TheWashCycle

CWL 2020: #2 Northwest Branch

The Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River, along with the Northeast Branch, is one of the two streams that forms the main stem of the Anacostia River.  It's a 21.5 mile long stream running from the Sandy Spring area of Montgomery County to the confluence of the two streams in Prince George's County. Dozens of tributaries feed into it along the way. A paved multi-use trail runs for 7 miles along the stream from the Beltway in Montgomery County to the confluence in Bladensburg. Unpaved hiker/biker trails (in blue below) proceed north along the stream from the end of the paved trail to Bonifant Street on the other side of the Intercounty Connector. 

There's room for a paved multi-use trail through much of the section north of the Beltway, but perhaps not a lot of political will. There may be less of an argument for a paved trail to Wheaton Regional Park where it runs parallel to the nearby Sligo Creek Trail, but north of that there is no such alternatives. A trail through the valley between Wheaton Regional Park and the ICC, and then to a trail closing a gap in the ICC trail from Notley to Layhill road would have significant utility. 

North of the ICC it passes the Trolley Museum and then runs into the Northwest Branch Golf course, though a way around that - and to Blake High School - would not be difficult.  North of the high school the stream flows through parkland before reaching the ridge at Olney-Sandy Spring Road.  There are far too many tributaries, especially north of Wheaton Regional Park, to go into but many have potential, and a trail through this area opens them up as possibilities. 

Some of this is in county plans. Montgomery County plans include a mutli-use trail from Wheaton Regional Park along roads and the stream to the ICC and a connection to it through the Poplar Run development to the Matthew Henson Trail, which would add some extra connectivity. The trail would then extend NW along the ICC. The county plan also includes an extended natural surface trail from the ICC to Blake HS. (Highlighted in yellow below)

A need to provide multiple kinds of space for different users and to protect the environment limit the county's ambitions with respect to the Northwest Branch, but the stream valley represents a big opportunity and the county plans to use the most important part, but it's unfortunate a trail north of the ICC isn't in the plans. Maybe someday the county will trade the golf course for an expanded trail network.

CWL 2020: #6 Paint Branch

Paint Branch is a stream through eastern Montgomery and western Prince George's Counties that merges with Indian Creek near the College Park Airport to form the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River. There's an existing trail that follows it from the NE Branch to a point south of the Beltway where the trail switches to the Little Paint Branch. Outside the Beltway Paint Branch flows flows from Spencerville Road and from Cloverly in Montgomery County south. After passing the ICC another Paint Branch Trail runs along it for about 2 miles from Fairland Road to Columbia Pike. From there it continues southeast through White Oak, Power Mill Community Park and the I-95/Beltway interchange to the Anacostia Tributary Trail system in College Park.

About 4.4 miles of trail would be needed to close the gap between the two sections of trail, and that would somehow need to navigate the I-95/Beltway interchange under which Paint Branch flow. It would also need to get across Powder Mill Road and Columbia Pike/US-29. Those won't be easy, but much of the stream flows through forests - even around the Beltway - meaning the trail would likely be a nice park ride without many other street crossings. In addition to connecting to the PG and MoCo trails, it could also connect to the Old Columbia Pike Bridge which is a bike and ped only bridge now. Just north of Powder Mill, a small tributary leads north to the shopping areas along Cherry Hill Road. Along the stream valley there's an assortment of neighborhoods, parks, shopping areas and employers creating an assortment of destinations.

The bad news here is that while this used to be in Montgomery County's Trail plan, the section from the existing MoCo trail to Old Columbia Pike was dropped to an unpaved trail in 2016 due to "Adverse Natural Resource Impacts" and the section to PG County was removed because the land is part of the FDA campus and unlikely to become available. That likely dooms any PG County expansion, which was unlikely anyway as it's not in that county's trail plan. The good news is that the natural surface trail was a top priority.

North of Fairland Road, where the MoCo section ends at a very narrow sidewalk, Paint Branch continues through wide woodlands crossing a few major roads including the InterCounty Connector before ending at the hills of Cloverly. This section of the ICC doesn't have a trail along it, but a trail along Paint Branch, along with one along the tributary to the west, could serve double duty and would go a long way to closing the gap between New Hampshire Ave and Columbia Pike. A barrier to this is that Montgomery County already decided that a trail through this area would cause too much environmental damage to be worthwhile. 

Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park, between New Hampshire Avenue and Route 29 in northern Silver Spring, is considered the most sensitive to more asphalt, which could create storm water runoff. Its special natural resources include several streams where brown trout survive only in cold and very clean water, park officials said.

Instead they recommended sidepaths along New Hampshire Ave and Fairland Road and a future trail along the north side of the ICC between Cape May Road and Countryside Lane. The 2016 County Trails plan meanwhile calls for a natural surface trail from Fairland to Briggs Chaney. 

Another tributary across the ICC leads to the Burtonsville Library and the park next door. North of the ICC, the Paint Branch goes to Maydale Conservation Park and Cloverly Elementary School and the adjacent park. 

Altogether, an extended trail along the Paint Branch would connected dozens of destinations in Montgomery and Prince George's County, create a new outdoor opportunity and help fulfill the promise of the ICC Trail. A paved trail the length of the valley is unlikely due to environmental concerns, the FDA campus barrier (it's unclear that the FDA would oppose a trail across their land, but the security there is pretty serious) and the fact that new paved trails through it are not in either county's plans.  

CWL 2020: #9 Little Paint Branch

Little Paint Branch is an ~8 mile long tributary of Paint Branch that flows from Burtonsville in Montgomery County to a location just north or the Paint Branch Golf Course in College Park, which is in Prince George's County.  A piecemeal set of trails follows it from College Park north to Fairfield Regional Park in Montgomery County, with on-road sections to get around the Beltsville Agricultural Center and the Powder Mill Road/I-95 interchange. A trail on the last 1.3 miles would extend it almost all the way to Howard County and while the gaps would be hard to close (BARC is unlikely to allow a trail and at I-95, the stream runs down the median for about 3000 feet, there are a few other tributaries that could be useful. One of those requires a new crossing of I-95, but that's something that's needed anyway).

(the blue lines represent existing connections that don't show on the map)

One tributary splits off just as the Little Paint Branch reaches I-95. IF this interchange were rebuilt, then this would be a good place to create a new I-95 crossing as it's about the halfway point in a 2.4 mile barrier. Once on the other side the stream flows 1.5 miles through residential areas to Calverton-Galway Local Park. There's room to extend the trail to Columbia Pike thereby running the trail east west across the entire city of Calverton. 

While following Little Paint Branch through I-95 is difficult, a trail from where it comes out on the other side to the existing portion of trail at Briggs Chaney Road would be easy. Following the stream north of Briggs Chaney to the ICC Trail would be easy too, were it not for the Cross Creek Gold Course, but it's something to consider should that ever be redeveloped. Such a trail would make a nice connector for Calverton.

The last piece on the very north end could extend through the headwaters area to the bike path along Columbia Pike to Sandy Spring Road in Burtonsville. Not far beyond that is a power line corridor and not much farther is the Patuxent River and Howard County. 

Once again, with the exception of a sidepath along Briggs Chaney road, neither county has any of this in their plans. Though Montgomery County does plan a trail along the section of the Patuxent north of Burtonsville that something like this could extend to. Still, this is less crazy than other ideas, perhaps in part because there are three smaller parts and each has value on its own. Further the golf course, should it ever shut down, represents another possible future opportunity. 

North Branch Trail construction pushed back to 2021

Construction on a couple of segments of the North Branch Trail, a trail that will eventually extend along the North Branch of Rock Creek from the Rock Creek Valley Trail to Olney, was to begin this spring or last fall, but has been pushed out to 2021.

This project includes two segments (yellow on the map above) of the trail, and together with another bikeway project, will close two critical gaps in the trail.

The first segment will extend the Lake Bernard Frank Trail to two locations along Muncaster Mill Road. At the west location it will connect to the existing Muncaster Mill Bikeway and via that to the ICC Trail. There will also be a 15-car parking lot built there (at Meadowside Lane) and the old parking lots will be restored to a natural state. The other location is further east, where a separate project will build additional segments of bikeway along Muncaster Mill and Emory Lane to the existing bikeway along Emory Lane and via that to the ICC Trail. 

The trail along Lake Frank will follow the existing unpaved trail - itself built on a formerly paved WSSC access road until just south of Muncaster Mill Road. 

Just south of Muncaster Mill Road, the proposed trail alignment climbs the densely wooded slope and emerges in a clearing created by a former residential property, where the house has long been removed. The proposed trail alignment ends at this clearing

The second segment will connect the ICC Trail to a trail along the North Branch built as part of the Preserve at Rock Creek development. That segment - yellow in the image below - was completed around 2016.

