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An Absurd Ending To The ICC Bike Path
By spokesman | January 12, 2009
The purpose of this post is to bring attention to an absurd situation concerning the construction of a proposed bike path in Maryland. The path would run parallel to a new road called the Inter-County Connector (ICC) but under the current plan, a continuous bike path will not be built. Montgomery County planners say a continuous 10-foot-wide asphalt bike path would cause too much damage to the ecologically sensitive parkland that will be traversed by the ICC when it is built. It seems that a highway is not an environmental problem, but a bike path is an environmental problem.
To make a long story short, here is how the situation evolved.
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The ICC was discussed for more than 20 years but never got past the planning stage due to local opposition.
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As traffic congestion grew, there was more pressure to build the ICC.
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Opponents of the ICC teamed up with environmentalists, hoping that environmental concerns could delay or kill the project.
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The environmental concerns managed to change the construction of the ICC
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The approved construction method included putting segments of the ICC on low bridges over “sensitive” wetlands. (It is debatable if the wetlands are sensitive)
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The bridges raised the cost of the road.
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The parallel bike path was eliminated because it would be too expensive to widen the bridges to include the bike path.
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The current design includes 18.5 miles of road and about 7 miles of bike path broken into 3 segments.
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The bottom line is that the environmental concerns could not stop the construction of a 6 lane 18.5 mile highway, but they did manage to kill the 10 foot wide bike path. This is not the outcome that the road opponents wanted. They wanted to kill the ICC. The ICC will go ahead but the bike path is a casualty of the battle over the road construction.
The Montgomery County Council is meeting on January 13 to discuss the construction of the bike path. Their plan is to have sidewalks and on-road bike lanes on secondary roads fill in the gaps in the ICC path. This approach will not result in a usable path. If you are local and want to e-mail the council here is information. For more background on the ICC and the bike path, here is a detailed history.
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Topics: Bikes and Politics, Trails/Bike Routes, Washington DC |
January 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Good summary. I don’t see how enjoyable or how safe a bike path/lane is along a limited access highway, anyway. There would be far more ridership if the county and state would invest more in making more of the secondary roads bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:02 am
[…] An absurd ending to a bike path. BicycleSpokesman.com The fate of the Inter-County Connector in Md. Mike writes: Although the 18.5 mile six lane highway will be built, the parallel 10 foot wide bike path is not going to be built due to its environmental impact […]
January 14th, 2009 at 1:02 am
It’s truly sad how “environmental” concerns are used by big money interests to build lucrative road projects. In California, our CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) protections have been used to oppose bicycle lanes, most notably in San Francisco. Removing a vehicle lane to create a bike lane would increase traffic congestion resulting in more idling engines and more pollution…or so the opponents reason.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:11 am
I’ve seen similar things happen in the UK. While there are many street lights on a motorway, a cycle path a short distance away covering the same route can’t have them, as they’d “cause light pollution”. The same example wasn’t allowed to have an asphalt surface because this would cause drainage problems on a narrow cycle path, but apparently not on a motorway.
I’m glad to have moved to somewhere that cycling is taken seriously.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:02 am
[…] for the office your first port of call has probably been the internet. Sadly there are so manyAn Absurd Ending To The ICC Bike Path | BicycleSpokesman.comMontgomery County planners say a continuous 10-foot-wide asphalt bike path would cause … Mail […]
March 26th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
There is indeed An absurd ending to this tale because of the shortcuts that were used to fast track this project and what people needed to say to cover their rear ends.
The environmental impacts of the trail through the parks were never studied which would be against Maryland law if the State did not come up with the defense of the trail being too costly to put on the bridges. But at the time of planning it would have been illegal to accommodate cyclists on a toll bridge.
Additionally there would have been room for cyclists on the original width of the bridges but because of “environmental impact” of all that extra width just for cars that width had to be trimmed down. But we did get some comments that if the plan called for the trail on the bridges the extra width could have been allowed.
So one has to ask where was the trail during the planning phase as required by State Law? Was it on the bridges or was it on the ground through the parks (that already had bike trails)? We have evidence that it was not in either of these locations.
Anyway there are a lot of absurdities from the State around the trail but the ICC is a shinning example just how poorly a fast track project can serve the communities in which they are built. Especially in light of the absurd rebuffs given to public comments. There were as many in favor of the ICC as there were for the ICC Trail, to build one at the expense of the other is a slap in the face to public involvement.