New Trail along PEPCO corridor could be first of many in Montgomery County

In January, Pepco and Montgomery County Parks broke ground on a new 6-mile long trail from the Muddy Branch Stream Valley to the South Germantown Recreational Park, home of the Maryland SoccerPlex. The trail, and a 13 mile paved trail in the same corridor to be built later, is a pilot project between PEPCO and the county, and the only one required in the PEPCO/Exelon merger agreement but the county is hoping to build others and the county promises that "This is the first of several projects slated for Pepco land."

Montgomery Parks will construct and patrol the trail; and Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts (MORE) will maintain it.  A large portion of the trail is expected to be complete this spring, completion of the entire trail is expected to take about a year, dependent upon funding. The paved trail, to be built "later" will run from the SoccerPlex to Cabin John.  

 The use of utility corridors as bikeways has attracted a lot of interest in the County over the years, as they can provide long trails separated from traffic. They were most recently considered as part of the 2005 Countywide Bikeways Functional Master Plan, but ultimately rejected because utility companies were not in support of bikeways along their rights-of-way. The use of utility corridors for trails has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years and it came up in discussion of the County's bike plan last month. 

The Bicycle Master Plan recommends four trails on utility corridors:

• Utility Corridor #1: This trail was conditioned as part of the PEPCO-Exelon merger. It is part of the Germantown – Grosvenor Breezeway and connects the Germantown Soccerplex to Montgomery Mall.

• Utility Corridor #2: This trail is part of the Germantown – Burtonsville Breezeway and travels in a crescent across Montgomery County on an electrical corridor.

• Utility Corridor #3: This trail connects Bowie Mill Road to Cherry Valley Drive in Olney via an electrical corridor.

• Utility Corridor #4: This trail connects Georgia Avenue to Heartwood Drive in Olney via a natural gas corridor. It exists in part as it parallels Headwaters Drive in Olney.

There were several recommendations to extend each of the above trails and to add a bikeway on one new utility corridor.

Staff Response: Staff has had no opportunity to travel along most of the utility corridors that are recommended to be added to the Bicycle Master Plan because many of them are inaccessible except on foot and based on a review of topography, many will be challenging to implement due to steep slopes. However, we recommend adding the following corridors to the plan, which will enable the County to study the feasibility of constructing trails on these corridors:

• Extend Utility Corridor #1 to the C&O Canal Towpath near Dickerson: This trail would provide substantial value as it would connect Germantown to the C&O Canal Towpath. 

• Extend Utility Corridor #4 south to Muncaster Mill Road: This is a short extension of Utility Corridor #4 that was identified by Planning staff.

Staff does not support trails on the following utility corridors:

• Extend Utility Corridor #1 to Westlake Drive: The original concept for the PEPCO-Exelon trail was to travel along the utility corridor from Germantown to Westlake Drive near Montgomery Mall. An advisory group staff from M-NCPPC and MCDOT recommended against routing the trail along the utility corridor between Tuckerman Lane and Westlake Drive due to the steep slopes in this area and to instead route the trail along Tuckerman Lane and Westlake Drive. Staff continues to support this approach. 

• Extend Utility Corridor #2 to River Road / C&O Canal Towpath: While this trail would provide substantial value as a connection between Germantown and the C&O Canal Towpath, it would travel on a utility corridor through the Muddy Branch Stream Valley Park and the Blockhouse Point Conservation Park. Because of the potential impacts to water quality, the Countywide Park Trails Plan recommends natural surface trails in this location

• Extend Utility Corridor #3 north to the Germantown – Burtonsville Breezeway: Planning staff believe this trail is unnecessary because it would duplicate the proposed MD 108 sidepath and would create a midblock crossing.

• Extend Utility Corridor #4 north to the Germantown – Burtonsville Breezeway: Staff does not support extending Utility Corridor #4 to the Germantown-Burtonsville Breezeway as it would duplicate the Georgia Ave to Gold Mine Road bikeway. Instead, we recommend extending the Gold Mine Road bikeway to the Germantown - Burtonsville Breezeway. A portion of this bikeway is included in the design of the Gold Mine Rd bridge replacement project. 

• Connect Damascus to Clarksburg Town Center via an electric corridor: Staff does not support a bikeway on this corridor because the proposed Ridge Rd (MD 27) sidepath would provide similar connectivity but would also provide connectivity to the adjacent neighborhoods and Cedar Grove Elementary School. 

Comments

[Brett Young]

I think you missed a significant potential connection:
p10
"Issue 12: Bikeway Recommendation between Capital Crescent Trail and the C&O Canal Towpath
MCDOT recommends connecting the Capital Crescent Trail and the C&O Canal Towpath near the border with the District of Columbia by providing a short trail between the Capital Crescent Trail and the Broad Street in the Brookmont community (Comment #204). Bicyclists would then use an existing connection between Broad Street and the C&O Canal Towpath. Relevant pages of the plan are the Bethesda – Chevy Chase (West) map on page 242."

From the map, that would mean a bridge from the CCT to the Brookmont neighborhood which would be amazing.
And then, if they do that, why not go north using the old Trolley path to Glen Echo Park?
Once you build that bridge, anything's possible.

[washycle]

Brett, I mentioned that in last week's lengthy post on the MoCo Bike plan.

http://www.thewashcycle.com/2018/03/the-montgomery-county-bike-plan-gets-reworked.html

There's even a map of it.

[drumz]

In the rural area I grew up in the power lines were conduits for all sorts of 4 wheeler/dirt bike trails.

But the objections by the utility company seem like they can be dealt with. Just treat the trail like any other road and if it needs to be shut down to do some sort of maintenance to the power lines then set up cones/signs and move on. I guess its extra work but not something unknowable.

[roomd]

Knowing this area a little bit, the proposed trail would be great for mountain bikers (hence support by MORE), but not so good for commuting (because of the steep grades). Not sure that paving the surface will attract a lot of commuters either.

> Staff has had no opportunity to travel
> because many of them are
> inaccessible except on foot

This is both sad and hilarious and tells a lot about the planning staff. If it's accessible by foot only, then take your lazy ass from the car and survey it by foot, what a lame excuse for not doing your job...

[gary hailey]

This map is useless. (When you try to enlarge it, all the words blur.) Is this really the best you can do?

[washycle]

Thanks Gary for your positive input. Did you try following the first link? It takes you to a version of the map that's better than the best I can do.

[gary]

What a horrible, boring, ugly "trail." I can't imagine anyone will ride it more than once. (MoCo had no right to blackmail Pepco and Exelon into providing the trail right of way as a condition of approving their merger. If this is the best they could get, it wasn't worth it.)

[gary]

The chopped up iCC bike trail is another disaster – very poor planning and execution. And the northern half of the Rock Creek Trail is falling apart – riddled with bumps and potholes, and usually covered with leaves, mud, and other debris. plus the street crossings are very dangerous – cars don't have to stop there, and they don't.

[washcycle]

Well gary, there's no accounting for taste, but I suspect you're wrong about repeat business. And MoCo had every right to place conditions on approving the merger - if not I'm sure PEPCO would have taken them to court. But I believe there was more to the deal than just this trail. As for the ICC, I've never ridden it, so I'll take your word for it.

But man, is this post attracting the Grumpy Gus's