The Silver Spring Advisory Board has recently sent this letter to the Montgomery County Council urging action to advance the Metropolitan Branch Trail. The last paragraph expresses the frustration at the foot dragging that has slowed this priority project.
Dear County Council:We are writing to urge the Council to approve funding for land acquisition and design work on the Metropolitan Branch Trail in next year’s capital improvement project (CIP) budget. The Met Branch is a critical link for pedestrians and bicyclists traveling to, from, and through downtown Silver Spring, and we consider it a top transportation priority.
Our members are fully cognizant of the difficult operating budget environment facing the county, but we submit that the Met Branch has been delayed for far too long to be put off yet again as proposed by the County Executive in his 5-year CIP budget request.
The District of Columbia continues to make steady progress in building the trail between Union Station and Fort Totten. In contrast, Montgomery County has made no apparent progress since 2006 in completing the section between the future Silver Spring transit center and the existing segment of roughly seven-tenths of a mile in Takoma Park. Under the County Executive’s version of the CIP, the county would take no further action on the trail until at least Fiscal Year 2013, with no construction until 2019 at best. This is unproductive and unacceptable.
We share the views expressed by the Montgomery County Planning Board in its CIP transmittal to the Council, in which the board recommended amending the CIP to fund detailed design work in FY11, including design of the trail bridge over Georgia Avenue. The Planning Board concluded that design work and land acquisition on the Met Branch should be moved up in the CIP in order to allow the trail to be completed together with the transit center, which will include a linkage to the Capital Crescent Trail to the north and west toward Chevy Chase and Bethesda. As the planning board staff observed,
“The Metropolitan Branch Trail is a vital component of the regional bikeway network and the multimillion dollar investment in the revitalization of Silver Spring. It is expected to rival the Capital Crescent Trail in usage, with 300-500 trail users per hour on weekends and 50-150 users per hour on weekdays, after the Silver Spring Transit Center opens.”
We have watched with increasing frustration as the Met Branch project has languished. The Council, the Planning Board, the Silver Spring Advisory Board, and the community have repeatedly pressed the Montgomery County Department of Transportation to move forward to complete the trail, to no avail. We respectfully urge the Council to direct MCDOT to get this project moving without delay.
Sincerely,
Darian Unger, Chair
Silver Spring Advisory Board