Construction on yet another road diet for Little Falls Parkway between Arlington Road and Dorset Avenue in Bethesda is scheduled to begin "on or about" September 29, 2025. This is at least the third road diet project to be implemented on the parkway in the last decade, but only the first to be legally carried out. The Montgomery County Parks Department previously imposed road diets on the parkway illegally, by not receiving the required permission from the National Capital Planning Commission that has authority over the parkway, and by illegally using money from a trail fund that had not been allocated for a road diet by the Montgomery County Council. To date, no one has been arrested, fined, or otherwise disciplined for these illegal actions.
The new road diet will again reduce the portion of the parkway in question to one lane in each direction. This time, there will be a grass median between those lanes, instead of the reckless and dangerous configuration that has existed for about 3 years, where the opposing lanes were only separated by two yellow stripes of paint. A bike path will be constructed on part of the space left by the removed southbound lane. This past weekend, a digital signboard was placed on Arlington Road near the parkway (see photo above).
Highly controversial from the beginning, the Little Falls Parkway road diet scandal will leave a legacy of shame in Montgomery County government for decades to come. The Parks Department, Montgomery County Planning Board, and Montgomery County Council all ignored the wishes of the public on this matter. 73% of the residents who testified regarding the road diet opposed it; the County is steamrolling over them and moving ahead with it anyway. That gives you some idea of their commitment to "democracy."
Instead, the Council and their allies in government are privately high-fiving each other over their second monumental victory over a perceived invincible foe. Having defeated the once-feared Columbia Country Club to implement the Purple Line for their developer sugar daddies, they are now giddy at having defeated the powerful Kenwood neighborhood on the road diet issue. Now nothing can stand in their way, as the last remaining private powers in the county capable of inflicting financial or political repercussions are now perceived to have been rendered inert.
And beyond the actual illegal actions that were taken on the earlier road diets, the shame of destroying an expensive public roadway - further crippling highway infrastructure capacity even while increasing the amount of development in the area - for radical, War-on-Cars ideology, is beyond criminal. Once again, one must wonder at what offense, at what illegality, the voters of Bethesda and Montgomery County might finally take action at the ballot box.
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