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Casey Trees' Hughes' comments surprised me too. This isn't a historic preservation project as her "preserving the character of the road" comment indicates; it's about intelligent urban design, which would favor giving access to pedestrians and cyclists who are precluded by the "character" of the road as currently configured. And her "low speed, local traffic" remark sounds like it came from a promotional brochure. Commuters use Broad Branch to circumvent Conn Ave and they drive as fast as they can get away with.

I grew up close by. Given the number of cars my friends wrapped around telephone poles and boulders on this road, I'm not sure preserving the character would be my top priority, and "low speed" is surely an aspiration statement, not an actual observation.

Has anyone proposed making the street one-way for cars and two-way for bikes (with a bike lane in each direction)? That would reduce the amount of widening that would need to take place.

It really would be nice to keep those trees there. Trees along creeks help reduce flooding, and the area abuts Rock Creek Park too. I know not everyone loves sharrows, but perhaps this would be a good place for them? I do feel more protected in a bike lane, but I don't think we necessarily need them everywhere. With road improvements such as traffic calming and sharrows, I wonder if that would be enough here?

I don't recall Casey trees complaining when the NPS was removing a lot of trees from the Parkway area during the last few years.

The loss of a few trees (truly an tiny number in the grand scheme of the Park, and to be made up by new plantings elsewhere) is not nearly as big a factor in stream erosion in Rock Creek as the impact of urbanization in general. The loss of natural stormwater retention areas and the increase in impervious surface in the watershed leads to an unnaturally peaked water volume pattern during storms. That causes erosion and pretty much wiped out the native fish population in much of the Creek. The Park Service has to go in and use expensive engineering solutions to creat an environment in which fish can live in large parts of lower Rock Creek.

Inspired by Charlie's idea, I'd keep one 10-foot lane for drivers but would convert the other lane into a two-way shared-use trail, maybe having a 1-2 foot wide median for separation from cars. The road could be flexible and switch directions depending on time of day, too.

This way there would be less environmental impact of car traffic, pedestrians/cyclists would have a safe two-way path to use, and a minimal amount of construction (i.e., loss of trees) would be required.

Another option would be to leave the road as 2-way in its current footprint, but remove the center line and install advisory bike lanes.

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/bicycles/bicycling101/advisory-bike-lane

THe biggest threat to native trees are deer and invasive introduced plants.

No argument there, Crickey, but they would be adding pavement here, right along the stream corridor. Just my opinion that not adding paving and leaving a buffer would be better.

So, we close Klingle Road but we can't have a conversation about closing Broad Branch?

IIRC,Klingle washed out and became impassable.

Klingle should be a road and a bile path and so should Broad Branch. Klingle needs $12 million and if it is just a bike path in the middle of a road it is not really useful and gets a lot of bad press for the bike community.

Good choice!

Pretty sure there's a better chance of Klingle being officially recognized by the NPS as a preserve for woodland fairies than being turned back into a traffic bearing road. But hey,we all have our dreams....

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