Alert: Save the ICC Trail

Please tell Montgomery County not to discard half of the planned ICC bike trail! We need emails and letters urging the county Planning Board NOT to replace large sections of this paved trail with unsuitable detours along busy arterials. County planners are citing environmental concerns over the path, despite the six-lane ICC highway next-door! Even if you attended the recent public meetings, please send comments to:

Royce Hanson, Chairman
Montgomery County Planning Board
8787 Georgia Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20910
MCP-chairman@mncppc-mc.org

Or send comments to Chuck Kines at the Planning Department at: Charles.Kines@mncppc-mc.org
You may also cc the County Council at: county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov


Background

The county Planning Department is studying possible alignments of the planned ICC trail and is now seeking public input. Unfortunately the department is defending the state's misguided plan to build the trail along only 7 miles of the 18-mile long ICC. That plan would replace the missing 60% with circuitous detours on unsuitable roads like New Hampshire Avenue and East Randolph Road. This would add miles of length, busy intersections and countless driveway crossings to the route. It would decimate a trail that was meant to be a spectacular facility and the east-west backbone of the paved trail network.

We expect the county to build the sections that the state isn't building, in accordance with the county master plan. That's what the current study was meant to examine. Instead the Planning Department is examining how to reroute the trail around park areas and onto major roadways. Even worse, the Planning Board has indicated it will remove the missing trail sections from the master plan, preventing them from ever being built.

So please contact the Planning Board (which heads the Planning Department) and ask it to save the full trail and reject the detours. Insist that none of the trail be removed from the master plan.

For information on the current ICC trail study, see: <a href="http://www.mcparkandplanning.org/Transportation/icc/icc_bike_path.shtm">http://www.mcparkandplanning.org/Transportation/icc/icc_bike_path.shtm</a>;

Jack Cochrane
Montgomery Bicycle Advocates
<a href="http://www.mobike.org">www.mobike.org</a>;