility for keeping the sidewalks and trails clear – instead of pushing snow onto them from the roads.

update: Washcycle posted on the ice storm virtually simultaneous to this posting. He goes further – calling for action. Check it out.

Image from the Phoenix light rail video by Steven Vance

Have we gentle folks in Montgomery County become wimps? While we battle it out over whether it is possible for the Capital Crescent Trail to safely share the Georgetown Branch Corridor with the Purple Line light rail transit, we have this video from a cyclist riding alongside light rail in Phoenix:

video-bicycling-next-to-phoenix-valley-light-rail-train

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating for a narrow bike path immediately adjacent to light rail with no safety separation. I much prefer the plan for the Capital Crescent Trail:

But the video from Phoenix does illustrate two key points:

1. Cyclists can and do feel safe riding close to light rail vehicles.
2. The noise from light rail vehicles is far from “deafening” as certain Purple Line opponents have been heard to assert (notice the light rail needs a bell).

My Woodside neighbor Harry Sanders has just returned from a short trip to France and Spain, and brought back some photos of trams that relate to issues this blog discusses.

One issue: Can the Purple Line be green?

This has nothing to do with trails. It is a shocking example of a dangerous crosswalk design close to home.

The press, including the Washington Post, have widely reported on the death of a pedestrian who was struck by a motorist while crossing northbound lanes of 16th Street north of the traffic circle at Colesville Road. The police investigation is still ongoing and it is not clear yet exactly where the pedestrian was struck.

The local blog Silver Spring Singular posted under the title “Jaywalking claims another victim”. But subsequent comments to the blog post addressed the issue that the pedestrian may have been in a legal, though unmarked, crosswalk when he was struck. Silver Spring Singular responded and updated the post title to “Pedestrian struck & killed @ 16th and Colesville.” Just up the Pike also posted on the story, and also drew comments that were mixed on whether the pedestrian was at fault.

The aerial photo below illustrates the path the pedestrian might have attempted to follow:

I’ve biked through this circle many times on the Colesville/North Portal route between Silver Spring and Rock Creek Park. I never had any idea there was a crosswalk between the circle and the median on the north side, or across 16th Street from the median to Colesville Road. There are no pavement markings and no pedestrian warning signs. I’m always so busy watching out for traffic that I never noticed the clues that a crosswalk is there and that there may be pedestrians.

Yet clearly a legal crosswalk is there. There is a sidewalk in the circle itself, along the curb around the northwest quadrant of the circle. There is a sidewalk in the median north of the circle. And there are curb cuts at every curb along the path illustrated by the red line in the photo above, making this route ADA compliant. I can’t imagine crossing here in running shoes, even less in a wheelchair!

Under the law in both Maryland and D.C. when the sidewalks from intersecting streets (Colesville Road, North Portal Drive) extend to the street a legal crosswalk is presumed to exist, even if it is not marked. In this case the curb cuts should remove any doubt that pedestrians can legally cross here.

Again, we do not yet know exactly where or how the pedestrian was struck. Perhaps he was jaywalking further up the street. But with the crosswalks in the area designed like this, can you blame anyone for jaywalking?? This crosswalk leads directly into a very chaotic circle with the traffic that is coming around the circle hidden from view by trees. Westbound traffic from Colesville Road only has a Yield sign, so at no time is all traffic stopped from entering the circle by traffic lights. There are no signs and no pavement markings to warn motorists that pedestrians can be here.

This crosswalk is an amazing display of reckless stupidity in crosswalk design. And sad.