71% of speakers oppose Little Falls Parkway road diet at Montgomery County Planning Board hearing

Residents who participated in last evening's Montgomery County Planning Board public hearing on the proposed permanent closure of two out of four lanes on a stretch of Little Falls Parkway in Bethesda overwhelmingly opposed the controversial plan. The proposal has drawn heavy criticism and a lawsuit for excluding public input until now, and for failing to receive approval for the changes from the National Capital Planning Commission. 38 people testified; 27 opposed the "road diet," and 11 supported it. The hearing made news, as a blanket endorsement of the closure by a prominent County fire official in The Washington Post turned out to be misinformation, and was disavowed later when the official revealed he had been led to believe a different section of the parkway was being discussed. A Montgomery Parks official declared that the agency had been working with the NCPC from the beginning, an assertion never made by the department before, even as it is a defendant in the lawsuit on that very question. And as several key points began to emerge from the testimony on both sides, the proceedings were twice interrupted by profane outbursts from unidentified speakers on the Board's Microsoft Teams virtual meeting feed.

Over several hours of testimony, some themes of agreement began to become clear on both sides of the debate. Opponents expressed frustration at the failure of the Montgomery Parks department to formally get public input on the currently-temporary road diet prior to last night's hearing, questioned why other needed park-related renovations and improvements are being ignored in favor of a road diet no one asked for, cast doubt on the scope and accuracy of Parks' traffic study data, recounted traffic jams and incidents where ambulances with patients aboard were stuck in them, and protested Parks' last-minute separation of the approval of a road diet from the approval of a nebulously-defined "linear park" that even the department can't provide a final vision for.

Supporters of permanently shrinking the road argued that nearby residents should not have the last word on a park facility that belongs to the entire public, praised the reduction of speeds and impervious surface along the parkway's right-of-way, said it provided a unique open area for teaching children to ride bicycles, and suggested that redesigning roads around people rather than cars would boost adoption of cycling over time.

The hearing began with a lengthy presentation by staff from the Planning and Montgomery Parks departments. A process that has been unusual from the beginning remained true to form, as Montgomery Parks trail planner Kyle Lukacs went beyond the standard presentation of the proposal in his remarks. Lukacs essentially began to testify and argue at length in favor of the road diet. Unlike residents, he did not have a 3 minute time limit, and proceeded to engage in a point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments he expected would be raised in the public testimony that would follow him.

That testimony began with interim Planning Board Chair Jeff Zyontz awkwardly calling on Town of Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin, one of the most prominent Democrats, activists and elected officials in the County, as "Jeffrey Salvin."

Slavin said the various forms of the shapeshifting road diet over the last few years "have confused, frustrated and endangered the citizens of Somerset." He recounted a meeting he had with Parks officials and County Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D - District 1), at which the department "revealed its true plans: to close part of Little Falls Parkway permanently." 

The Somerset mayor said he was incredulous that Friedson described this closure to him as "a win-win" scenario. He noted that such a change contradicts the existing Westbard sector plan recommendation, and that a drastic change like the road diet should have been sought through a sector plan amendment process. Slavin suggested Parks instead chose its arbitrary strategy of simply implementing the diet by itself because "they wanted to make this change with as little public input as possible."

Resident David Johnson presented a petition with over 3000 signatures calling on the Board to vote against the road diet proposal. He said he had personally experienced a near head-on collision while driving the current configuration of the parkway between Dorset Avenue and Arlington Road, where there is no longer a median separating oncoming traffic in both directions. As Johnson questioned the traffic modeling used by Montgomery Parks, and the wisdom of reducing capacity on the main artery between the growing Westbard and downtown Bethesda areas, a resident waiting to speak via Microsoft Teams exclaimed, "Oh, Jesus!"

The blasphemous interjection preceded perhaps the biggest newsmaking moment of the evening. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Operations Division Chief Charles Bailey was quoted in a snarky Washington Post article about the parkway controversy last month, regarding the road diet's impact on emergency response times. "If there were some demonstrable impact to safety, then I would be throwing up red flags in the background, and I just don’t see them," the Post quoted Bailey as saying.

Given that the road diet currently reduces the parkway to one lane in each direction, with no median, no shoulders, and no way for police, fire or rescue vehicles to manuever around traffic jams on the major artery, Bailey's comments were startling to most anyone with common sense. Of course emergency response would be delayed during traffic backups - there is literally no way for emergency vehicles to circumvent a traffic jam. But Bailey's quote provided a voice of authority that Parks could use to slam the lid on the public safety argument, and Parks ran with it, even including it in staff reports to the Planning Board.

