Dear Council Members Glass, Friedson, Albornoz, Balcombe, Fani-González, Jawando, Katz, Luedtke, Mink, Sayles, and Stewart:
The Parks Department is proposing restrictions on Little Falls Parkway that undermine safety for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians in order to create a “linear park.” I am asking you and your fellow Council members to include clear language in the budget approval prohibiting Parks from using public funding to restrict the roadway in order to create a “linear park.”
The Parks Department failed to conduct any outreach to determine the desirability of a “linear park.” It also failed to consider objections to the road changes and linear park at a February town hall; the more than 3900 signatories of a petition opposing what Parks has in mind; and the witnesses who testified before the Planning Board in opposition to the plan.
At the height of the pandemic with virtually no car traffic, weekend closure of the Parkway was a success. As the pandemic waned and people returned to work and school and residents demanded a full-time re-opening of the Parkway to car traffic (four divided lanes with a road diet limited to the Capital Crescent Trail crossing), Parks resisted until June 2022. But then November 2022, Parks further restricted the Parkway between Dorset Avenue and Arlington Road. At the Capital Crescent Trail the median was eliminated, meaning pedestrians and cyclists cross two lanes of traffic, one in each direction, with no safe refuge from bi-directional traffic and with newly created blind spots for drivers.
Under questioning Parks stated they had used some $140,000 to effect these changes. Yet calls for maintenance and repairs in the Little Falls Valley Stream Park are often met with a response that no funding is available.
The Parks Department likes to say it is the largest landowner in Montgomery County. This assertion implies that it alone can determine, within the law, how to use the property. More appropriate would be a recognition that Parks is the steward for a large swath of Montgomery County held in trust for the use and enjoyment of county residents. The Parks Department is, or should be, answerable to the citizens of the county. There should be a consultative process that seeks to find a balance between competing needs. Parks should not be able to unilaterally decide to modify a main link between the downtown Bethesda and the Massachusetts Avenue corridor.
I am asking you and other Council Members to step up your oversight of the Parks Department, and to make a clear statement which prohibits the Parks Department from using public funds to reduce the traffic lanes as well as prohibiting the use of funds to create a linear park on any part of Little Falls Parkway.
Sincerely,