Bethesda tunnel recommendations go to the County Council.

Members of the CCCT Board and representatives from WABA, the Town of Chevy Chase, and the B-CC Chamber of Commerce met with Councilmember Roger Berliner and Council Staff Director Glen Orlin on Dec. 1 to discuss the recent recommendations from the Planning Board on the design of the future CCT. The issues are described in the previous news article below. The Planning Board recommendations to the Council are documented in the Planning Board November 30 letter, available HERE.

The CCCT repeated its position to Councilmember Berliner that the Trail should remain in the tunnel, and shared its concern that MTA had not been responsive at the Planning Board hearing to the CCCT proposal to single-track the Purple Line in the tunnel. Councilmember Berliner agreed to ask MTA to prepare a more thorough response to the single-track proposal, to include some quantification of the impacts upon Purple Line operations so the Council could make an informed decision.

Councilmember Berliner reported that communication between the Council and the Planning Board had clarified one of the options under consideration. Where the Planning Board recommends evaluating moving the Purple Line station to be under the Air Rights Building, it is intended to evaluate placing the station under the parking garage structure that is at the east side of the Air Rights Building where more tunnel width is available. Taking down the Air Rights building is not being recommended as an option for consideration.

The date for the Council to take up the issues has changed - from the Dec. 5 date reported earlier to now a January 30, 2012 date for a Council T&E Committee hearing. The date has been pushed off to give the MTA time to complete and report its study of the options. To summarize the options to be evaluated: 1) Have the Purple Line in the tunnel and the Trail on an upgraded surface route; 2) Move the station platform east to outside the tunnel, near Pearl Street; 3) Move the station platform east to under the Air Rights building parking structure; and 4) single-track the Purple Line in the tunnel. The Planning Board is recommending that if the cost of keeping the Trail in the tunnel with the Purple Line remains at an estimated $40M, then the Trail should be removed from the tunnel.

The MTA has been asked to report its study findings about one week before the Jan. 30 T&E Committee meeting. The CCCT will evaluate the report and submit comments and questions to the Council T&E Committee before its meeting so the committee can put them to the MTA for response.

Share the Bethesda Tunnel - with single-track transit.

November 17, 2011

The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) is asking the Montgomery County Planning Board and County Council to give guidance on several important design issues for the future CCT. The Interim CCT between Bethesda and Silver Spring will be rebuilt and extended alongside the Purple Line. The MTA will design and build the Trail as part of the Purple Line, but Montgomery County must pay the bulk of the trail costs and sets the Trail design standards.

The design guidance being sought by MTA includes trail lighting, call boxes, landscaping between the trail and the adjacent neighborhoods, and the connection between the CCT and the Rock Creek Trail. But the issue of greatest controversy is whether the CCT should remain in the Bethesda Tunnel.

The MTA has recently found that it will be very expensive to brace the columns that support the Apex Building above the tunnel if they dig to lower the tunnel elevation to fit the CCT over the Purple Line. MTA estimates the cost associated with modifying the tunnel for the Trail is approx. $40M.

MTA reports if it digs in the tunnel under the Apex Building,
then 35 support columns would be undercut.

The MTA report describing its findings in detail, and the M-NCPPC staff recommendations to the Planning Board, are contained in the M-NCPPC staff report. The Bethesda Gazette and the M-NCPPC blog give short summaries of the issues.

The CCCT Board is very engaged in advocating for keeping the Trail in the tunnel. Greg Drury, the Chair of our Purple Line Committee, gave testimony to the Montgomery County Planning Board on Nov. 17 urging the Trail be kept in the tunnel. He presented the CCCT position that single-track for the Purple Line in the tunnel should be seriously evaluated. If only one track is in the tunnel, then the Purple Line and CCT can easily share the tunnel without any expensive modifications to the tunnel structures. The Trail would be a much better trail than the trail that is proposed to be in an overhead above the Purple line. See the CCCT single-track statement for the full CCCT position.

Unfortunately the Planning Board did not support the CCCT request for a careful evaluation of a single-track option. As reported in the Washington Post at Planning Board seeks ways to keep trail inside tunnel, the Planning Board accepted the MTA recommendation that single-track would result in slow and unreliable transit service. The Board did direct MTA to evaluate two other options: 1) Move the Purple Line Bethesda Station to be east of the tunnel, and 2) Take down one of the buldings over the tunnel.

CCCT believes the Planning Board decision to not even evaluate single-track was misguided. The MTA gave opinions without supporting evidence in their testimony to the Planning Board against single-track. For example, Purple Line Project Manager Mike Madden asserted that single-track had already been studied. But the study he referenced was for a single-track section three times as long as the one CCCT proposes, and that section was on the line between stations. Many findings from that study will not apply for this very different proposal. MTA consultant Harriet Levine asserted that if there were only one platform in the tunnel, then it would have to be much bigger than either of the two platforms that are planned. But MTA's own sketch of the Purple Line concept at the platforms in the tunnel, in the M-NCPPC staff report, shows that the tunnel is wider in the area of the platforms than elsewhere. The sketch shows that both platforms shown in their sketch can remain, along with a full width trail.

The platform area under the Apex Bldg.
A 12' wide trail can take the place of the south track.
(Base drawing by MTA from M-NCPPC staff report, trail modification by CCCT)

The CCCT Board does not assert that it understands transit operations well enough to assess whether single-track can work in the tunnel with an acceptible impact on speed and reliability of transit operations. But we do know that MTA failed to substantiate the opinion expressed at the Planning Board hearing that single-track would have an unacceptible impact. The single-track option would be far easier and less costly to build than either of the two options the Planning Board did recommend for study. If a careful analysis shows that the Purple Line operational impacts caused by single-track in the tunnel are modest, then single-track is the compromise we badly need so that transit and trail can successfully share the tunnel at reasonable cost and risk.

