Park and Planning (illegally?) closing commuter routes at dark

Reader Bianchi on the Greater Greater Washington blog wrote in with a report:

My S.O. and I bought a house in Historic Hyattsville this fall. He uses the Northwest Branch bike trail to get to either West Hyattsville metro or Fort Totten. Last night, on his way home between 6 and 6:30 pm (when it was already dark), a PG County cop car came up behind him while he was on the bike trail and pulled him over.

The officer told him the trail was closed when dark because there had been some reports of mugging. S.O. asked the officer (rhetorically) if he thought riding on the street with cars with no bike lane was really safer.

He feels the question of which route is safer to bike should be left to him, the biker. The 'no use at dark' prohibition affects the morning commute too. I guess one solution to street (or bike trail) crime is to just prohibit people from being on the street.
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Please note that most of our trails are built with Transportation Enhancement Funds which clearly states &quot;Bicycle projects must be principally for transportation, rather than recreation, purposes&quot; <a href="http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/bp-broch.htm">http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/bp-broch.htm</a>;

M-NCPPC can close recreational facilities so are they saying they are misspending Federal money by treating trails as recreational only?

<a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=4399">http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=4399</a>;