Walk the Future Trail June 7

Come join us on Saturday June 7 at 9 a.m. for a guided walk to explore the Purple Line transit/trail alignment in Silver Spring.

The walk will begin at 9 a.m. at the north entrance to the Silver Spring Metro Station, on the north side of Colesville Road and near the steps of the Metro Plaza building. I will be co-leading the walk with Webb Smedley, past President of the Woodside Civic Association and Chair of Purple Line Now. Email me at phyilla1@gmail.com if the weather is doubtful or if you would like to be put on a list to get notices of future walks.

Source: Coalition for the CCT Map from www.cctrail.org

We will follow the alignment of the future Purple Line and CCT, with a few detours along the Georgetown Branch Trail where necessary. Wear shoes appropriate for walking in the woods. We will offer the option of turning around at Lyttonsville or continuing on to Bethesda. Those returning from Lyttonsville can walk back along the Georgetown Branch Trail along Second Avenue and will have an approx. 3 1/2 mile total walk distance. Those opting to continue to Bethesda will have an approx. 5 mile walk and can return to Silver Spring via. either Metrobus (J2) or the Metro Red Line.

The concept plans for the Purple Line call for the Capital Crescent Trail to be built on the east side of the CSX corridor through North Silver Spring and the Silver Spring CBD. The light rail will be on the opposite (west) side of the CSX corridor through North Silver Spring.

The red line in the photo above shows the future Trail alignment
along Third Avenue and under the Spring Street Bridge.

This is one of the walks offered monthly to show the "forgotten" CCT in Silver Spring. The two earlier walks are described in prior posts on this blog. The March walk was also discussed on the Maryland Politics Watch blog.

Bike rides of the future CCT are also being offered. Watch this blog for announcements of more walks and bike rides.

Lessons from the ICC bike trail.

Our most recent walk of the future Purple Line/CCT alignment was held under beautiful weather (at last) on May 3. Several of the dozen hikers who began the walk opted to walk the entire 5 miles with me to Bethesda.

One of the hikers was convinced that promises to rebuild the CCT alongside the Purple Line were empty promises being made by public officials to get the public to accept the project, and that the CCT would be taken out of the project later, as "not essential", to reduce costs.

How can we trust government to keep its promises for the CCT when we have the ICC Bike Trail as an example? Local and state government have just stripped much of that important bike trail out of the project after "discovering" late in the process that the trail adds to the cost and environmental impact of this multi-lane highway project. We can still afford the cost and environmental impact of a billion dollar ICC roadway, but apparently cannot afford the cost and environmental impact of the trail alongside it. The evident hypocracy of this position is explored in the WashCycle blog.

There are strong similarities between the ICC Bike Trail and the CCT:

Politicians and public officials promise a first class trail early in the project process to get public support.

The trail marginally adds cost and environmental impacts to the project.

We can expect local and state government to be under pressure to trim the project back after the project is approved and the actual costs start to exceed the estimated costs.

But there are also very strong differences between the ICC Bike Trail and the CCT:

The Purple Line/CCT project between Bethesda and Silver Spring will be built in officially recognized transportation corridors, and not through parks or wetlands. There are trees within the Georgetown Branch transportation corridor that must be replaced by planting trees elsewhere, but nonetheless this is an old railroad corridor and is not a park. This is in direct contrast to the ICC which must be built through several sensitive parklands, and where the Sierra Club opposes the ICC Bike Trail as adding to the park destruction. Environmental groups including the Sierra Club support the Purple Line/CCT project as being environmentally friendly overall.

An Interim CCT is already in place with over 10,000 uses each week. A powerful trail constituency has been established. Several advocacy groups have formed to protect the CCT, including the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail, and are ready and able to mount a public outcry and to raise legal challenges in response to any effort to strip the CCT from the Purple Line project. This is in contrast to the ICC, where the trail is still only a vision and has not developed a broad constituency.

The CCT is an integral part of the Purple Line project. Light-rail depends upon easy access to local stations for its ridership. The Purple Line concepts being evaluated in the Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement/Alternatives Analysis (PEIS/AA) include the CCT as an integral feature that provides important pedestrian access to the transit stations. Removing the trail after the project that is based on these designs has been approved by the Federal Government would invite a serious legal challenge to the project. This is in contrast to the ICC, where the ICC Trail has no significant functional interaction with the highway and can be removed without compromising the roadway usage.

A friend once commented during a discussion about trusting government: "No matter how cynical you are, it is not enough!" I trust transportation bureaucrats to know when their project can be stopped by legal challenges. I also trust elected officials to know their careers can end if they break their promise to protect the most popular trail in the region. Do I trust too much?

