The residents on the east side of Falls Road want a proposed shared-use path between Potomac and Rockville to go on the west side or not be built at all. Residents on the west side of Falls called for the path to proceed as planned on the east side, or not be built at all.
The majority of speakers at a June 20 public meeting to discuss the proposed four-mile, $10 million bike trail opposed the more than 20-year-old plan.
But Department of Public Works and Transportation officials, who presented preliminary designs and took public input at the meeting, say that the proposed path would serve as a vital link between existing paths in Potomac and Rockville and provide safe pedestrian access to the Potomac Library, the Potomac Community Center, and Metro bus stops along Falls Road.
“I think it’s unfortunate that the only means to get to this community center is by car,” said Michael Mitchell, the Public Works and Transportation planner who oversaw the meeting at the Potomac center, the approximate midpoint of the proposed path between Potomac Village and Dunster Road.
Mitchell discussed the county’s objectives for the proposed project — including keeping the path continuously on one side of the road — and showed slides depicting the current state of various sections of Falls followed by computer renderings of how the sections would look with the addition of the path and planned landscaping improvements.
“We wanted to make sure that this path fits into its context very well — whether it’s an existing natural area, whether it’s a residence or whether it’s an institutional area we want to make sure that the landscaping is appropriate,” said David Patterson of the Baltimore landscape architects Mahan Rykiel Associates.
The designs include shade trees, flowering trees and low-lying shrubs and flowers designed to natural transitions to existing forest areas and provide privacy screens to homeowners fronting Falls Road that desire them. Several areas with forest to the east of Falls would include set-back rest areas with benches, “where you could just stop and sit and be next to the wooded area for a while while you’re enjoying this path,” Patterson said.
OPPONENTS of the path at the meeting were quick to assert that while landscaping and benches sound nice, construction of the path would be disruptive and intrude on homeowners’ land.
Renita Ford, a Falls Road resident, said that she opposes an invasive path when sufficient space exists to add a bike lane in the roadway. “What you propose is a path that cuts right across the front yard. Can you explain to me why that’s OK, why that’s reasonable?” she asked.
Andrea Whiteway, who lives on Cranford Drive, said that the proposed path differs from others like the Capital Crescent Trail — which was built on a defunct railway corridor — and those built on parkland, because it affects existing neighborhoods. She also said she doubts the usefulness of the path since she sees few people using the Millennium trail in Rockville, one of the proposed path’s bookends.
Another concern Whiteway and others raised was snow and trash removal. “If we build this, and you’re doing it through reversionary right of way — which is wonderful because you get to take our property and put the bike path on it, then you give it back to us and say, ‘It’s yours, take care of it’ — who’s going to remove the trash?” she said.
Mitchell said that the proposed path would affect 143 homes. Of those, 81 would require only “revertible easements” where the county takes right-of-way from homeowners during construction but the resulting path reverts to the homeowner as soon as construction is finished. The county would have to negotiate 54 fee-simple land acquisitions and eight easements.
THE MAJORITY of the needed acquisitions do not involve encroachments within 40 feet of an existing structure, Mitchell said. In considering the choice between building on the east and west sides of Falls Road, officials counted the number of buildings on each side that would fall within 40 feet of the path. They found 12 on the west side and only three on the east side — one of which is the Exxon station in Potomac Village.
“The path is in the Master Plan. So it has been envisioned by more than 20 years,” Mitchell said in response to Whiteway’s question.
The 2001 Interim Edition of the Potomac Subregion Master Plan describes the proposed bikeway connection between Wootton Parkway and MacArthur Boulevard as "a valuable north-south route connecting residential areas with Potomac Village, the library, schools and the C&O Canal" that would "provide a well-located north/south route within the Subregion."
Peter Calomeris, who lives and operates a dental practice on Falls Road near Marseille Drive, raised some of the strongest objections to Mitchell’s points.
“You seem to be, and I don’t know you well enough to say this, but very concerned about the car dealership and the other business down the road which is across the street from me, which is the garden center. … Personally, I think you needed to make a decision on one side of the road or the other, and you got some pressure maybe from some of these businesses to put it on my side of the road. I don’t appreciate that,” Calomeris said.
“You know, you just, you people don’t think. You just take people’s property and you don’t think about what you’re doing, you don’t care about what you’re doing, about taking people’s property,” Calomeris said.
Said Mitchell, “I have never spoken with, I don’t even know the owners of either Cherner Automotive or Good Earth or any of the other businesses.”
The proposed path is still far removed from construction. The plan goes to a Park and Planning Commission mandatory referral — the Commission’s review process for public projects — July 28.
From there, it would go to the County Council and County Executive for funding approval in the Capital Improvements Plan next winter. If approved, final design would commence in July, 2006.
That phase would likely take 18 months, Mitchell said, followed by another 18 months of property acquisition negotiations and one year of utility relocation designs.
In the best-case scenario, construction would start in 2011, and last two years.