Met Branch Trail will be completed says DDOT

Martin Di Caro is doing some good reporting on biking at WAMU lately. Today he tackles the Metropolitan Branch Trail

District transportation officials say theMetropolitan Branch Trail is not languishing in planning rooms and that funding has been budgeted to complete the D.C. portion of the eight-mile, off-street bicycling and pedestrian path.

“We still have a gap from Fort Totten to the D.C. line,” said Shane Farthing, the executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, who has criticized the D.C. Department of Transportation for the slow progress. “It is a point of frustration that the northern segment isn’t moving a little faster and that we don’t have designs a little further along.”

DDOT is currently negotiating an agreement with the National Park Service to allow the trail to traverse federal land in Fort Totten. Funding has been established to complete construction of the trail in D.C. in the fiscal ’15 and ‘16 budgets, said Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT’s head of policy, planning, and sustainability.

So Rock Creek Park in 2014-15, and MBT in 2015-16. And hopefully the bridge between the trail and the station will be built by then too. 

Comments

[Jim Werner]

The WAMU story perfectly summarized the pathetic situation with the MBT: Articulate and analytical advocacy by WABA and a verbal nothingburger from DDOT. As long as the MBT remains little more than 1.47 miles of attractive nuisance to serve as a backdrop for DC officials photo-ops, it will remain little used, and a lonely and dangerous place to ride. Thanks for highlighting this WAMU story.