We're #1! We're #1!

Eric Gilliland, of WABA, has sent an email alert:

"The winner for the stupidest bike lane in America goes to Silver Spring MD! We’re # 1! We’re #1!"

http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1504447505

I know I should not say "I told you so!" But I saw the potential for this bike lane to be recognized as world class when it was built, and featured The Cedar Street Wrong Way Bikeway in my Silver Spring Trails website until last year. It is good to see this bike lane finally get the recognition it deserves.

This may appear to be off topic for this Finish the Trail blog. But the same people who designed this Cedar Street bike lane, Montgomery County DPWT, will be responsible for the design to finish the CCT into Silver Spring. Keep that in mind when they assure us "trust us - we know what we are doing!"

A "natural Trail" for Golf

Can playing too much golf can make you think a "natural Trail" looks like this?

The Interim CCT at the Columbia Country Club. Trail users are confined in a 16' wide linear cage even though the public owns a 100' wide right-of-way here.

Mr. J. Paul McNamara, President of the Columbia Country Club, wrote to the Montgomery County Council in a January 13 letter: "I, along with thousands of other Trail users, would be distressed to see this natural Trail degraded and the surrounding mature forest destroyed for a light rail Purple Line."

The text of Mr. McNamara's letter is cut-and-paste directly from Chevy Chase neighborhood activist Pam Browning's call for emails to stop the Purple Line. Mr. McNamara presents himself as a trail user and does not disclose his affiliation with the Country Club in his letter. Perhaps Mr. McNamara feels this is necessary to preserve the "grass roots" appearance of the new club grass roots campaign to stop the Purple Line.

One wonders how Mr. McNamara can see the trail at his Country Club as it exists, narrowly confined between high black fences and treeless near the putting greens, and still believe it is "natural". But maybe if you play a lot of golf at the Columbia Country Club, in time you begin to feel it is "natural" to play golf in the 100' wide right-of-way that the public owns while the public is confined to a 16' wide cage. Many of us who are not members of the Club would feel the Trail is more natural if, say, the fences were removed and trees were planted to replace the golf cart paths and putting greens now in the 100' wide right-of-way. With 100' to work with, we could widen the trail, share the corridor with the Purple Line, and still have more trees in the remaining right-of-way.

Transit on grass tracks alongside a trail.
If trees and grass tracks replace the golf cart paths and putting greens now within the Georgetown Branch right-of-way at the Columbia Country Club, we would have a more natural trail setting than exists there now.

Crossing Colesville

The alignment the future CCT takes across Colesville Road to connect with the Metropolitan Branch Trail will determine whether the CCT will complete an urban trail network of regional importance.

Looking north toward Colesville Road from above the Silver Spring transit center. The Georgetown Branch Trail now ends at Second Avenue on the north side of Colesville Road (right center in the photo above).
Click here for a larger view.

Construction of the new Silver Spring Transit Center will begin in earnest this summer. A three level bus deck will be built in the center where the bus bays are now. Two high rise buildings will be built at the northeast and southeast corners. The northern terminus of the Metropolitan Branch Trail will be built with the transit center construction. The MetBranch Trail will enter the transit center from the south, alongside the CSX corridor.

The future CCT needs a direct alignment that gives a safe crossing of Colesville Road and an easy MetBranch Trail connection through all of the heavy vehicle and pedestrian activity at the new transit center. The Purple Line transit/trail concept will provide this connection. The concept calls for the CCT to be built across Colesville Road and straight through the transit center alongside the CSX/Metro tracks on an elevated structure. The CCT would be at the same elevation as the CSX/Metro tracks but separated from them by a 25'+ buffer space. The CCT would also be at the same level as the existing MARC platform and the new second level bus deck, and would have a pedestrian bridge connection across to the elevators and escalators from the second level bus deck down to the first level of the transit center. The CCT be at the high elevation needed for a level connection to the MetBranch Trail at the south side of the transit center.

The Purple Line transit would also go across Colesville Road and through the transit center on an elevated structure, between the CCT and the CSX/WMATA tracks and about 20' higher than the CCT. The structure holding the Purple Line high above the trail would be similar to that holding the Metro Red Line above the Beltway and Rockville Pike in North Bethesda.

It is unlikely the CCT will ever be built on this alignment without the Purple Line. The Metro Plaza Building proximity to the CSX tracks on the north side of Colesville Road creates a serious "choke point" for this alignment. The CCT can get through this choke point as a 10' wide trail IF an agreement can be reached with CSX and WMATA to build a retaining wall at the minimum required 25' safety standoff within their r.o.w., IF a several foot wide easement can be taken from the west side of the Metro Plaza building lot to allow the trail to be built to within 2' of the building at the south corner, and IF we can fund the high cost of the retaining wall and the elevated structure over Colesville Road and through the Transit Center. We need the Purple Line to leverage the CSX operating agreements and easements, and to share the cost of combined transit/trail structures.

