- The Tilden Woods gazebo, just east of Tildenwood Drive & Montrose, is falling down and needs to be replaced or removed. In fact, contractors who illegally removed trees from the adjacent property felled limbs on the gazebo, making a bad situation worse.
- On Tildenwood Drive, the traffic island was ripped up and has not been rebuilt or replanted.
- Sidewalks were not built along the new length of Hitching Post Lane; the sound walls only allow vehicles through so that walkers cannot follow Hitching Post Lane to the swim club.
- Numerous cherry trees were cut down along Tildenwood Drive, particulary near the new storm water management pond south of the back of Faith United Methodist Church and near the intersection with Montrose Road, leaving large blank spaces in our tree canopy. I have arranged with a county department to have these replaced, no thanks to the parkway construction contractor.
- The contractor was to replant and landscape the earth berm between the storm water management pond (just mentioned above) and the sidewalk.
That's just near the entrance to Tilden Woods! Further east on the parkway,
- The bike path gets to East Jefferson Street, continues on the other side, but there is no crosswalk. In fact, the vehicular traffic around that corner does not stop, and it is decidedly treacherous to cross the street to stay on the bike path.
- The county transportation department (DPWT) has striped and re-striped the pavement along East Jefferson Street so that lanes suddenly appear, disappear, merge, and make forced turns in such a bizarre pattern that accidents are nearly a daily occurrance.
- Although the utility companies have finished moving cables from the poles that were in the middle of the widened Montrose Road, not all of the poles have been removed. Notably, there is a pole in the street at the corner of Montrose & Tildenwood Drive. After I sent an email to the county, the contractor put a few barrels around it and nailed neon stripes to it, but it's an accident waiting to happen if someone rounds that corner and doesn't see it (or the barrels get blown aside, as one did this past week).
Do you know of other problems to be addressed? Be sure to post them. Thanks.
I bike across Montrose Road and Montrose Parkway every work day on E. Jefferson. They have created a very hazardous roadway. You can't stay to the right as bikers usually do. Going from Rockville towary Bethesda you have to get all they way over into the leftmost lane since the right two lanes turn onto Montrose Parkway. Going from Bethesda to Rockville you have to go in the middle lane since the right lane is right turn only and the middle lane is right turn or straight. You can't use the sidewalks because they removed the crosswalk at Montrose and E. Jefferson. Further the road is full of potholes that are a hazard to bicycles.
ReplyDeleteBut at least I get to enjoy the irony. I had filed an administrative appeal against the Parkway, and had used the hazard that the road and construction would cause to bikers as my reason to have standing. My case was dismissed since I wasn't able to demonstrate that the road would make my commute more dangerous. Well it has. The merits of my appeal were never heard since I was denied standing.
Carl Henn
I have requested a pedestrian crosswalk connecting the Old Bridge sidewalk to the new sidewalk between the new Hitching Post Lane and the widened Montrose Road. Since there are bus stops on Montrose both East and West of the Old Bridge-Hitching Post intersection, I felt it was important to have a safer crossing of what has become an access road to Montrose Road. After some back and forth with the county, I have been promised that the contractor will install a crosswalk in the Spring.
ReplyDeleteMarge Kravitz