The Montgomery Parks and Montgomery County Planning departments have been in violation of the Capper-Cramton Act of 1930 for eight years, implementing a road diet on Little Falls Parkway in Bethesda without receiving permission from the National Capital Planning Commission, which has authority over all alterations to the parkway. Eight years after multiple versions of the road diet began disrupting travel on the primary route between the growing Westbard and downtown Bethesda areas, the County will now go before the NCPC to seek belated permission. "Ask for forgiveness, not permission," is just one of the guiding mantras of the Montgomery County cartel, it appears. "Betrayed by the County Council" remains the mantra of residents, as councilmembers are - as I predicted last May - continuing to back a road diet for the parkway.
A virtual "public scoping meeting" has been scheduled for March 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM. To join the meeting online, or to leave comments on the road diet proposal, visit the NCPC website page for the agenda item. While the County Council tried to sell the public on the idea that it was stopping the road diet that is opposed by the vast majority of residents, it actually only directed Montgomery Parks to come back to the Council with a new plan. Parks did so, and the Council hastily approved the new plan with no notice to residents.
The new Montgomery Parks/County Council plan would maintain the road diet between Arlington Road and Dorset Avenue. It would convert the existing configuration back to the one implemented right before it - one lane in each direction, but on each side of the existing grassy median, rather than right next to each other. What this means is that there would be a slight safety improvement, as the restoration of a median will reduce the danger of head-on collisions.
However, the Parks department and County Council would remain victorious over the residents who pay their salaries, and whom they presumably serve. They get to keep the road diet they wanted, with a long-term eye still on eventually closing the parkway entirely. They keep the rush hour traffic jams and cut-through traffic into Kenwood, Somerset and Hillandale Road. Montgomery Parks continues to illegally use funds allocated to other projects and purposes for its road diet adventures; the Montgomery County Council has yet to make a capital budget allocation for a Little Falls Parkway road diet. And Montgomery Parks is once again moving ahead despite a pending court decision on the lawsuit by Kenwood residents to overturn the road diet between Hillandale Road and Dorset Avenue. Laws for thee, but not for me!
The Council is about to bend their knees to their developer sugar daddies once again with a "minor master plan amendment" allowing more development in downtown Bethesda than the 2017 master plan allowed - and before delivering a single new amenity out of that plan for Bethesda residents! That steroid shot to the thousands of new housing units delivered or under construction in downtown Bethesda since 2017 means more cars on the road. Nearly a thousand new residents will be moving into new homes in the Westbard area over the next few years, Westbard Sector Plan Phase II (River Road) is coming down the pike with a Purple Line extension, and the Council is working hard on converting the churches along River Road into luxury housing developments under the guise of "affordable housing." Yet the Council believes that reducing vehicle capacity by 50% on the main conduit between the two areas is a sensible plan.
Is the NCPC any better at math - or in representing the interests of residents - than the County Council? We will find out this year.
10 comments:
Sounds dreamy! Just the sort of thing that would attract the deepest pockets to want to buy or keep a house in Kenwood, Edgemoor, or Chevy Chase Village. Geeze, the Council and Planning Commission are doing everything they can to drive off the richest homeowners and turn this area into Maryland's answer to Crystal City.
Hey, who cares if you have one homeowner paying $25K in property taxes for his single family home in one of those elegant neighborhoods or ten people ponying up $2,500 a piece to live in bubble-gum-&-popsicle-stick constructed "luxury" apartments crammed in like Roslyn? Money is money, and a community's character --quiet, tree-lined streets with well-kept single family houses or concrete jungles dense with apartment blocks and not an azalea in sight-- means not a thing in the world to the cabal on the Council and Planning Boards. They're too busy diving into their money pits, like Scrooge McDuck.
Keeping the county and mostly the entire state a one party operation and this is the level of crazy you get. This is totally and completely insane and Robert is right to point out the years of different road diet types all done without proper authority. Road diet is a stupid and unnecessary phrase by the way. Seeing an entire side of the road blocked off and people walking and riding bikes on the closed road is just bizarre. Roads are meant to carry vehicular traffic. Sorry. There is a bike lane, walking path, jogging trail right next to that road and it's called the CCT. Why on earth does that area need a huge stretch of road, meant for cars, to be blocked off for more pedestrian strolling and bike riding? The whole county leadership is totally out of their minds. Lastly, the really dumb electorate (sorry, but that's accurate) keeps voting this way. Well, this is what you get. They don't give a rat's ass about you and will do what they want not what you, the voter, wants. Stop voting this way.
What evidence do you have that “a long-term eye still on eventually closing the parkway entirely.”? Do you really think they want to have no vehicular traffic?
9:14: Words stated publicly by members of the deposed former Planning Board. Same ones who approved all the massive residential housing growth on both ends of it, ironically!
6:17
One reason to have ten families living in the space of one single family home, as you have described, is you get ten times the amount of folks dining, shopping, and working in the area. Compact multi-family density is ultimately a very good thing to create and maintain a healthy urban place like downtown Bethesda and even a newly minted urban place like Westbard Square.
Thanks Robert (@9:45 AM) And also the same ones who won't give anyone a straight answer on how the county, planning board, and board of education are going to address the increase in the student population and the additional space (and programs) needed to accommodate the influx of kids attending our schools in the wake of approval of (as you correctly put it) the massive residential housing growth.
In the meetings I've attended, no one will take responsibility -- it's always "someone else's problem."
The school impact taxes for new development are very high, and are reviewed and adjusted every two years. These taxes are intended to pay for the impact of an increased student population caused by residential development. The county also reviews and adjusts the ratio of taxes charged for each residential typology, such as single family, garden apartments, townhouses and high-rise multifamily.
I’d appreciate more detail on what was supposedly said by deposed Planning Board members concerning the closure of Little Falls Parkway. As to the supposed violation of the Capper-Cramton Act: to date, the road diets have been operational and have not changed the configuration of Little Falls Parkway. My understanding is that Capper-Cramton applies to physical changes only. Would appreciate your weighing in on these points, Robert.
7:40 AM: Oh, but they have changed the configuration of the parkway. They've blocked off half of it. They've poured asphalt onto a large section of the actual parkland in the median. The reality is, they can't make these changes - all of which are physical - without the approval of the NCPC.
What we're learning is that federal laws can be violated by Montgomery County officials with no consequences. I see the feds taking no action against the County so far for violating the Capper-Cramton Act for almost eight years. Same with the courts ruling that the HOC does not have to follow the laws regarding gravesites on properties (!!). I didn't realize our government was above the law - until now.
You would have to go back through the many hours of Planning Board discussion regarding the Westbard Sector Plan to hear the remarks about future wishes of closing the parkway to auto traffic. I distinctly heard this expressed verbally at some point, possibly more than once.
There are numerous long range visioning maps that show the Purple Line being extended through Westbard on its way to Tysons. The CCT right of way is not wide enough South of Bethesda to accomodate the rail and trail so likely the Purple Line will take the CCT right of way and the trail will be re-routed to Little Falls Parkway and the existing trail South of Massachusetts Ave. The loss of this parkland will be compensated by the new Westbard Park parkland currently being assembled south of McDonalds. The area around McDonalds will become the new elevated rail station. Montgomery County has a meticulous but predictable master planning philosophy. Problem is the Planning Department hasn't told the public their master plan.
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