The trailhead parking lot will be along Meadowside Lane.

Construction of the Muncaster Mill/Emory Lane bikeway is scheduled for this year.  That would close a small gap on the east side route.

Once these two projects were complete, it would leave only one gap between Tobaggan Lane and Bowie Mill Road, which is less than a mile, that would need to be closed to get all the way to the planned end at Olney Laytonsville Road. It would also create a continuous connection between the ICC Trail (as limited as it is now) and the Rock Creek Park Trail system (really the North Branch Trail is part of the Rock Creek Park Trail system). 

Construction has begun on the last section of the Rhode Island Ave Trolley Trail

Image courtesy of MV + A Architects.

This week, officials at Riverdale Park Station along with local, county and state officials broke ground on the Residences at Riverdale Park Station, and with it the last section of the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail. (I believe it's that bit of pavement in the bottom right corner of the image above).

The building is building number 5 on the picture below and the section of the trail to be built with it is the one-block long section adjacent to it, between Woodbury and Van Buren. While this technically completes the trail, trail users can currently use Rhode Island Avenue and the sidewalk alongside it to cover this block, so its completion won't suddenly close a gap. But, it will make that bit of trail nicer.

Reportedly, they plan to get that section of the trail open early in the process. 

[Though not along the trail, they're also proposing putting a former trolley car next to the building to the east of the trail and using it for a restaurant. And they want to push it up to seven stories from six.]

Not a part of Riverdale Park Station, but the next steps for the trail are to extend it south to the Anacostia Tributary Trail and north to the ICC Trail. At least one of those are officially planned. 

The Needwood Road Path is complete

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).

CWL 2018 #1 Takoma Park To Ellicott City

The utility corridor from Ellicott City to Takoma Park is the one that comes the closest to Washington, DC, ending just 2000 feet from the DC Boundary at the Takoma Substation along New Hampshire Avenue. The corridor goes north, following a route once planned for a highway and once considered for the Green Line to the Beltway where it tracks along I-95, passing through Laurel and over the Patuxent River to Ellicott City and Howard County. 

Green is the Takoma-Ellicott City corridor, other utility corridors are in red. 

On the close-in section, within the Beltway, the corridor crosses the Sligo Creek, Northwest Branch and the Buck Lodge Community Park Trails, creating connections. The last of those could be the north end of the inside-the-Beltway section.  At Takoma, it could use Poplar Ave, Circle Ave and Kansas Lane in Montgomery County to connect to Kansas Avenue, which has bike lanes and will intersect the future Met Branch Trail.  That could be "Phase I" - the easy, close in trail. 

From Buck Lodge, extending the trail north across Prince George's County would require getting across the Beltway where the power lines go right through the I-95 interchange. Maybe a trail could be built under I-95 someday by building a trail through a larger underpass along Paint Branch, but the easiest route would likely be to connect the trail to the Little Paint Branch Trail extension (which is now open) and use that.  Then, using existing trails and bike lanes the trail could go all the way across I-95 to the ICC at Old Gunpowder Drive, where it could connect to the ICC Trail. From there, a trail to and along the utility corridor could, with admittedly some difficulty, then extend all the way to the Patuxent River. 

The trail would then need to cross the Patuxent River into Howard County, and do so at a point where the river is more of a lake due to a dam. It would likely make the most sense to go around the lake by building a route along Brooklyn Bridge Road, I-95 and Stansfield Road, but a bridge would be wicked cool. 

The trail could then continue along the corridor, with some more challenging barriers - like the Patuxent Freeway and Route 100 - before getting to the north end.

On the north end it connects to another corridor running around Baltimore from Pumphrey and the Baltimore Light Rail station at Nursery Road to Reisterstown and on north into Pennsylvania. 

Along the way the Takoma Park-Ellicott City line connects to two other corridors. One from Ashmead to Hanover and another that goes 84 miles from Germantown to the Nice Bridge. 

Of course a trail along here would only be a little cool. What would be really cool would be a trail with a transit line (like a busway?) along this corridor all the way to Takoma where it could then connect to one or more of the Metro Stations (Takoma, Fort Totten, Georgia Avenue or Hyattsville being most likely). The line is a straight shot and gets to with a couple of miles of multiple Metro stations. There's room for the power line towers, two lanes of busway (or monorail or whatever) and a 16 foot wide bike trail. But it wouldn't be cheap. 

