Wednesday Morning Ride - Idylwood

Good Morning

• Greenbelt Advisory Planning Board meeting tonight - Wednesday, March 16th at 7:30pm at the Greenbelt Community Center, 15 Crescent Road. On the Agenda: Discussion of the City-wide Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan. Guests from NASA Goddard present a proposed bicycle route.
• Speaking of Greenbelt. From there to downtown DC by bike in 14 minutes (using sped up footage).
• WABA is now part of Climate Ride and is forming teams for both the DC-NYC ride and the California ride. You can join.
• The Idylwood Road Overpass will open on Friday. Rebuilt as part of the HOT lanes project, it is now "slightly wider" to accomodate bicyclists and pedestrians. 
• A parking deal between the Vienna Town Council and Schupp Cos. will allow employees at the Park Place office building in Vienna to park at the town's Community Center on weekends, and for the public to park at the Park Place parking structure after hours. "The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority owns the community center’s parking lot, which is located on its Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park property. The agency lets the town use the lot via a license agreement. In a March 9 letter to [Vienna Parks and Recreation Director Cathy] Salgado, Katherine Rudacille, the Park Authority’s deputy director of planning and grants, warned that “introducing new non-park uses possibly could trigger federal approvals because of grant restrictions on the W&OD property.” The Park Place lot is not convenient or obvious to trail users, and probably would not be used by them, Rudacille wrote.
• WABA is working on a "Health Impact Assessment for a potential bike lane on a 2 mile stretch of Alabama Avenue in Southeast DC. This bike lane would connect two off-road bike trails–Oxon Run and Suitland Parkway–plus connect residents to three health care facilities, two full service grocery stores, nine schools, multiple recreation centers, and the Congress Heights metro station."

Comments

[Purple Eagle]

I don't recall where I read this (Greenbelt News Review?) but it sounds like Goddard's proposal does not formalize the connection between Northway and the employee-only ramp. Their suggested route uses the Spellman overpass and then a new path between the apartments north/east of Roosevelt High School.

[Greenbelt]

@PE -- looking at the satellite map, it does seem like a connection from the parking lot of those apartments to the employee-only ramp close to the gate would be feasible.

[washcycle]

I think both connections make sense. And a loop trail around Goddard outside the fence line.

[Purple Eagle]

It was in the Greenbelt Patch. Here's the relevant quote "The proposed 10-foot-wide paved pathway would begin at the intersections of Hanover Parkway and Mandan Road, the area of the Glen Oaks Apartments. The path span, however, does not indicate which public or private properties Goddard is intending to lay this path along. The property ownership will be a major determinate of whether the multi-use path will be at the expense of the city, the expense of Goddard, or if the city would need to negotiate an easement for the property."

I am inferring that they would run the trail straight east, which would bring it closer to the developed part of the facillity (if you look on the satellite view it's clear that the ramp from the BW Parkway is at least 1/2 mile north of any significant buildings at Goddard).

WC - I think the idea of a trail around the perimeter is a great idea. A bike/ped connection from Northway to Soil Conservation Rd would be really cool . . perhaps you have some leverage to advocate for that "from the inside"?

[Greenbelt]

NASA officials have obviously done a lot of thinking and planning -- they made a detailed presentation to the Greenbelt APB. They want to build a ped/bike trail along the fence line from the guard house to the back section of the Greenbriar 3 condo development. The trail would be lit and under NASA closed circuit TV security.

The main issue is funding for a 40 foot connection between the end of the NASA trail and the Greenbriar sidewalk/parking system. Of course, NASA officials were hopeful that the Greenbriar owners would be helpful and accomodating -- although that isn't a sure thing. But the money to pave the connection between the NASA trail (which would end at their property line) and the Greenbriar facilities would be an issue. NASA is not legally allowed to fund construction outside their property.

Suggestions included city funding or grants. It seemed to the planners that it would be unlikely that the Greenbriar residents would want to fund the 40ft trail connection, although that is a possibility if enough of them worked at NASA and made the case to their fellow residents that the trail would be a useful amenity for and could raise property values.