Kenwood resident Patricia Johnson was one of many in the community who were perplexed by Bailey's lack of concern over the impact on a major fire and rescue response route used by multiple departments. She got in touch with Bailey, "and asked him if he knew where the road was." It turns out that Bailey was under the impression from the Post reporter that the segment of the parkway being discussed was the section between River Road and Massachusetts Avenue, describing the speed bumps recently installed there. "He didn't know where that piece of road was when he was quoted in the Post," Johnson testified. 

About a month later, Bailey was called to the scene of an accident on Little Falls Parkway along the actual road diet segment. Johnson said. Later, Bailey called Johnson to say that he now understood and shared her concern. "I see it now," he told her. "You have a point. I'm going to talk to my chiefs," Bailey said, according to Johnson. She added that she has seen fire trucks that would ordinarily travel the parkway now cutting through the residential neighborhoods around it, where narrow streets and speed bumps further slow response times.

Leanne Tobias, representing the Springfield Civic Association, reported that an ambulance carrying an injured person had been stopped cold multiple times along the road diet section of the parkway. "I was the person in the ambulance, actually," declared Somerset resident John Stewart. "And it was actually shocking to me that the ambulance stopped several times."

Pete Rizik, President of the
Kenwood Citizens Association

A second bombshell of the evening came from Lukacs. His department is a defendant in the lawsuit filed by the Kenwood Citizens Association that alleges Montgomery Parks failed to get the required permission from the NCPC before it instituted the road diet currently in place. For the first time publicly, Lukacs claimed the "Parks Department has been coordinating with the NCPC throughout the pilot project." He even asserted that "[w]e would expect them to support the Planning Board's decision."

The fact is, the road diet has never been raised at a meeting of the NCPC, much less voted upon, as is required under the Capper-Cramton Act before such changes could be implemented by Parks. Staff at NCPC are not the NCPC commissioners. Only the commissioners can sign off on changes to the existing use of the parkway, and they've never done so since Parks sold a piece of Little Falls Parkway Stream Valley Park to a private developer for $500,000 in 2011.

"Demand proof from Parks that it has NCPC approval," Kenwood resident Christopher Danley advised the Planning Board. Until they can show approval in writing, Danley said, such claims are only an assertion.

Another development from the public hearing was a question that has been relatively overlooked in the discussion so far: If the County has extra money available for a project no one had even asked for, why is it not using that cash on existing park facilities that are outdated or in disrepair, or needed additional facilities like parks in the Westbard area or the Willett Branch Greenway?

Resident John Nicholson of Sumner was the last speaker, but made some of the strongest points of the evening on this very question. He said there are four County parks within walking distance of his home, but when he asks his children which park they would like to go to, they name parks just over the border in the District. Nicholson asked them why they wanted to go into Northwest Washington, and they replied that the playground equipment and athletic field and basketball court surfaces are newer and in better shape than those at the Montgomery County parks near them.

I could immediately understand the logic of this argument, as I grew up in the Westbard area, and I too would often ask to go to the Palisades Recreation Center and Playground (where there were still trolley tracks near Arizona Avenue), Turtle Park near American University, or Fort Bayard Park. If you go to a park in the Palisades, Nicholson said, "you'll see lots of Maryland license plates." 

Likewise, Lynne Battle of Westbard Mews asked the Board why the Little Falls Parkway road diet and linear park construction money wouldn't be put toward the Willett Branch Greenway, an amenity promised but not yet delivered via the Westbard sector plan of 2016. Stacey Band of the Bradley House condo association suggested commissioners direct these funds toward widening the Capital Crescent Trail, and to needed repairs and improvements to the Little Falls Stream Valley Trail. The irony is that Montgomery Parks funded its initial road diet on the parkway in 2017 by illegally using money from a County trail maintenance fund - the very fund that apparently was never tapped during Montgomery Parks' neglect of the Little Falls trail.

Jenny Sue Dunner testifies

"I believe money should be spent where it is needed, where it is wanted," Kenwood resident Jenny Sue Dunner told the commissioners while testifying against the road diet. Based on testimony by others, it is wanted and needed on many other fronts in Montgomery Parks' Bethesda portfolio at the moment.

The question of why Parks is now separating the vote on the abandonment of 2 of the parkway's 4 lanes from the matter of what will replace them troubled many speakers last night. Until Parks has presented a clear vision of what that facility will be, why would the public or commissioners sign off on handing that land over from its existing function? The gambit calls to mind former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's famous advice that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it."

"We're talking about the closure of two lanes" without having reached agreement on the purpose of it, Westmoreland Hills resident Sofia Blake said in describing her main objection to the road diet. "Parks hasn't even shared its final plan with you," noted Danley, the Kenwood resident. Lloyd Guerci of Chevy Chase West questioned how the value of the linear park could be deemed sufficiently beneficial or desirable to the public, if residents have not even had the opportunity to look at a fully-realized plan for the future park, and provide testimony supportive of it yet. 

