The next step in a quiet, long-range plan to permanently shut down Little Falls Parkway is moving forward in Bethesda. Weekend closures of the parkway that ostensibly were to give users of the adjacent Capital Crescent Trail more space during the pandemic, but in reality drew few users, will end on June 18, 2022, Montgomery Parks announced in press release. While taxpayers will finally have use of the road they pay for on weekends again, don't celebrate just yet. The Parks Department is only reopening the road so it can study the feasiblity of reducing the parkway from four lanes to two, a traffic study that will continue through the fall.
Montgomery Parks Director Mike Riley suggested such a reduction would allow the creation of "a linear park unlike anything that currently exists in the United States.” Unfortunately, Montgomery Parks does not have a good record or evidence of good faith negotiations when it comes to Little Falls Parkway, the Willett Branch stream and Little Falls Stream Valley Park.
What's really "unlike anything that currently exists in the United States," is Montgomery County government's belief that it can add thousands of new housing units on either end of Little Falls Parkway, while simultaneously reducing the capacity of the road that connects the Westbard area with downtown Bethesda by 50%. This is new math that just doesn't add up.
There may be two end goals here, and both are reasons to strongly oppose a 50% reduction of vehicle capacity on Little Falls Parkway. One is the aforementioned pipe dream of shutting down the road altogether.
The gradual drip of closures and dangerous road diets have been a steady march toward elimination of this road, tactics used by anti-car zealots in the District to seize taxpayer-funded parkways like Klingle Road and Beach Drive. You wake up one day and find that the "temporarily-closed" road isn't going to reopen, and it's a done deal. Ableist policies steamroll over the existing road access that allows everyone to enjoy parkland and green spaces.
Second, this may be a land grab for developers. Did you know there is less square footage of parkland in Bethesda than there was a decade ago? That's because in 2012, Montgomery Parks sold a part of Little Falls Stream Valley Park to a developer for the bargain rate of only $500,000, and the promise of stream projects that never ended up being executed on the Willett Branch. The townhome development was built right on the banks of the Willett Branch, in opposition to every environmental best practice posited since Al Gore first picked up a slide clicker.
The County fully intends to ram the Purple Line through Kenwood in the future. This would allow for additional building height and density beyond what is currently permitted - and as we've seen, the development conveniently happens long before the Purple Line gets constructed. Several redevelopment sites are on the parkway.
Along Little Falls Parkway are the Washington Episcopal School campus, the Bethesda Pool and a parking lot for the Bethesda Pool a block away, north of Arlington Road. The 2016 Westbard sector plan envisions a massive redevelopment of the WES campus in the future; a slimmer parkway would allow Montgomery Parks to either sell parts of the park to that future developer, or to give the developer more buildable space by having the "linear park" that replaces two of the lanes serve as the buffer in lieu of a setback.
Under the County's co-location policy, the Bethesda Pool and its auxiliary parking lot could also be redeveloped with luxury housing in the future. What's past (2012) is prologue, as Parks, Planning and the County Council eagerly sold a part of the park to private-profit developers in the past. Why wouldn't they do it again? Think about it.
Let's also remember that Montgomery Parks, the Planning Board and Montgomery County Council have repeatedly thumbed their noses at the residents of the area, and the budget rules, when it comes to Little Falls Parkway. A road diet was implemented between Arlington and Hillandale Roads without a public process, and over the objections of adjacent communities, who now suffer cut-through traffic as a result.
The road diet created a dangerous situation by placing numerous bollards in the roadway that actually block drivers' views of trail users as they cross the parkway. It was an illegal road diet, to boot, as trail maintenance funds were used for a highway project. You have to get an appropriation from the County Council for a capital project like that; you can't simply take money appropriated for another purpose, as Donald Trump found out with his plan to finance the border wall.
Finally, the public had no say in the weekend closures of the parkway. Montgomery County's motto is the same as Nike: Just do it. Alas, that's a violation of the public process and protocols in place for such changes.
Watch this process carefully. Follow the money. Ask candidates for office if they support slashing the capacity of Little Falls Parkway by 50%, or closing it altogether. And don't forget to start using the parkway again on the weekends beginning June 18, so that your car gets counted.
8 comments:
You're exactly right in that these politicians get their way and the citizens suffer death by a thousand cuts.
Glad they are reopening Little Falls parkway on the weekend. It was nice at the beginning of the pandemic, but people stopped using it and there are two bike paths that run parallel to it for part of the parkway.
What should be done is to widen the Capital Crescent Trail from Downtown Bethesda to Mass Avenue. You could create another gravel zone on the east side of the trail for pedestrians and runners so the bikers can used the middle paved area.
I don't know the answer on closing the road to one lane each way. The part from Mass to river is already only two lanes. If it means actually increasing park land I would consider it. But if it is part of a way to sell off other park land to development, then count me out.
This is literally --by which I mean literally, not figuratively-- nauseating. Reading this made me queasy. Is there nothing that can be done? Lawsuits? Protests? Seriously, this is grotesque.
My family has lived in Chevy Chase for close to one hundred years. I remember kidhood in the mid-70s, when my uncle commented on what he thought was a building boom *already* taking place in Bethesda. "This area is gone. The developers are going to make the entire region unrecognizable in 20 years." He long ago moved to a quiet suburb an hour or so away, but told me he last month visited Bethesda for the first time in several years. "I had absolutely no idea where I was. The street names were the same, but it was utterly alien. It looks like Rosslyn."
Pfft. . . just wait. There's still a [tiny] bit of green space the developers haven't yet paved over.
How can we stop them? Montgomery County Parks is using LFP as their personal playground. The only thing that will stop them is a lawsuit brought by citizens who are not being heard or represented.
Robert, what about the LFP between River Road and Mass Ave? It's already two lanes so it may not be affected?
As a pedestrian, I would much rather cross one lane of traffic in each direction than two lanes.
If you think the posts create too much of a visual obstruction (I don't), perhaps the County needs to replace that temporary measure with a permanent concrete curb that you could easily see over.
John,
Yes, I do think they could find a better way. They are violating a number of sound traffic engineering principles there as it stands now. Too many signs, too many visual obstructions, when the driver's focus needs to be on the people crossing and approaching to cross.
We need votes on that county council to at least create dialogue with citizens. Parks is continuing to narrow LFP by linear feet. They won't stop til it reaches RR. Developers have closed Ridgefield and the backups are getting worse. Short sighted when they continue to develop downtown Bethesda as well as Westbard. The Citizens Slate is supporting a few candidates for at large Council seats that will listen to citizens of MoCo. We are overwhelmed with orange barrels and bollards on all our roads these days. Unnecessary and unsafe.
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