Plans for the Cheltenham Drive Bikeway in downtown Bethesda are now scheduled to be reviewed by the Montgomery County Planning Board at their December 11, 2025 public meeting. The County Department of Transportation has filed a Mandatory Referral application with the Planning Department for one-way, separated bike lanes on both sides of Cheltenham, between Woodmont Avenue and Tilbury Street. Mandatory Referral means that commissioners cannot stop or reject the project, but only make recommendations and suggestions based upon public comment, staff advice, and their own expertise. This is standard procedure for government projects. Residents or other stakeholders with questions regarding this project may call Eli Glazier at the Planning Department at 301-495-4548.
32 comments:
In other words, the cake is already baked. Pull the lever for anybody with a D next to their name no matter what. This is never the elected officials fault but those who elect them. Good job! Bethesda and surrounding is slowly being destroyed. Cars are evil here period end of story. Glenn Youngkin is about to cut the ribbon on a massive improvement to the Tyson's corridor on 495 and we're adding bike lanes everywhere, that aren't used, even on River Road.
Another one of these two-block "projects," like the white elephant along Montgomery Lane, between Woodmont and Waverly. Can we start a pool on (A) how long it will take to complete once construction begins (B) how many bicyclists any of us will ever see using it (C) what this boondoggle will cost?
6:13 - They don't care about any of that. Cost? It's not their money. Usage? Social Engineering isn't concerned about that. I drive Montgomery Lane every, single morning and afternoon and there's never, ever a cyclist there. A one block bike lane as you said. Great! This is happening everywhere and MoCo officials have absolutely no issue with it at all. They applaud it. Cars are bad even EV ones. Lastly, even though they aren't used, they'll never be taken out. Never. Get use to it.
Doesn't matter how much it costs or who ot inconveniences. The idiots on the council will say its for climate change or its for the children.
Have you guys ever looked at the bike infrastructure master plan for downtown Bethesda? Not individual two block sections, but a whole network of safe pathways for bicycling. All connected back to the CCT and the future 425 space, two story high bike parking deck under the Elm. A fantastic systematic approach to safe non motorized transit in a dense and walkable community. Stop shaking your fists at the clouds and buy a freaking bike and enjoy this well planned resource. Flame suit activated.
1:41 - But Bethesda isn't Amsterdam. We're not a bike culture and never will be. Are bikes bad, no. But they are clearly sending us a loud and clear message that cars are. Roads were designed to carry vehicle traffic period. Bike network? Not needed. That's what the CCT is for.
So 1:41 is in favor of making everyone do what they think is right. Venezuela is waiting for you. Dictating rules without any real opportunity to oppose it is the definition of authoritarian behavior. But that's the left gaslighting.
This came up in the EBCA (East Bethesda, the neighborhood where part/half of the lane will be) association meeting this week, with a clear THUMBS DOWN by members as INEXPLICABLE, IRRATIONAL, and UNSAFE
Why are you guys so opposed to anything that makes downtown safer, more bikeable for all ages, and more walkable. Why do you all feel we need to maintain only wide streets and fast speed limits for cars and lots of parallel parking, and narrow sidewalks where biking is difficult, or prohibited. Nobody needs to drive through Woodmont Avenue, Bethesda Avenue, Norfolk Avenue and even Cheltenham at high speed like you find on Wisconsin Avenue. Downtown Bethesda should be a destination, not a speedway to other areas.
It has gotten out of control between what they did on Old Georgetown Road, and River Road and what they are now doing on Little Falls Pkwy. Our counsel does whatever they want and does not listen to its residents. This is insane. They are dictators telling us what we need without asking. No one supports this nonsense.
I'm that avid biker that likes what's going on on OGR but think most, if not all, of the other 'diets,' and dedicated bike lanes are way overreaching. My spell checker wants to say overreacting, which would be just as accurate!
