Years in the making, a new surface crossing route for the Capital Crescent Trail at Wisconsin Avenue is finally starting to take physical shape in downtown Bethesda. The protected bike lane is now visible along Bethesda Avenue, which will bring trail users up to Wisconsin from the trail segment that ends by Ourisman Honda and Paul Bakery.
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| Bike crossing signal installed at intersection of Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues |
Bike crossing signals have just been installed (but are not yet activated) at the trail crossing of Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues, and are also being installed at Wisconsin and Bethesda. While the surface crossing is being completed much later in the Purple Line construction process than most expected, it won't become obsolete anytime soon. The fate of a replacement underground crossing for the CCT is hanging in the balance - literally.
Montgomery County's fiscal bottom line will determine the ultimate delivery of the tunnel - or if it is even constructed at all. The County Council quietly postponed the tunnel construction to FY 2027, at the earliest. But if you look at the budget deficit projection, the forecast continued revenue decline with the exit of wealthy residents to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region, and the County's moribund economy and nightmarish debt load, you could just as easily predict that tunnel will never be built.
The funds won't be there, unless voters make drastic changes on the Council in 2022. And the Montgomery County cartel-controlled officials on the Council and Planning Board are resisting County Executive Marc Elrich's new proposal to single track the Purple Line under Wisconsin, which would make room for an underground CCT path that could be delivered many years sooner.
This is so pathetic. To think that they'd even consider "single tracking" a public transit system at the end station. Even worse, if they did do that, it means that it won't ever get built past Bethesda.
ReplyDelete9:14: Yes, I suspect the Westbard/Sumner extension plan is one reason why Elrich is getting blowback on his proposal.
ReplyDeleteGee, ya think?
ReplyDeleteLeave no undeveloped plot behind. If you can't keep 10,000 rich tax payers in your community, tear up their nice yards, toss up apartments and shove 100,000 poor tax payers in there. Don't worry about the infrastructure -- that'll magically expand into the declining footprint of available space and somehow be paid for despite stagnant receipts.
What could possibly go wrong?