Montgomery County announced this week that phase 2 of the Needwood Road Bike Path, and thus the whole project, is now complete, but for some signal and landscaping work.
The Needwood Road Bike Path, which is not just for biking by the way, creates a 1.7 mile connection between Shady Grove, the Rock Creek Trail, the ICC Trail and Magruder High School.
The key portion, from the Westside Trail to the ICC Trail was completed in late 2017. Via the unpaved Westside Trail, one can connect to the Rock Creek Trail. That section was paid for by a MDOT grant, but to get that money the county had to pull money from the Met Branch Trail, delaying that project. The sections completed this week extended the trail west to Deer Lake Road and east to Muncaster Mill Road (MD 115). On the western end at Deer Lake Road it connects to a 1300 foot long path from Deer Lake to Redland Road completed in April, 2016. There it connects with existing bike facilities west of Redland and south along Redland to the Shady Grove Metro Station, thereby tying it all to Metro on its west side.
In addition, Phase II provides a 6-foot wide sidewalk over approximately 800 feet of length along the east side of Muncaster Mill Road from the intersection with Needwood Road to the northern entrance of Colonel Zadok Magruder High School.
Phase I didn't go all the way to the Westside Trail, it went to an existing sidepath along Needwood Road. That path is narrower than what was built, and wasn't upgraded during this project.
It's great that this project is complete and will certainly improve mobility in the area. It's unfortunate that it came at the expense of the MBT and that it completed late (it was to be finished in Summer 2018).
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