Hillandale Road could reopen in 6 weeks - what took so long? The story:

Residents who use Hillandale Road regularly ask me what's taking so long to reopen the road. As you may recall, Montgomery County was forced to close the road last October after a culvert failed. At the time, engineers estimated the road could be closed for up to six months.

The worst case scenario indeed played out, as the MCDOT's Division of Highway Services yesterday announced the fix is finally underway, and could allow the road to open on-schedule in six weeks if all goes well.

What was the holdup?

According to MCDOT, it turned out that the needed multi-plate pipe was only available from one vendor. That Florida vendor could only recently deliver the pipe to Maryland.

I noticed something was up at the site last week. The barricades were haphazardly moved aside one day, and a county police cruiser was parked on the road near the Bethesda public pool. By the next day, the barricades were back up again.

At last the end of the tunnel is nearing for Hillandale Road. I have to say, though, that the closure greatly sped up trips on Little Falls Parkway for two reasons. Obviously, there was no red light at that intersection, and, second, there wasn't that problem of people jamming the right lane of the parkway by making slow turns onto Hillandale.

In fact, given Hillandale's reduced role in accessing downtown Bethesda, the reopening could be a minor negative for some drivers who are just trying to get to and from Arlington Road.