ICC Trail goes before County Council

There was a Montgomery County Council hearing on the Planning Board's staff opinion on how to reroute the ICC trail

At a County Council public hearing Thursday, area cyclists said public safety would be jeopardized if the bike route goes through roads including New Hampshire Avenue, Route 29, Fairland and Randolph roads. They also argued that the ICC has cleared the necessary land for the bike route.

As part of its efforts to reroute the bike trail, the Planning Board drafted an amendment to the ICC's Limited Functional Master Plan. Part of this amendment called for trails to avoid environmentally sensitive stream valley parks.

The Federal Highway Administration approved the road's alignment and interchange locations as part of the May 2006 ICC Record of Decision, according to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Planning staff said in a draft that "certain alignment and implementation decisions are inconsistent with master plan guidance."

The draft says some of the trail should be rerouted to avoid further impact to the Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park.

According to the group Montgomery Bicycle Advocates, 60 percent of the trail would remain as is with the rerouting. Other parts of the trail would be "disconnected trail segments" according to its Web site.

Silver Spring resident Casey Anderson, board member for the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, said his group opposes the rerouting of the trail, particularly since there are no trail construction restrictions near the ICC.

"The state did not tell the [planning] board that you need to divert the trail to surface streets," Anderson said. "There's nothing whatsoever in the state's Record of Decision that precludes building the trail. ...You could move it six inches outside the ICC right of way and you could still be fine as far the state is concerned."

The Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment committee will meet 9:30 a.m. Feb. 9 to make a recommendation to the council.

Again for some history on this

What Happened to the ICC Trail
MoCo looking to add ICC Trail back
ICC Fail
ICC Fail 2
ICC Detour
Planning Board Still Debating Whether to Fix the ICC Trail

So, you can still write your County Councilmember,

Send letters/emails to the County Council at: county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov
Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850
www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council

especially if they're on the committee mentioned above. Those members are: Nancy Floreen, Chair; George Leventhal and Roger Berliner, Lead Member for Energy and Environment. I'm not sure if the meeting will allow public comment, but you can certainly attend.

Comments

[Jack Cochrane]

Send the Council your comments! See the MoBike ICC webpage at http://www.internetigloo.com/mobike/iccpage.html (or go to www.mobike.org and follow the ICC link) for how to help lobby for the trail. You can send the Council comments right up until the hearing date on Feb. 9 (don't worry about sending by Jan. 15th -- they'll take input any time).
- Jack Cochrane

[monte schwarzwalder]

Since the council seems intent on screwing up the ICC trail beyond all recognition, why not just scrap it and apply the money toward trail development elsewhere. It is absolutely idiotic to be concerned about a 10 to 12 foot trail when there is a 6 freaking lane highway being built through the same terrain. The damage is done. The trail will have no impact. But logic is futile weaponry against the illogical.

[Jack Cochrane]

The County Council is hopefully on our side on the ICC trail issue. They were in 2005. It's the Planning Board that put forth the amendment to change the trail.