National Naval Medical Center BRAC process

Harry Buckles at Two Black Tires wrote recently about the BRAC planning at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda

I have looked at both the Montgomery County BRAC site and the Navy NNMC BRAC site and can find almost nothing to suggest that anyone has even seriously considered the benefits of increased bicycle facilities.

He emailed them about it and got this response

We highly encourage staff members to consider commuting alternatives such as bicycling to work.  In response, we have added additional bike racks across the facility. You can find the locations of all bike racks listed on our Commuter Solutions intranet website.  Most notably, we have established racks inside the staff garage (bldg 54), on the entrance level, allowing easy access to the hospital and cover from inclement weather.

 

In addition, we have recently posted our Master Plan for the campus on the NNMC internet website.  The Master Plan outlines organized growth for the campus  for the future. Specifically, regarding bicycles, we have identified the following improvements to be made:  

* Provide sidewalks along Grier Road south of South Palmer Road and South Palmer Road east of Grier Road
 * Support the improvement of local area regional pedestrian and bicyclist facilities by public agencies
* The use of alternative travel modes will be promoted through the provision of bicyclist amenities (on-campus Class II or III bikeways and connections to area Class I bikeways, area bicycle network maps and way finding signage, racks, bike lockers, and showers located at key locations)  

This is a very brief list of all the goals we hope to achieve, but hopefully it will give you some understanding what we intend to accomplish.

I wrote about the BRAC process 18 months ago and how the Naval Hospital ought to try to connect in to the three trails (Future Capital Crescent (CCT) - in green on map, Rock Creek Park - Blue, and North Bethesda - Red) that surrounds it. But as Harry points out the Transportation Management Plan doesn't even mention bicycles.

Connecting to the Rock Creek Park trail would be somewhat easy as a Rock Creek feeder stream cuts across the facility from SW to NE. Though getting under the Beltway might not be a piece of cake and it would require a new North security gate. Still, it's only about 800 feet from the trail to the Hospital edge. Another option would be to use the Cedar Lane underpass and Elmhirst Parkway.

From the Future CCT, access could be made better for those heading east by connecting the CCT using Pearl St/Maryland Avenue. This would also require some planning. Getting onto Pearl, as I recall, is not direct. And Pearl is one-way for part of the road. And finally a better Maryland Ave-Jones Bridge-Gunnell Road intersection would be needed. Improvements to Jones Bridge Road would help those who are heading west to the Hospital.

Local roads could also connect the Hospital to the North Bethesda Trail if access could be routed through the NIH property across Rockville Pike and over the planned pedestrian bridge.

Finally they should tak a page from their NIH neighbors and try to set up a bike bucks program. If NIH can build a bike commuter club, so can the Navy.

Comments

[Harry Buckles]

I'm trying to get a email list going. NIH has basically offered that we can be included in Bike Bucks, but right now we haven't got enough of an organization. If you look at my last post you'll see I counted only about twenty daily riders. Hopefully as it warms up, that will increase.