Steve Shapiro said that such a final vote on the traffic capacity with only vague ideas of the facility that would replace it "puts the cart before the horse." Somerset resident Stewart was equally unpersuaded by Parks' vague promises of a park it can't define, even as it compares it to New York City's vaunted High Line. "To learn now [that Montgomery Parks is saying to the Planning Board], 'the reason we asked you for this is for a linear park, but we're not going to tell you what that is. We're going to try some things,'" Stewart said.

How about those sparkling traffic reports, or the completely opposite observations of residents on opposing sides? Traffic is either jammed or it is moving more smoothly than ever, depending upon who you are listening to. "I have not observed any change in traffic on Little Falls Parkway or Dorset Avenue," reported Somerset resident David Kathan. "It's caused the northbound traffic to back up all the way to Dorset Avenue," leading to cut-through traffic on Dorset, countered Somerset Town Council member Debbie Heller. 

Opponents attempted to bolster their arguments about traffic jams, meager use of the closed lanes by cyclists, and increased danger at the parkway's Capital Crescent Trail crossing by providing video evidence collected over many hours, days and months along the parkway. Sumner resident Carl Becker noted the irony that a road diet that had its genesis in the "multilane threat" posed at the original CCT crossing configuration, has ended up restoring that very threat in its latest iteration. Becker also provided such voluminous video chronicles of the parkway that there was barely time to scratch the surface of them. He asked the commissioners to please review the video content. 

Here are some of the videos he presented:

Emergency vehicles trying to navigate the parkway; cyclists running CCT crossing stop signs

Dangerous trail crossing

Southbound traffic backups on Little Falls Parkway

100 weekly photos taken by Patricia Johnson of closed lanes going unused over 9 months during the Open Parkways Program on Little Falls Parkway

Proponents of the road diet and linear park may have been outnumbered, but had an equal number of points to make in favor of the downsized parkway. Alison Gillespie has taken up cycling again in recent years, and testified that she has "been overjoyed to find more safer places to ride" than existed when she rode bikes in the past. She often bikes through Bethesda, and has found that the closed lanes on the parkway "provide a lot of recreation space that is badly needed."

Another contentious "Zoom moment" resulted when Gillespie contrasted Kenwood residents' opposition to closing half of the parkway to cars with the neighborhood's car-restrictive policy during cherry blossom season. The first thing Kenwood does as crowds descend on their community is to "get rid of the cars," she said. "Bull****! Bull****!" an unidentified participant on the Microsoft Teams call shouted in response. "People that live close by to parks don't get the last say," Gillespie concluded, arguing that parks belong to everyone in the county.

Somerset resident Kathan noted that closing half of the parkway between Dorset and Arlington could improve the health of the Little Falls watershed below it. "We need to remove impervious surfaces," he explained. Another benefit, according to Kathan? "Late night drag races are a thing of the past."

Bethesda resident and retired career firefighter Richard Hoye gave a strong endorsement of the proposal. "It's a groundbreaking plan, and I fully support it," he said. Hoye added that the wide space provided by the closed lanes allow him to more easily ride with his dog in a sidecar, and for families to bike side-by-side, something rarely possible on the busy CCT. Cyclists using cargo bikes or trailers are "a growing segment of the community," and would benefit from the permanent closure of the southbound lanes, he said.

David Woodward of Montgomery Village theorized that children of the plan's opponents would likely disagree with their parents' view on the road diet. Being able to ride to downtown Bethesda in the fresh air would be beneficial at a time when the mental health of many young people has been strained by the pandemic experience, and by increasing isolation among teens. He suggested installing speed bumps on adjacent neighborhood streets to discourage cut-through traffic (all of those neighborhoods already have speed bumps in place, it must be noted). Woodward closed by exhorting the Board to "do the right thing - you all know what that is."

Daniel Langenkamp, whose wife Sarah was killed by a truck driver turning into a driveway while she was cycling home in the bike lane on River Road last year, spoke in favor of the road diet and increased room for cyclists on the parkway. Green Acres resident Bryce Geyer said the closed lanes on the parkway are "probably the best place I've seen in the D.C. area" to teach someone how to ride a bike. He found it a much safer place to teach his children than the narrow and crowded CCT, or in parking lots, where cars present a danger.

Interim Board Chair Zyontz said that commissioners will review the testimony and exhibits that have been entered into the record over the next couple of weeks. A vote on the road diet is scheduled for the board's April 13, 2023 meeting.