Montgomery County's Open Parkways Program should extend after the pandemic

Starting last year, Montgomery Parks started closing (or opening, from a certain point of view) sections of parkways to give people more room to get out an exercise during the pandemic, since Covid closed many of the indoor spaces people used in the Beforetimes. When we get through this, they should consider expanding the closures in the Aftertimes as well. 

In the Beforetimes, part of Sligo Creek was recreationalized from dawn to dusk on Sundays to create more recreational space. But in April they closed Sligo Creek Parkway from New Hampshire Avenue to Piney Branch Road Friday through Sunday. It was so popular that they expanded to the recreationalization to the portion between Forest Glen Road and University Boulevard. The next week, it was expanded again

• Little Falls Parkway from Massachusetts Ave. to Arlington Rd. (1.3 miles)
• Beach Drive from Connecticut Avenue to Knowles Avenue (2.7 miles)

They also kept them "open" for Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the closures were popular.

sensors detected about 147,000 visits to Little Falls Parkway since April, but that was only an approximate number. The number of people peaked in May. Now, 10,000 to 15,000 people go to Little Falls Parkway each month.

The began to roll that back in December, specifically on Little Falls Parkway. And the rollback was also attributed to Covid

Trails Master Planner and Trails Program Supervisor Darren Flusche said the change was largely due to logistics and staff capacity. With county COVID-19 numbers on the rise, the Operations Crew and Park Police now only have two-thirds of the usual number of people working at once to allow for social distancing.

The department decided that closing Little Falls Parkway to motor vehicles made too many demands on the staff, he said.

“It’s not something that we want to do,” he said about the decision to reopen Little Falls Parkway to motor vehicles. 

Part of the problem with Little Falls Parkway is the lack of gates which makes closure harder. The solution here is just to add some gates to LFP. 

The Open Spaces program has been wildly popular. It's gotten people outside exercising and socializing and even made active transportation easier. The County should take a good hard look at it before they roll it all the way back. Weekend closures of these parkways - even without a pandemic - would put more park into the parkways. 

Comments

[Planet Kingdom]

It seems ironic that a road linking residential areas to a school, playgrounds, community swimming pool, and local commercial district has no pedestrian or bicycle access. Little Falls Parkway has no sidewalk for pedestrians and bicyclist. The LFP “trail” is a dangerous roadway shoulder and the roadway design with wide lanes and a median encourages speeding since it looks like a highway. While commercial vehicles are banned, this ban is not enforced so that it seems like commercial vehicles make up 10-20% of the traffic. Is this a legacy systematic way to limit use of these amenities to those who can afford cars?

[Jonathan Krall]

Thanks for this. I'd live to see "more park in the parkways." Allowing parkways to become fancy, visually appealing (for drivers) freeways was one of the great mistakes of the 20th century USA.