Among the more disingenuous comments I’ve seen on here in some time, @12:45. No one here who is objecting to this project is advocating raising speed limits in the Triangle, which, contra your implication, has the same 25mph posted speed as does Wisconsin Avenue in the central Bethesda business district. Rather, we write in frustration of the vast sums being expended to create these permanent, concrete-curb-isolated bike paths that appear to run from nowhere to nowhere, certainly in the post’s referenced start and end points, as well as in the case of Montgomery Avenue; two-block sections of protection on side streets, where there is limited traffic to begin with. Would you suggest bicyclists navigate past the Tastee Diner at such
…at such great numbers and so threatened by vehicles “speeding” along that short block, (either end of which is traffic light-controlled,) that they need a mid-five-figure concrete barrier constructed to assure their safety? That seems implausible, @12:45, as does the idea any cars are rocketing down Cheltenham Lane at “high speed”, where they are greeted by a traffic-calming roundabout at the end of *that* short block.
Whether or not bike lanes in the aggregate are legitimate additions to the transportation infrastructure, the argument that this specific project, from Woodmont to Tilbury, is a well-reasoned choice of locations on which to spend tens of thousands of tax dollars, seems impossible to defend, not only because the location is so random and truncated, but because vehicle traffic in that space is already moving so slowly, crawling to the Wisconsin Avenue light or else going into a residential neighborhood at Tilbury.
Why is 12:45 so bent on telling others what they think is the only way? Maybe someone can go over to you house and decide what you need and what isn't best for the greater good.
3:06 is funny, as Trump keeps directing prosecutions
You mean the myopic visionaries?
JAC - Are you suggesting that we might see next:
BananenBar, Moulin Rouge and Casa Rosso?
Why don't you ride on the trail?
The Master Plan is to make it virtually impossible to commute with
private transportation from MoCo to DC and Virginia.
I’m further to the right politically than any of you all (left MoCo after 60 years and moved to FL) but I return from time to time to visit family. I have always been a biker, use those paths and encourage others to also do so. This is maybe the one issue on which I actually agree with the MoCo power structure.
@12:09 TDS much? Trump is your president for the next 3+ years!
The Bethesda Trolley Trail is horrible for cyclists: the pedestrians are very inconsiderate and have not an inkling of trail etiquette. Plus sections are bumpy dangerous and it's inefficient if you're trying to make time and do anything more than veer and waste time. I ride to get someplace, do my business whether shopping or banking, and get back.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, @5:39
So 917 thinks it's a good idea to inconvenience thousands by taking 1/3 of the lanes on OGR because they have to slow down a little on the Trolley trail? Sounds pretty inconsiderate but we're all here for you and perhaps put up a memorial to your past sacrifices.
Golly, @9:17, not only are motor vehicles a hazard for cyclists, but so, too, are pedestrians? Such complaints are enough to make a reader begin to think that, when everyone is painted as being the problem confronting you, perhaps the problem actually lies with you
Because 5:39 doesn't need to drive during rush hour here, the bike bike lane diets are swell.
1:41 - Could probably use a bike the way he talks about eating at every food place mentioned.
I knew you all wouldn’t let me comment without the insults forthcoming. Big reason for my exodus. Have a nice day.
Hang on a sec. @10:27 says replies to what I assume to be his @5:39am post, which I think is the only comment mentioning its writer having moved from the area, are so “insults” of the sort that were a “Big reason for [his] exodus.”
Dude, there were *two* replies to your remark, one suggesting the County Council was, like a stopped clock, every once in a while correct, (that is, correct in your opinion, for voting for bike
lanes that you find useful,) the other saying you, as a visitor taking an occasional leisurely bike ride while visiting the area don’t experience the frustration of drivers forced to daily navigate rush-hour Old George and its third fewer lanes. There were no ad hominems, no accusations leveled against you. To find either of those two remarks “insulting” is to locate your new residence deep into the Heart of Snowflakes.
621: Excuse me for having an opinion
Bottom Line: Our Myopic Visionaries have Hosed Up Bethesda for good!
If he was referring to the Council and not me, which wasn’t clear, then I stand corrected. When I am in the area I experience traffic like everyone else, for example taking my grandson to school in G-burg so, I just deal with it. You defeat your own point by implying I’m a “snowflake” which I take as ad hominem. The truth is that many “progressives” reflexively resort to hate and name-calling when confronted with folks who disagree with them politically which is one reason (among many) that I left. That I bring this up often is encouragement for others like-minded folks to do the same. I will never move back there. If you don’t like bike lanes, quit voting for the same people. Or move like I did.
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