Little Falls Parkway trail crossing update

A wide, flat speed bump is being installed at the Capital Crescent Trail crossing of Little Falls Parkway. The "road diet" illegally implemented by Montgomery County - and later endorsed by the County Planning Board over residents' objections - remains in place, complete with dozens of bollards that actually block drivers' views of pedestrians and cyclists crossing the road. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Little Falls Parkway trail crossing plan would increase head-on crashes

MoCo government hiding crash data

from residents, made its own

plan after ignoring resident feedback

The Montgomery County Planning Board will review a final proposal for the Little Falls Parkway Capital Crescent Trail crossing this afternoon at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring. A not-so-shocking twist for those following this illegal scam from the beginning, is that the final proposal is one ginned up behind the scenes by the Montgomery County cartel in league with the Planning Department - not the solutions endorsed by actual residents who attended the Kabuki theater meetings the department held over the last two years. That final proposal would not only retain the dangerous conflict of driver-trail user interactions, but will actually further increase crashes by removing the median of the road, placing drivers in greater danger of head-on collisions. And speaking of crashes? Well, the report claims certain crash statistics to justify its previous road diet (constructed with illegal use of money that had been designated for maintenance of countywide trails, not road construction), but provides no documentation to back it up. When Kenwood residents attempted to acquire the documentation on collisions, they were stonewalled by Planning and every other department in County government they contacted.

A staff report on the proposal is filled with bizarre verbal jujitsu attempting to first establish a new precedent for such a road diet. Among the laughers, it claims that Westbard-area commuters are drastically shifting modes of transportation away from automobiles, while again providing no statistical reports to back up the false claim. In fact, the only report ever done on commuting modes in the Westbard area found that over 90% of commuters are solo automobile users, far above even the regional average. But unsurprising, given that Westbard is a transit desert about two miles from the nearest Metro station, far beyond the standard quarter-to-half-mile distance required for transit-oriented development.

The report hysterically trumpets long traffic backups on southbound Arlington Road - that Parks & Planning created with their illegally-funded road diet - to be an example of "effectively metering" traffic. It also reveals that fewer cars are now using Little Falls Parkway in the evening rush hour because of the congestion the department created. The report calls diversion of traffic from a major thoroughfare like Little Falls Parkway onto nearby residential streets a success. Again, they dodge data by not reporting numbers for all of the nearby residential streets onto which those cars have been diverted. Their extreme fear of data clearly indicates their final conclusions are without basis.

One thing the report does openly admit, is that Planning and the War-on-Cars cartel have created their own proposal, tossing aside the solutions endorsed by actual residents, which were diverting trail traffic to one of the nearby signaled intersections, or construction of a pedestrian bridge.

Government of the People, by the People, for the People?
Not in authoritarian, corrupt Montgomery County

What is the smoke-free-back-room Planning Department final proposal?

Reduction of Little Falls Parkway to two lanes, a "speed table" a.k.a. long flat speed bump trail crossing in the roadway, and "traffic calming" measures will be implemented on Hillandale Road. In other words, maximum punishment for drivers while allowing bicycle stop sign blowers to continue to wreak havoc. Head-on car crashes, such as drunk drivers at night, will clearly increase and the Planning Board will be held responsible for the injuries and deaths that result from those head-on car crashes currently reduced by the wide median. 

This is the height of corruption - spending over $1 million of taxpayer money (on top of the previous illegal use of trail maintenance funds) to reduce vehicle capacity by 50% on Little Falls Parkway, after the same corrupt, developer-controlled commissioners voted to add over 3000 new housing units and 5910 additional cars in the same area via the 2016 Westbard sector plan. 

This is not government of the People, by the People, for the People. It's a criminal cartel in charge of Big Government run amok.

It's outrageous.

Wilson Lane speed limit drops to 25 MPH

The speed limit on Wilson Lane in Bethesda dropped from 30 MPH to 25 MPH on Friday, the latest speed reduction approved by the Gov. Larry Hogan administration for a state highway in Montgomery County. This follows an illegally-implemented speed limit reduction on River Road by the Maryland State Highway Administration. No widely-advertised public meeting was held to consult with taxpayers on either speed limit change before it was unilaterally imposed.

Speed limits were also slashed on Georgia Avenue in the Glenmont and Aspen Hill areas, and are coming to Veirs Mill Road as part of a plan to increase commutes by 35 minutes for those traveling between Rockville and Wheaton. The reductions are being sold as a safety issue, but are actually in preparation for the urbanization of all of these suburban corridors by the developers who control the Montgomery County Council. With the election of Hogan, himself a real estate developer, the SHA is now under the cartel's control, as well. The SHA for decades under Republican and Democratic governors alike adamantly refused to violate highway engineering best practices by setting speed limits lower than what specific roads were engineered for. Under Hogan, the SHA has folded up like a card table under pressure from the Montgomery County cartel. Perhaps he is planning to pursue development projects in Montgomery after he leaves office.

The Montgomery County cartel
is pulling the strings on Hogan and the SHA

After ramming through zoning changes that allowed developers to flip all shopping centers, office buildings, office parks and other commercial properties into residential, the cartel took the inch and the mile. Their secret plan, which I've warned about for years but is now emerging into public view, is to now convert all existing single-family home neighborhoods to multifamily zoning. The speed limit reduction is to prepare drivers along these routes for their eventual conversion into 25 MPH urban boulevards.