It is not over. The Planning Board is only advisory to the Montgomery County Council. The Council T&E Committee will take this issue up on Dec. 5. Members of the CCCT and other stakeholders will be meeting with Councilmember Berliner the prior week to advocate for all reasonable options to be considered to keep the Trail in the tunnel. This should include single-track.

Summer projects bring changes to the CCT.

Several work projects have been completed or scheduled along the Trail by The Montgomery County Parks Dept. during this summer.

The first to be completed was the reconstruction of the trail crossing of Little Falls Parkway. The trail has been realigned to replace the straight crossing with a crossing that has curves at the approaches at either side. The intent is to make trail users slow and turn toward approaching motor vehicle traffic before entering the crossing, to increase safety.

Trail crossing at Little Falls Parkway

Darian Manley, the Park Police Chief, and Doug Burton, Parks Dept., came to the April CCCT board meeting to share sketches of a first plan. CCCT board members present suggested several very significant changes to reduce the proposed trail curvature and to reduce interference between trail and swimming pool pedestrian traffic. The Parks Dept. accepted the changes, resulting in a design that CCCT considers to be much improved over the first plan. The Parks Dept. used construction funds that expired at the end of the fiscal year on June 30, so the design schedule was rushed. Unfortunately the Parks Dept. felt there was not enough time to advertise and hold another meeting to gather more input from other stakeholders. They took the revised design directly to construction.

There was considerable negative reaction on some of the local cycling listserves when construction began. But now that trail users have had some time to see how the new crossing works, the response has become favorable for the most part. Some trail users have observed that motor vehicle traffic appears to be slowing more and yielding to trail users in the crosswalk more consistently than before, possibly because the crossing is more visible to the motorists. Trail users still need to be careful to stop before entering the crosswalk.

The second project to be completed was the construction of a new trail access ramp at Brookeway Drive, at CCT milepost 5.5. The new ramp replaces a steep staircase and is ADA compliant. This ramp greatly improves access to the trail from the Sumner neighborhood.

The new access ramp at Brookeway Drive

Another project, scheduled to begin in August, is the restriping of the CCT between Bethesda and the D.C. boundary. The trail will remain open, and signs will be out on the trail to warn users in the work areas.

Whole Foods Community Giving Day June 1.

Whole Foods Market Bethesda is partnering with The Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail for the River Rd. Plaza project. Whole Foods has specifically selected the CCCT's River Road Plaza project to be the recipient of 5% of the net proceeds from the Bethesda store's quarter 3 Community Giving Day on Wednesday, June 1st.

CCCT Volunteers will be at the Bethesda Whole Foods store on June 1st to greet shoppers, distribute trail maps and trail safety literature, and to answer questions about the trail and the River Road Plaza Project. Contributing to the CCCT and the River Road Project will be easy - just do your shopping at the Bethesda Whole Foods, WholeFoodsMarket.com/Bethesda, anytime on Wednesday June 1.

CCCT Annual Meeting Monday, June 13

The annual CCCT general membership meeting and picnic will be at the Elm Street Park in Bethesda on Monday June 13, 6:00 p.m.

All CCCT members and supporters are welcome to come to enjoy a casual evening in the park and to meet our CCCT Board and other trail advocates. We will have free food and drink, and children are welcome. We will have a brief business meeting to give a summary of our activities and goals, and to introduce our board for the next year. This will be a good opportunity to share your ideas and concerns for the CCT with the Coalition Board Members.

The Elm Street Park is between Willow Lane and Elm Street, just one block east of Wisconsin Avenue. It is adjacent to the Interim CCT/Georgetown Branch Trail, with direct trail access from the east end of the Bethesda Tunnel. There is a public surface parking lot adjacent to the south side of the park on Willow Lane, behind the Montgomery Farm Women's Co-op Market at 7155 Wisconsin Avenue.

MTA presents CCT plans to the community
at an April 13 focus group meeting.

The meeting began with an overview presentation by MTA project manager Mike Madden, and then broke into several groups to examine drawings and discuss issues in more detail for three sections of the trail - Bethesda to Connecticut Avenue, Connecticut Avenue to CSX right-of-way, and CSX right-of-way to Silver Spring. The overview and drawings for each section is available at the MTA Purple Line website at their work-sessions webpage.

The MTA will be completing the Preliminary Design for the transit/trail project over the next year. They expect to hold more focus group meetings during this period - focused on specific purple line stations or neighborhoods. Watch the MTA Purple Line website at www.purplelinemd.com or this webpage for announcements of future focus group meetings about parts of the CCT.

Completion of the CCT and MetBranch Trails
recognized as a Regional Conservation Priority.

The completion of the Capital Crescent Trail and Metropolitan Branch Trail has been selected by the Washington Sustainable Growth Alliance for their 2011 Regional Conservation Priorities List. A formal announcement was made at a ceremony on April 27, 1 p.m. at George Washington's Mount Vernon.
The award publication, A Call to Action (pdf), outlines why this project has been selected by jury as a high priority as a regional conservaiton project. See the Alliance website www.sgalliance.org for more information on the award program.

More news is available in our Crescent Newsletter, available online at our Newsletter webpage.

Some past website stories are at:
2010 Archived News
2009 Archived News
2008 Archived News
2007 Archived News
2006 Archived News
Trestle Archived News