If the CCT is not built on this alignment, then the best alternative alignment past the Metro Plaza Building will be on along Second Avenue. But that will force the CCT onto an at-grade trail crossing of Colesville Road, a six lane highway busy with bus traffic coming into the busiest bus station in Maryland. After crossing Colesville Road the CCT must either use a path through the transit center or go around the transit center on a sidepath trail along Wayne Avenue and Ramsey Avenue to connect to the MetBranch Trail. Any route through the center will conflict with the heavy bus and pedestrian activity in the center, and will require cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through most of the center. A sidepath trail going around the center must deal with the motor vehicle conflicts from crossing the entrances to the second level bus deck, the third level kiss-and-ride and taxi deck, and entrances to the high rise buildings.

You don't have to be a trail advocate to want the direct CCT connection into the new transit center. Anyone who lives or works north of Colesville Road and wants to use Metrobus, MARC, or the Purple Line will want the grade-separated trail crossing of Colesville Road.

The Girl Scout Test

A bike trail should be designed to be safe. But it must also be perceived as safe if it is to be widely accepted.

One way to check a trail's perceived safety is to apply the "Girl Scout Test". I first heard of this test from M-NCPPC planners years ago when we were looking for the best future CCT alignment for the North and West Silver Spring Master Plan. The Girl Scout Test works like this: You are planning to take Girl Scouts on a bike ride. They have bike skills typical of pre-teens. They can ride in a straight line, keep right, and stop at stop signs without being told. But they are inexperienced and unpredictible around motor vehicle traffic. If you feel comfortable that a trail is safe for your Girl Scouts to bike on, then that trail passes the Girl Scout Test.

The Girl Scout Test helps to explain why the Georgetown Branch Trail is so little used in Silver Spring. Would you take your Girl Scouts on a trail that crosses a major highway like this?

Looking north along the Georgetown Branch Trail
at Second Avenue and 16th Street.

Finding a safe trail crossing of 16th Street is one of the major challenges for the future CCT. Crossing 16th shows how this will be done with the Purple Line transit/trail. Purple Line opponents need to explain how they would have their trail cross 16th Street if the Purple Line is not built. The existing at-grade Georgetown Branch Trail crossing at Second Avenue is unsafe.

Some Purple Line opponents appear to be applying a double standard regarding CCT highway crossings. Take Back Bethesda was recently posting in outrage when a developer proposed closing the Bethesda Tunnel during Woodmont East II project construction. The major objection was that the trail detour across Wisconsin Avenue would be far to dangerous for Bethesda's children. The website makes full use of the Girl Scout Test, using pictures of children to drive home the idea that the trail must be safe for users of all ages.

The at-grade crossing of Wisconsin Avenue
on the alternate CCT route in Bethesda.
But some Purple Line opponents who protest that any at-grade trail crossing of Wisconsin Avenue is unacceptible also call for building the CCT on the Interim CCT alignment, which would have at-grade crossings of two state highways (16th Street and Colesville Road) and several other streets.

Now maybe it's just me, but I can't figure out how an at-grade trail crossing of Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda is NOT OK, but at-grade trail crossings of 16th Street and Colesville Road in Silver Spring are OK. Maybe the Girl Scouts can explain it to me.

You gotta draw the line....

Ike Leggett presented his proposed FY09 Operating Budget today. His recommended Bikeways Maintenance Budget reminds me of a college friend many years ago who spent big bucks for a high end car. I asked him why he bought the leather seats and air conditioning, but did not have any exterior rear view mirrors. He said "You gotta draw the line someplace."

The proposed transportation Operating Budget increases funds for maintenance for roads from 18.7M$ for FY08 to 20.2M$ for FY09. The funding for maintenance for the 100+ miles of bikeways throughout Montgomery County that DPWT maintains was 100K$ in FY08, or about 1/2 of 1% of the roadway maintenance budget. It is proposed to go to 0$ in FY09. Yes, 0 as in zero.

The Georgetown Branch Trail (a.k.a. Interim CCT) between Bethesda and Silver Spring, pictured at right near the Rock Creek Trestle, is among the bikeways and sidepaths DPWT maintains that will have no dedicated funding for resurfacing, tree removal, erosion damage repair, mowing grass, etc. We can only hope bikeway surfaces stop deteriorating, trees stop falling across bikeways, bikeway shoulders stop eroding, and grass stops growing during FY09.

You gotta draw the line someplace.