Thought crossing Georgia Avenue at Colesville Road was tricky? Try crossing some of downtown Silver Spring’s other intersections, a countywide committee said.
The intersection of Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road is a schlep, according to the county’s pedestrian safety advisory committee. The group shared its observations of a June 18 walking tour with Silver Spring’s pedestrian safety committee Monday night.
Colesville is too wide for safe pedestrian crossing, and signals are too short for the distance. Also, buses stopping at the northwest corner tend to block crosswalks, the group reported.
The intersection of East-West Highway and Blair Mill Road is also messy, the group observed. Construction is going down at three of the intersection’s corners, with the southeast sidewalk closed completely.
“Some of the fixes are simple. Some are more involved,” Sgt Tom Harmon, of the third police district, told Silver Spring’s committee.
However, “my concern is we close down the sidewalks [and then] we never get a covered sidewalk,” Harmon said.
The area’s most infamous crossing — Georgia Avenue at Colesville Road — was cited by the county committee for its quick crossing lights and the hazards of cars turning left from Colesville onto Georgia.
However, the county committee acknowledged hazards that pedestrians create for themselves. Jaywalking across Georgia Avenue between Spring Street and Colesville Road, as well as across Fenton Street near the entrance to Whole Foods Market, were cited as bad pedestrian practices.
Click here for a map of the county committee’s 22 pedestrian hot spots.
Got a hot spot you’d like to report? Holler back with a location and cross-street or intersection, as well as what the trouble is. The Penguin will add it to the map.
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What’s just as bad: the driving situation is awful now that you can’t turn on Colesville between Georgia and E-W Highway. There were a lot of very handy side streets that are now more-or-less unusable when trying to get back from Giant – you’ve got to go to 16th and then move down Spring, which is dreadfully inefficient.
They also need to put a crosswalk near Whole Foods on Fenton, as it’s a huge hassle to either walk all the way up to Wayne (I think) or Ellsworth. When you’ve got swarms of people running across the street, it might be time to consider whether you’ve got to make some changes.
Thanks, David.
As a driver, do you find some streets more prone to kamikaze pedestrians darting into traffic (ie, jaywalking)?
Speaking as a jaywalker, I think Colesville Road between East-West and 16th Street is a pain. The only legal crossing on that stretch of Colesville is at East-West. Not efficient if all one wants to do is go from Falkland Chase to the Blairs.
Amen! Especailly to the intersection of Georgia & 410 — the lack of public sidewalks on 410 is a huge pain/safety hazard and the construction company should at least put a covered walk up.
I hope the intersection of Bonifant and Georgia was discussed – the number of cars that disobey the signs to turn only and go STRAIGHT across ramming right at pedestrians is ridiculous – many are cabs who certainly know better. I wish a cop would sit there and just pick them all off for a day or two.
Another issye I’ve been seeing more and more frequently lately – cut-through cars trying to vaoid sitting at trafic lights. The gas stations at Colesville & GA, Fenton & Thayer, Colesville & 410, etc. are all used for this as is the 7-11 at Fenton & Sligo Ave. As a pedestrian it is bad enough to have all the cars into these businesses turning in crossing your direct sidewalk path and not yielding right away – but even worse when some jerk floors the gas and cuts the corners oblivious to who they may kill trying to save 2 seconds.
No recommendations for pedestrian bridges?
RD asked:
Ped bridges weren’t brought up at this particular meeting. However, at a recent meeting on capital improvement projects, I threw in a request for a bridge over the CSX tracks behind NOAA.
I figure it would make a trip from South Silver Spring to the Ripley District or transit center easier.
The only problem is this: I’d hate to see another Forest Glen footbridge. (No offense to Montgomery Hills and Forest Glen residents.) Safety must be studied before putting up another ped bridge.
I’m so glad someone is looking into this issue–it bothers me everyday on my commute. It seems like Silver Spring is trying to encourage walking around the downtown area, but the short crossing lights are not pedestrian-friendly.
The walk signals are not long enough at Georgia and Wayne or at Fenton and Wayne. In fact, the walk signals encourage jaywalking: the signals only last for a fraction of the period that cars moving in the same direction have a green light, and pedestrians feel they should be allowed to cross with traffic. I imagine the wierdly short walk signals are designed to allow cars to turn unimpeded by pedestrians, but since the cars do not have a specific turn light giving them right-of-way, pedestrians feel they should be allowed to cross. Pedestrians have a very long wait when trying to cross Georgia on Wayne.
I agree that a crosswalk is definitely needed on Fenton between Pier One and Whole Foods.
Crosswalks are also definitely needed on Dale at some of the side streets between Colesville and Wayne. With the amount of traffic on Dale, it can be very difficult to cross.
Courtney said:
Funny you should say that. The county’s pedestrian safety committee actually gave that intersection kudos and called it “a model for urban districts.” According to the committee’s presentation Monday night, the crosswalks there were admired for their diagonal striping.
Go figure.
“As a driver, do you find some streets more prone to kamikaze pedestrians darting into traffic (ie, jaywalking)?”
Not so much by me (excepting the Whole Foods example), but I have found that people tend to jump the lights on Georgia and Colesville (we’re Twin Towers residents, if that puts my whining in perspective :)).
I never thought I’d say this after having lived in ticket-happy College Park, but the police really need to spend a little time cracking down on driving, parking, and pedestrian violations in the downtown area (between Spring and Thayer). I’m not saying it needs to be constant or nitpicky, but a short campaign once in a while that targetted really egregious offenders would probably help out quite a bit.
I live in Summit Hills. I have the unfortunate location of hearing car crashes on 16th Street. Lots of car crashes.
Montgomery County in their wisdom made a cross walk across 16th Street between the strip mall and Suburban Tower apartments. They made the cross walk just below the horizon of a small hill. When cars are flying down 16th Street at 45 mph, there’s not much reaction time when a pedestrian is walking across 16th Street. Drivers can’t see pedestrians crossing the road from the other side of the hill. What usually happens is that the driver slams brakes…pedestrian runs for his life…another car crashes into the driver who slammed on the brakes. You hear the screeches and then the “Boom”, “Boom” sound. That’s metal getting crushed.
I really hope MontCo would seriously invest in a pedestrian bridge.
Does anyone else have a problem with that crosswalk in front of the Silver Spring library, or is it just me?
Rarely do I see drivers slow down — much less stop — for peds trying to get to the library.
Jennifer,
You have to be nuts to try and cross there. Why haven’t we met? I use it to affirm my place as a chosen one in Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Are there any updates on this subject? Especially as to what is being done by the county to improve pedestrian safety this year?
I live at Summit Hills, and every night I have to walk across East-West Highway in the dark. The S1-S2-S3 bus line has a stop directly across from the main gate to the SH complex at this point. Not only is this area VERY dimly lit, but the amount of vehicle traffic here at night is very heavy to have a pedestrian crosswalk with no signal. When you cross the road, you have to be extremely careful, usually having to run across the street, because there is very little chance that a car would be able to see you. To compound the problem, there are also people coming in and out of two housing complexes on either side of the street. If there hasn’t been a pedestrian accident here yet because of the traffic and visibility problems, I am concerned that it is only a matter of time.
I don’t see this point on the map which is why I bring it up. I am looking into what can be done about this.
Ped-safety studies in the downtown area are on hold because construction on the transit center is screwing with the usual traffic patterns.
Transit center stalls ped-safety study (Sep 16, 2008)
Got a ped-safety hazard that’s really working your nerves? Holler at the county’s department of transportation, or hit the monthly transportation and pedestrian safety committee meeting in downtown Silver Spring.