CWL 2018 #10 Norbeck to Laytonsville

At a little more than 6 miles, this is one of the shorter utility corridors. It already has a 1 mile long trail on part of it and Montgomery County calls it "Utility Corridor #3" in the new bike plan and plans to build another 1.5 miles of trail on it. Unfortunately they won't connect the two.

On the north end the trail starts at a T-junction with a corridor that runs from Germantown to the Nice Bridge (#8 on this list), but until, and only if, a trail is on that corridor the natural stopping point would be Mt. Zion Park just south of that corridor. Building a trail from that park to the north end of MoCo's planned trail at Bowie Mill doesn't seem like it would be difficult. It only crosses a few roads and doesn't seem to interfere with any other land use, while connecting into a few subdivisions along the way.

MoCo's planned trail would run from Bowie Mill to Cherry Valley Drive, so that is actually something that could happen. Along the way it connects to Utility Corridor #4 where a trail exists that MoCo wants to expand. 

From there it's only about 4000 feet to Emory Lane where a sidepath that Google Maps calls the "Georgia Avenue Trail", but is really just part of the ICC Trail, can be found. 

The trail here isn't much - it's a little narrow - but it follows the power lines to Georgia Avenue and then south to the ICC Park and Ride. From there the "Georgia Avenue Trail" continues as a buffered and flexpost delinated bike lane along the west side of the access road to Thistlebridge, a short sidepath south of then and then ends, just north of Norbeck Road. At Norbeck Road the power lines continue but the corridor basically ends. 

From Norbeck, the MoCo Bike plan calls for a separated bikeway to the Matthew Henson Trail.

This is a short trail opportunity that would extend a trail MoCo is already investing in and connect to another one they already did, in an area where lots of other facilities are planned. 

CWL 2018 #12 Clarksville, MD to Manassas, VA

The first utility corridor on the list is a long one. Like really long. Like the name of this post doesn't actually do it credit. It's a gas corridor (or perhaps two) that goes south all the way to Moorseville, NC and north to Jacksonville, MD on the north side of Balimore. But for the sake of everyone's sanity I decided to limit things to the close in counties, which in this case means Montgomery and  Fairfax Counties. In both cases I push the corridor a little farther so that it can connect to worthwhile things, like the future i-66/Custis trail.  This corridor is the only one on the list  to cross the Potomac and be in two states (though plenty of other corridors do, they just didn't make the list). This section is 40 miles long, though the map shows the 35 miles north of it too. [On all the maps, Green is the line the post is about, Blue are trails already built on corridors and Red are other corridors without trails]

There are eight sections of the corridor that already have trails on them, three in the Rockville-Olney area and five in Fairfax County. One, the Gude Trail, even has a name.

Rockville-Olney

Filling in the two gaps between the pieces in the Rockville Olney area would create a 7 mile trail from E. Gude Road in Rockville to Manor Oaks Park in Brookeville. The new Montgomery County Bicycle Master Plan includes part of this as "Utility Corridor #4", which would extend the existing middle trail in Olney to the ICC Trail at Muncaster Mill Road. This would create a de facto connection to the Rock Creek Trail and the Gude Trail, using the ICC Trail and the trails around Lake Needwood. A better connection from the ICC to Rock Creek would be great, but obviously it would make sense to go around Lake Needwood. There is a golf course in the way of this trail, but it's on the section that MoCo plans for the trail already so they must think it is manageable.  And of course, this section meets up with another utility corridor in Olney that goes a few miles north and south. The MoCo bike plan calls this "Utility Corridor #3" and plans a 1.5 mile long trail on it centered on the intersection with this corridor.

South of Rockville

On the south side, the corridor first goes to the Potomac. It passes through Rockville, just past Montgomery College, on land that now has parking lots and subdivisions. It would be hard to build a trail on any of it, and then it would need to cross I-270. The one exception is on the west side of Montgomery Avenue, the corridor opens up there until it reaches the Millennium Trail. Then it runs into the Lakewood Country Club golf course. South of that, the corridor is fenced in to a lot of yards.

I'm not saying they own that land or the rights to it, but there would be a lot of people fighting a plan to put a trail literally in what they see as their back yard. At around Piney Meeting Road it opens up some more, but is still fenced in all the way to River Road. It would be a diplomatic challenge to put a trail on much of this, which is why it likely isn't in the plan. 

