Back in the summer of 2013, M-NCPPC hosted a pair of meetings to discuss an update/amendment to the Countywide Park Trails Plan. The update was to address the fact that the 15 year old plan hadn't been able to take advantage of the modern mapping and GIS technology at the time and that population projections had changed. This resulted in several trails (they identified at least 20) that were planned in areas where environmental constraints or land-ownership issues represented a significant barrier. The amendment was meant to produce a more realistic plan that better served residents, protected the environment and used every dollar more wisely.
At the time they were proposing moving from the corridor based plan seen below...
To a loops and links concept, consisting of four countywide "hybrid" (both paved and unpaved) recreational loops connected to county, state and federal trails via "links" and then joined with major bikeways.
They were supposed to present a Staff Draft of the Plan to the Montgomery County Planning Board last year, but that has been delayed to spring/summer of 2015*. Currently the schedule presented to the Montgomery County Bicycle Action Group shows that they're writing the plan now, with outreach and briefings scheduled this winter and fall, ending with a briefing to the County Council PHED in the summer.
*In fact as of Feb 4th, the website for the project hadn't been updated since the summer of 2013 - even though the page says it was updated in November 2014 - with it still talking about "this winter" and "this past June" when really it's talking about Winter 2013-2014 and June 2013.
Comments