A plan to rezone all neighborhoods for multifamily housing has already been forwarded to the Planning Board by Councilmember Hans Riemer, and legislation has been drawn up to allow Montgomery County government to convert any or all of its property - schools, libraries, fire stations, and other facilities - into low-income residential housing. All nine Councilmembers elected last November received at least several thousand dollars apiece from developers who specialize in urban projects, and need traffic jams to justify greater density. As a result, the War on Cars, and the war on residents' quality of life, has opened several new fronts.

"Time for some [more] traffic problems in Montgomery County."

- Larry Hogan and the MoCo cartel

Massive work to begin at Marriott site next week (Photos)

Just as Purple Line construction is ramping up, and two cranes have been erected at the 7900 Wisconsin project, Marriott is getting the green light to begin its complex headquarters project along Wisconsin and Woodmont Avenues. Disruptive underground utility work that will cause temporary sidewalk and lane closures will begin May 30. There will be no signaled pedestrian crossing of Wisconsin Avenue between Norfolk Avenue and Old Georgetown Road on the west side of the street, according to a Marriott press release.

Then, on June 18, sidewalks and lanes will close along Wisconsin, Woodmont and Norfolk Avenues for an eight-week demolition process. Once again, there's no indication that the impotent Montgomery County Council will enforce its laws regarding sidewalk closures during construction. Demolition will include the shell of the Bethesda Court Hotel, Tako Grill and the Blackwell Building.

Actual construction of Marriott's headquarters, which is merely relocating downtown from the Rock Spring area, will start in July. Moribund Montgomery County hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in two decades.

"#Resist?" This is the Montgomery County
Council, so more like, #Capitulate

Leland St. turn restrictions violate Montgomery County law (Photos)

"Enough is enough!"

The recent aggressive War-on-Cars actions of Montgomery County on Leland Street in Bethesda may have backfired. An illegal closure of the road, ultimately reversed after it was exposed to have been done without the required public process, was simply piling-on with onerous turn restrictions and traffic obstacles already in place. All the illegal move did was draw attention to the fact that, with Leland Street classified as an arterial road, it is ineligible for traffic volume restrictions - much less a closure to traffic.

Now, Bethesda resident Ashish Goel has written to Montgomery County Department of Transportation Director Al Roshdieh, putting him on notice that he must remove those restrictions - or be found in violation of County law. In his letter to Roshdieh, Goel cites Section III.B of Montgomery County Executive Regulation 17-94, which states, “Only tertiary, secondary, and primary residential streets are eligible for volume restriction measures.”

Graphic by Ashish Goel
showing classification of
Leland St. as an arterial

Boom.

Goel is asking Roshdieh to immediately remove the existing turn restrictions on traffic from Woodmont Avenue between 4:00-7:00 PM, demolish the recently-added concrete median which restricts left turns from Leland to Woodmont and vice versa, nullify traffic citations handed out during the recent police sting operations on Leland, and cease any ongoing consideration of further traffic restrictions on Leland.

Image from Montgomery County
Executive Regulation 17-94

"Your office has shown that it is willing to unlawfully put the wants of a few over the rights of all Montgomery County residents," Goel wrote to Roshdieh Friday. "Enough is enough! Stop wasting Montgomery County taxpayer dollars to advance the agenda of this small minority of residents."

Illegal Leland Street closure reopened (Photos)

Notoriously anti-car

Berliner, Riemer found

new election-year love

for open roads as drivers

raged against blockade

The illegal closure of Leland Street to traffic from Woodmont Avenue has been reopened by the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, which did not go through the required public process to block access to the street. After mass public outcry, the County Council was caught with their pants down on this, and quickly sought to distance themselves from the decision on social media.

In reality, Councilmembers Hans Riemer and Roger Berliner are on the record favoring such street closures up until this point. Riemer and Berliner wholeheartedly voted for a full closure of the end of Westbard Avenue at River Road in the Westbard sector plan - an even more restrictive closure than the Leland blockade. Neither expressed the views they are claiming to have now, in the face of a public firestorm, and both are on the record as solidly anti-car and anti-highway.

Another strange bedfellow to enter the scene was Greater Greater Washington, one of the leading organizations waging a War on Cars in the D.C. Metro area. Closely allied with Riemer and Berliner and supported by development interests, GGW is a regular agitator for creating more difficult driving conditions to discourage automobile use. Now they are opposed to a street closure? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, folks.

Scars left behind by the bollards

Speaking of rotten, what has to be gotten to the bottom of is, how did this secret illegal closure come about? Nobody just "forgot" to use the legal public process. Whatever the cause, this must be investigated by the County Inspector General, as the closure was an illegal use of public funds. When caught robbing a bank, one does not simply hand the moneybags to the police and go about his business; there is a penalty.

Berliner and Riemer's fellow carpetbagger David Alpert wrote in GGW that, "at some times in the past and in some places, the streets are/were much less busy." In reality, Leland Street used to be far busier than it is today. It used to be a major shortcut to reach downtown Bethesda from Little Falls Parkway. That ability to turn left onto Woodmont no longer exists today.

Alpert went on to add: "Forbidding driving one (sic) one connecting road to satisfy some residents while making traffic worse for everyone else is not the best approach, here or anywhere else in the region."

Can I quote him on that? I just did. I'm looking forward to this new David Alpert supporting making driving in Montgomery County a faster and more convenient experience in the future.

Yet Montgomery County closes or restricts access to countless streets on a regular basis (they just usually go through the legal public process, unlike this case). If Berliner and Riemer are being honest and have had a conversion on street closures, does this mean we can expect all of the closed roads that add to the congestion on main arteries countywide to reopen soon? If not, we'll know this was just a publicity stunt by two politicians running for office next year.