Your Help is Urgently Needed to Ensure a Pedestrian and Bicycle-Friendly Montrose Parkway East

Friends of White Flint has spent the past few weeks learning and thinking about Montrose Parkway East. Executive Director Amy Ginsburg attended the recent hearing and participated in a helpful meeting with MCDOT. She also gathered opinions from our board, our members, and residents of the White Flint area. After sorting through the advantages and disadvantages of this road, Friends of White Flint has come to the conclusion that the proposed Montrose Parkway East has many virtues, but it also has one large problem — the interchange at Parklawn and Montrose Parkway.
The SPUI interchange at Montrose Parkway and Parklawn is over-engineered and will discourage walking and biking. In fact, it would make walking and biking a dicey proposition at best, and there is the very real possibility that walking and biking through that intersection will actually be dangerous. An example of a SPUI interchange is the Falls Road/270 interchange — it’s hard to imagine walking or biking comfortably and safely at that intersection, isn’t it?
We like that we will now have a safe overpass over the railroad checks, and we realize that Montgomery County does need more east-west roads. We like, too, that both Montrose Parkway and Parklawn Drive will have a ten-foot mixed use path on one side of each road and a five-foot sidewalk on the opposite side of each road.
But building pedestrian-friendly roads and spaces must be a top priority in the Pike District. Walkability is a central tenet of the 2010 White Flint Sector Plan and something we must protect.
To ensure a walkable, vibrant, live-work-play community, we ask you to send by 6 pm on Thursday, August 13 the following email (or even better, something similar in your own words) to:
Gaila.Lescinskiene@montgomerycountymd.gov (Please cc or bcc: info@whiteflint.org)
Dear Montgomery County Department of Transportation:
While generally I support the construction of Montrose Parkway East to facilitate east-west crossings in Montgomery County and am pleased that there will be an overpass over the railroad tracks to increase safety, I am opposed to the SPUI interchange at Parklawn and Montrose Road. It is an over-engineered intersection that makes it dangerous and difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to utilize the intersection.
It is imperative that the interchange be changed to an at-grade intersection to encourage walkability, fulfill the goals of the White Flint Sector Plan, and ensure pedestrian and bicycle safety. I strongly urge SHA and MCDOT to change the design of the intersection at Parklawn and Montrose Parkway to make it pedestrian and bicycle-friendly by building an at-grade intersection.
Thank you.
YOUR NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
Edward Rich, President, Greater Farmland Civic Association
I’m dismayed about FOWF taking a position on Montrose Parkway East. The Greater Farmland Civic Association, which is a member of FOWF was not aware that FOWF would be taking a position on Montrose Parkway East and did was not consulted prior to FOWF taking a position to support the Parkway construction. While the Greater Farmland Civic Association has not taken a position in favor of or against Montrose Parkway East, our predecessor organizations fought very hard against Montrose Parkway West as unnecessary and an environmental killer. The same results could have been achieved by simply widening Montrose Road and reconfiguring turn lanes at East Jefferson. However, the County Executive at the time, Doug Duncan had an easement for the outer beltway that was to expire and was also running for Governor and wanted to show that he could be decisive, so a $130 million road (including what what was supposed to be paid for by the state) was built that cut off a key east-west county connection and created a grade separation at Montrose and Rockville Pike that is antithetical to the vision of the White Flnit Sector Plan to create an urban district.
The same can be said for Montrose Parkway East, a road that will destroy mature woodlands to save drivers a couple of seconds from their daily
commute and finish the by-passing of the White Flint sector and all of its residences, shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, hotels and offices that the Montrose Parkway West created.
FOWF should be encouraging ride sharing and other forms of transportation that minimize single occupancy vehicle travel, not construction of an unnecessary road that adds nothing to the urban grid that was supposed to be created in White Flint. Just take a look at the Gladding-Jackson study that was funded by the White Flint Partnership.
The only virtue, if it indeed a virtue, is removing the at-grade interchange with the CSX tracks. I personally see no virtue in this road that abruptly ends at Viers Mill Road. Moreover, supporting this road when there are other critical infrastructure issues, such as the south entrance to the Bethesda Metro and funding for the BRT, is asinine
The views of FOLG on the road do not represent the views of the Greater Farmland Civic Association and we do not wish to be seen as supporting this position. If our 980 home association is not going to have a voice in FOWF decisions we will have to consider withdrawing our membership in this organization.
Ed Rich
President
Greater Farmland Civic Association