At River Road, the corridor meets up with the Potomac Water Filtration Plant and the Potomac River. I get that a bridge across the Potomac here would be tough, but not as tough as other places, and the location actually makes sense. It's about 1/3 of the way from Chain Bridge and White's Ferry, an area where there are no bike/ped crossings, so it would fill a big gap. It would be cheaper to build a crossing here than at the American Legion Bridge - though both would make sense. It would create a connection to an island in the Potomac that can now only be reached by boat (something NPS might see as a feature). It would connect the C&O Canal Trail with the Potomac Heritage Trail. And since the area is already clear of trees to make room for the pipeline, it would have less environmental impact than one located elsewhere. It might be the best place to build a new Potomac Crossing to Fairfax.

A bridge could connect on the VA side with local streets, but the corridor quickly becomes back yards and parking lot space again.

That changes around Georgetown Pike. From there it might be possible to build a trail all the way to Wiehle Avenue, and if Hidden Creek Country Club is redeveloped, to the W&OD Trail. That would require crossing Leesburg Pike and Baron Cameron Avenue, but there's already a small neighborhood trail on part of it near the Uplands Pool.

South of the W&OD Trail, the corridor runs into the Dulles Toll Road corridor, Reston National Golf Course and some more development that would make a trail difficult; but south of South Lakes Drive, a trail would be possible to add a trail all the way to I-66. 

This section already has some trails in it. In other places it might make sense to use existing paths in a similar corridor - like the bike lanes on Colt's Neck Road - but most of the way it could just be built in the corridor. Most noteworthy among the existing trails is the 1 mile one from West Ox to Percheron Lane and the 1.9 mile trail in the Cub Run Park area. Building along this corridor - and connecting across the Dulles Toll Road by building a real bike facility in the Reston Parkway corridor would create a trail system from the new I-66 Trail to Georgetown Pike, connecting to the W&OD Trail and Cub Run Trails. Furthermore, at Cub Run, the trail runs into another corridor that will be #9 on this list. 

None of this is in the Fairfax County Bike Plan.

North of Olney

North of Olney, the corridor starts to run into the back yard problem, but it might at least be possible to connect the existing piece to the Rachel Carson Natural Surface Trail. 

Then around Clarksville it opens up again for a few miles south of the Tridelphia Reservoir, though that section would need a bridge over the Patuxent River. But north of that, the pipeline goes under a lot of farmland - and crosses into Howard County.

The corridor is long, and it connects to the Custis/I-66, W&OD, C&O Canal, Millennium and Rock Creek Trails; giving it enormous potential. But the nature of gas lines is that they allow more development on the ground - mostly lawns, parking and golf courses - and so there is more conflict. In addition, crossing the Potomac is no small task - it's both costly and requires building on NPS land next to a secure facility.

At least Montgomery County has chosen to take advantage of the lowest hanging fruit. 

Needwood Road Path will connect Shady Grove Metro to the ICC Trail

Montgomery County has been working on a bicycle sidepath along Needwood road for several years now, and Phase I is nearing completion, with paving underway for the segment of bike path east of Beach drive. 

When complete, Phase I will build a sidepath on the south side of Needwood Drive from the ICC Trail terminus to the west side of Lake Needwood. Work should complete in March of 2017

Phase II is scheduled to start in the fall of 2017 and take 9 months to complete. It will continue the path west to Deer Lake Road and east to Muncaster Mill Road (MD 115). On the western end at Deer Lake Road it will connect to a section built in 2015-2016. That section is a 1300 foot long path from Deer Lake to Redland Road and it completed in April. There it connects with existing bike facilities west of Redland and south along Redland to the Shady Grove Metro Station, thereby tying the ICC Trail 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.

Also for those who spend time in Germantown, section 3 of the Clopper Road sidepath should be completed by now. First funded by a 2013 Maryland Bikeways Grant, section 3 closes the gap between section 1 and section 2 to create a continuous path from Steeple Road to Great Senaca Highway.  Section 1, from Steeple Road to Hopkins Road, and Section 2, from Village Fountain Drive to Little Star Lane were both completed in January 2013. Back in 2010, there was a plan to build a similar sidepath from Steeple Road (aka Festival Way) further west to Slidell Road, which would take it past the Boyds MARC station; but I'm not sure what became of that effort. 

Back in early November, MCDOT was saying this should be complete by Thanksgiving, so I'd be surprised if it were not finished by now.