The sudden closure of Westbard Avenue at Ridgefield Road in Bethesda continues to generate controversy. Business owners in the Westwood Shopping Center have reported a major drop in customer traffic since the February 20 shutdown, which has left only one roundabout way for even nearby residents to reach the center, via Massachusetts Avenue. Some have reported a 25% drop in customers, and as much as a 50% drop during the once-busy lunch hour. Signs supporting an online petition to reopen Westbard have been posted in several windows of the mostly small, family-owned businesses at the strip center, such as the Westwood Barber Shop.
Workers who drive also now have extra hoops to jump through to reach or leave the shopping center. Others who use transit have already been forced to walk through a dark and desolate warzone of construction to reach River Road on foot since the lowest block of Ridgefield was closed last summer.
One regular patron of the shopping center told me he has switched from Starbucks to McDonald's on River Road for his morning coffee since the shutdown. Another said it is easier to drive to Whole Foods Market, Talbert's or 7-Eleven on River Road from his residence, than to go all the way around to Giant using the remaining detour available.
A number of drivers are making their own detour, using Kirkwood Drive and the Church of the Little Flower property as a shortcut from River Road to Massachusetts Avenue. This is not a new route, but one resident who has used it for years said she found herself amid a small funeral procession-like caravan of vehicles taking it one recent evening. Cut-through traffic continues to relocate itself as more roads close, just as the barricading of Westbard Avenue at River Road last summer shifted it onto Ridgefield Road, which led Ridgefield residents to seek the latest Westbard closure in the first place. The cars that have been deviling Ridgefield homeowners are now rerouting themselves onto Kirkwood, Springfield Drive and Cromwell Drive, the latter two of which are primary walking routes for students at Wood Acres Elementary School.
The bottom line is that the initial plan sprung on the community last summer to shut down Ridgefield at River has been a disaster, as predicted. Realistically, only truck traffic can be hassled by police officers - when they are available. There is no way to enforce "local traffic only" without a "papers please" checkpoint, which is why such signs are simply ignored. Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road never shut down during a grade-separation project far more complex than the Westbard Avenue realignment, just one example of road construction best practices nationwide, which can reduce the unprecedented impacts that Westbard-area residents have been forced to endure for the last nine months.
19 comments:
They probably could have rebuilt the new intersection, while maintaining some trough traffic, but that would likely double or triple the length of construction. I feel that you are partially responsible for the current dilemma, by giving a few residents a voice that impacts a much large amount of residents and remaining commercial tenants.
As always, sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Construction is always noisy, dirty, and often causes temporary traffic problems, but in the long run, I think the public realm will benefit from this project. Local residents who have to put up with the hassle will soon live close to a walkable urban downtown, and will certainly raise their property values. Retailers who chose to endure the pain, and move back in to the new development will likely see much more traffic and sales. And anyone who visits the finished district will be glad it is no longer a nasty old shopping center, with street facing loading docks, and acres of surface parking lots.
Not to worry!! I foresee emergency measures being implemented to reopen the road to traffic, just as soon as the businesses in question have shuttered from lack of customers. That strikes me as just the right balance of government/contractor imbecility and arrogance.
Westbard Cul-De-Sac, Ridgefield Cul-De-Sac … how are small groups of residents getting their own (MoCo) roads closed?
Impact: school kids, small businesses, workers, grocery shoppers, commuters…just about everyone else…
Shame on anyone who thinks it's OK to drive through a residential neighborhood to access a shopping center. People should drive respectfully and follow detour signs.
@3:03 you're being facetious, right? Sometimes I can't tell on here, but that's . . . you're joking, aren't you?
@5:44 -- A keen, objective, dispassionate assessment, free of any vested interest whatsoever. Clearly, *cough* you are just a regular man-in-the-street neighbor, *cough* not at all in the employ or sphere of influence of either the county Planning Board or of Regence Centers, the property developers responsible for this mess. (
I keed: of course you are. Your arrogant disdain is the "tell."
This was planned obsolesce to get rid of these family stores by the developer and the county.
Montgomery County needs to do more to keep commuters off of residential streets, and Wayz should be viewed for the public nuisance that it is for encouraging the behavior. Most governments found a way to outlaw radar detectors, yet Wayz and other mapping software is far more detrimental to the safety of our streets.
