As mentioned a couple of months ago, Maryland is planning on knocking down the Talbot Avenue bridge as part of the construction of the Purple Line. Shortly after that last post was written, MTA committed to preserving part.
The Maryland Transit Administration has agreed to save the steel girders from the Talbot Avenue bridge, a 100-year-old span in the Lyttonsville area of Silver Spring, when it’s torn down to make way for the light-rail line, the county said.
The girders will be installed on a vacant state-owned parcel about two blocks from the bridge, near Talbot and Michigan avenues. They will form short walls on both sides of the Capital Crescent Trail to give runners and cyclists the feel of crossing a bridge.
Tim Cupples, Montgomery’s coordinator on the state’s Purple Line project, said the county and state are still discussing how much the preservation project will cost and who will pay for it.
But this part is confusing. Above it says MTA will save the girders, but then the Post article says they'll use replicas. So which is it?
In a statement, MTA spokeswoman Veronica Battisti said the state will use “replica girders” in the bridge-themed artwork chosen for the Lyttonsville station.
Anyway, this could be bad news for bike commuters in the area.
With the Talbot bridge’s future resolved, local residents say they’re still concerned about how they’ll get out of their community when another bridge, the Lyttonsville Place bridge, is also replaced during Purple Line construction.
I might have misunderstood, but my impression all along had been that the real girders would be used alongside the trail just outside the Lyttonsville station, while the replica ones are going to be used at the station itself for artwork.
I vaguely seem to remember hearing something about originally wanting to use the real girders at the station, but people weren't happy with the fact that it no longer felt like a bridge in the station artwork plans.
Posted by: Martin P | May 14, 2018 at 09:13 AM