ICC Trail: Your Help Needed Today!

The Montgomery County Planning Board is poised to eliminate huge sections of the planned trail along the Inter-County Connector highway.  Cyclists and other trail users need to make their voices heard at the July 10th hearing to prevent this loss!  The hearing will be held at the Planning Board office at 8787 Georgia Ave at 7:30pm.  Sign up to testify on July 10 by calling the Planning Board at:

301-495-4600 or use the online form at http://www.daicsearch.org/planning_board/testify.asp.  Or you can write to the Planning Board to let your concerns be known.  Click here for our Take Action page.

You may recall that the Maryland State Highway Administration decided to include a trail for only 7 miles of the ICC's total 18 mile length.  They said the disjointed sections should be connected by a mix of circuitous detours along unsuitable roads like New Hampshire Avenue and East Randolph Road.  These would expose trail users to countless dangerous intersections and driveway crossings, thereby ruining the appeal and transportation value of the trail.

The county could still finish the original full trail by filling in the gaps left by the state.  Unfortunately, county Planning Board staff is defending the state's unacceptable detours, citing environmental damage the trail would wreak – though it's next to a six-lane highway!  With a straight face, they are saying that the trail may be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" in the park areas slashed by the highway.  By this logic highways could never have parallel bike trails.  This is a very misguided approach in a region suffering from too many cars and too few transportation alternatives. 

Even worse, the Planning Board has indicated it will remove the missing trail sections from the county master plan, making it forever impossible to finish the trail.  They are citing their own 2005 decision opposing the same sections of trail, even though this decision was overruled a month later by the County Council, which endorsed the full trail by an 8-0 vote, thanks to many letters from trail supporters.  Unbelievably, the Planning Board approved the ICC highway through the park areas in question!  Now the Planning Board is again considering eliminating the park trail sections, and this time they would codify the move in the master plan.

Throughout this process, WABA and key county officials have held that the trail could be built in sensitive areas without significant stormwater or other impacts, using boardwalk, pervious pavement, suspension under (or beside) bridge decking and other techniques.  Still more techniques will become available as technology advances, but it's all moot if the trail is removed from the master plan.  The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers, two agencies tasked with evaulating ICC impacts in sensitive areas, are on record stating they have no objection to an environmentally sensitive trail in park areas.

WABA asks you to contact the Planning Board Chairman, Royce Hanson, to urge him to preserve the master plan and support the full trail.  Hanson is frequently a supporter of bicycling and if he hears our voices loud and clear, he will hopefully go against his staff's bad advice.

To prevent this great loss, tell the Planning Board you want this trail to stay in the master plan!  The Board will hear public input on July 10, then make its decsion.  Here's how to help…

1. Send letters and emails to the Planning Board expressing your concerns. 
2. Attend the public hearing on the ICC bikeway on July 10, 2008 at 7:30 pm.  Make your presence known!
3. Be even more visible by signing up to testify at the hearing.
   
   

Take Action>>

Links

Montgomery Planning Board>>

Staff Recommendation to Planning Board>>

Planning Department's Trail Study Page>>