As for customers, that's what's amazing about America. Stores can relocate if they want to and customers can find a way to support businesses they want to support. The stores here will be fine. The workers will be fine. Starbucks and Giant will definitely be fine.
This afternoon, the shopping center was as busy as ever. This morning, I witnessed a school bus picking up kids at the usual spot. Yesterday, I saw a Metro bus serving the shopping center. All seemed OK to me.
Damn I'm glad I moved away from there. The constant bitching and whining is really the hallmark of the MoCo dweller. How'd you like to be living instead in Ukraine now for instance.
This gives a brave new meaning to the saying: "An individual inconvenience for the common good."
@6:54 "Stores can relocate if they want to." Left out of your provocative remarks, but *surely* implied, is the incontestable truth that residents can relocate if they want to, if they feel so intruded upon by traffic navigating *public* --not private, but tax payer-funded *public*-- roads. It's hard enough to get around town with the rush hour do-not-enter signs, the infinite speed bumps, traffic lights backing up vehicles longer than needed because tuned out drivers leave bus-sized gaps between each vehicle. Fostering the idea that residents of a given street may legitimately claim authority to ban movement on property not their own --and do remember, *public* thoroughfares do not belong to homeowners-- is the quintessence of hubristic conceit.
"All seems okay to me." Also sprach Zarathustra. Patronizing, not the commercial sense.
Awe, poor whiddle spoiled, rich folks, can't handle the impacts of the dirty old construction jobs in there hood. GET OVER YOURSELVES! You'll be the first to complain at all the new retail, residential, and other amenities when the open. Whiners.
8:41 seems irritated anyone should be irritated, so we'd better snap to and fall into line, lest we enrage him further. There is money --and "amenities!!"-- to be made, the Alpha and Omega for 8:41. Any quality of life complaints we peasants --a.k.a. residents, neighbors, customers, affected businesses themselves-- have about traffic, noise, crowding, falloff in revenue are of no consequence. It has been thus decreed by 8:41. So let it be written, so let it be done.
By the way, 8:41, it's a small thing, but you seem inestimably petty, so you'll appreciate it: the correct choice is the adjective their, T-H-E-I-R, not your selection, the adverb there, T-H-E-R-E. "...construction jobs in there[sic] hood." Oh, and you missed an apostrophe on the 'hood, unless you are suggesting construction is taking place within some type of covering. Perhaps devote a little more time reviewing your forth-grade English quizzes, a little less time in paroxysms of rage.
@6:54. You are describing a wonderful cityscape where there are no traffic laws, pedestrians, children and bikers should stay off the streets if they want to stay safe, and the sole purpose of a road is to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Sounds like you should also be considering relocating to a more libertarian leaning state, or at least county.
Westwood will get Giant back, a pharmacy, likely a bank, hair salon, nail place, cleaners, Starbucks, maybe a quick serve bowl place. Hopefully at least one sit down restaurant.
Problem is the two old shopping centers had all that and more..lol. Westwood I & II could have simply been renovated as other local centers have done.
Regency just wants to dump the longtime reliable tenants.
As a worker in the WestBard shopping center, I will continue to use my new daily route of River Road to Springfield to Cromwell to Mass Ave. to Westbard. Why??? Because it is a "PUBLIC ROAD". Some really nice homes to look at during the drive but I would say a few of you need to spruce up your yards.
The leadership of Springfield advocated for the re-routing of Ridgefield while the rest of us were in lockdown during the Holidays of 2020. Now they don't like the consequences, so they are crying again for more burden on everyone else. Enough! Taxpayers are paying for the roads and have a right to use them. This is again the hammer of the privileged punching down on those below them. Shame on the County for playing along with this abuse of authority. There are a lot of tenants who pay to live on Westbard who are being shafted on needed transportation. Shame on Springfield, Regency, and the County.
As a former representative of Springfield and an esteemed resident, I am deeply upset by the violent hostility toward our community. We have the right and the duty to live our lives in the manner we deserve. We've worked hard to achieve safe community status and we have the right to protect our children from swarms of unruly apartment/condo dwellers and consumers wrecking havoc on our streets. Keep the Westbard trash out of our life.
9:15 AM - Conceal-Carry and remember to Stand Your Ground with those Westbard invaders.
Post a Comment