June and August 2011 MD BPAC meeting minutes

There is not too much to report from these meetings but you can see the June minutes here and the August ones here. Here are a few highlights

• Robert Herstein of the Maryland State Highway Administration gave a presentation on plans to develop draft appropriate guidelines for the use of the R4-11/Bicycles May Use Full Lane signs per the direction of MDOT Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley. After these draft guidelines are approved by SHA and MDOT the public will be allowed an opportunity to provide comment and MDOT will evaluate the comments and subsequent issue final guidelines.
• There is potential legislation in the works to require certain bicycle paths to provide 24 hour public access.
• On August 11 officials from Maryland DNR, MDOT and SHA joined legislative and other government officials from the federal government, Maryland and Delaware to review the status, merits and obstacles regarding extending the planned Chesapeake and Delaware Canal bicycle path into Maryland.
• The September 11th National Memorial Trail Alliance is working to connect all three 9/11 crash sites by bike trail and route. "what is the best way to get people from the Great Allegheny Passage to the Flight 93 crash site; and what is the best way to get people from the Flight 93 crash site across Pennsylvania to the New Jersey state line...The first leg of the trail begins at the Pentagon Memorial extending north along the National Park Service’s 184-mile Chesapeake & Ohio National Historical Park, which follows the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.  to Cumberland, Md. There it connects to the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage. It would proceed east for approximately 20 miles from the Great Allegheny Passage near Rockwood or Garrett to the Flight 93 National Memorial....The 337-mile third leg from the National Sept. 11 Memorial to the Pentagon Memorial would follow the East Coast Greenway." This won't really add any new trails to Maryland, but might result in more visitors.

Comments

[Michael H.]

That 9/11 trail article is more than 5 months old. I don't think they made much progress on the DC to NYC trail, did they? It's still not easy to bike from DC to the northeast. Even Baltimore is a difficult trip on bike.

We could really use something like a W&OD in Maryland. It would be pretty cool to be able to ride from DC through Columbia and up to Baltimore without dodging cars for most of the trip.

[washcycle]

Michael H, there are tentative plans to extend the WB&A trail to DC. Then it could go north to BWI. There is also plans to build a bike path along the WB&A ROW from BWI to Baltimore. So that is probably the best chance there is to build a trail from DC to Baltimore.

[Pseudoprime]

I'm sort of curious what "certain bicycle paths" means.

[Purple Eagle]

East Coast Greenway would be a route from DC to NYC (and beyond).

[Jonathan Krall]

24 hour access to the Oxon Hill Farms Park Trail would be nice. As it stands, many cyclists ride around a closed gate every evening. The gate separates the trail from the parking lot at Oxon Hill Farms Park.