ROCKVILLE — A handful of county council members said they leaned toward constructing a footbridge between Silver Spring’s new library and the nearby Wayne Avenue parking garage.
“We do want pedestrian travel, but we have a disabled caveat that drives the conversation a different way,” council member Roger Berliner (D-District 1) told his colleagues on the human services committee Thursday. “We need a pedestrian bridge on Wayne Avenue to satisfy our obligation to the disabled.”
However, the committee’s members — Berliner, Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At large), and chairperson George Leventhal (D-At large) — couldn’t carve their collective opinion in granite because one related issue was still up in the air: downtown Silver Spring’s urban-renewal plan. The game plan, which recommends an urban design for parts of the hood, says no sky bridges allowed.
“The urban-renewal plan was implemented to guide an urban-renewal project,” Diane Schwartz Jones, assistant chief administrative officer for MoCo exec Ike Leggett, testified before the committee. That meant the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center, not the new library on Fenton Street and Wayne Avenue, she indicated.
People with the county’s planning department previously said otherwise, and legislative analysts with the county council agreed that the urban-renewal plan covered more than the Ellsworth Drive area. Also, some East Silver Spring residents look at the new library as a gateway to the Fenton Village area, which could use a little urban renewal of its own, they said.
Instead, Leventhal asked legislative aides to dig into the prospect of tweaking the urban-renewal plan. An amendment to the plan would add a little time to the library project, but it would also give residents an opportunity to offer more opinion, he said.
A bunch of neighborhood organizations have already thrown in their two cents on the bridge itself, Leventhal explained to his colleagues. Groups affiliated with the library, as well as Silver Spring’s urban-district advisory committee, supported the bridge as an access point for disabled patrons.
However, the planning department gave the bridge a thumbs down. The walkway, which would hang about three stories above Wayne Avenue near Fenton Street, flipped the script on contemporary urban design, several planners said previously.
Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board was split down the middle and could offer no opinion, according to Leventhal. At its monthly meeting on Feb 9, the advisory board held a lengthy discussion and even held a formal vote on whether an informal vote on the bridge should be taken.
Ultimately, 10 of the advisory board’s 15 members voted (informally) against the bridge; three members supported it; two were absent. But because no unanimous consensus could be reached, chairperson Darien Unger said he would not offer county council members any formal opinion from the board.
Leventhal said he would soon introduce a proposal to trim the number of advisory boards and committees throughout the county. Downtown Silver Spring has a couple of formal boards: the citizens advisory board and its three committees; the urban-district advisory committee; an arts and entertainment district advisory committee; and the transportation-management district advisory committee.
Photo of George Leventhal at a previous event courtesy of the council member.
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I don’t know where in the ADA it states that disabled people require a bridge constructed over all streets.
There’s been a talking crosswalk at the corner of Fenton and Wayne for years now. Evidently it’s done the job for the disabled folks who’ve been using it all this time.
Personally, I’d rather see those installed all over Silver Spring. Seems like that would be much more useful accessibility-wise, rather than to wasting big cash on a bridge that serves no purpose other than keeping library patrons from having to wait at the corner for the light to change. Crazytown!
It’s just incredible how this county suffers from analysis paralysis. What a complete waste of $700K it will be to build a bridge when state of the art pedestrian crosswalks (to ADA standards w/voice alert!) already exist with 200′.
I can tell you what it is – senior citizens vote in all the local elections so officials feel the need to kowtow to them. They want a bridge, so we’re paying for it. The same politicians who would rubber stamp a $700K (It’s always more than they estimate, too.) bridge will fight tooth an nail against any support for something like the music hall.
I’m still with Silver Spring Singular http://www.silverspringsingular.com/2008/12/solution-for-city-place.html on this one – turn city place into the library. Maybe planning can go there too.
Damn old people, they thwart me at every turn. Considering the majority don’t support this bridge, the council needs to be more assertive and say no to the bridge. Are they this submissive with their children?
I refuse to cross over a bridge that has no support.
Here’s something to chomp on:
The council members in this story want a bridge to serve disabled library patrons, but they don’t favor it as an alternative to walking on Wayne Avenue.
To that end, the council members suggested reserving most parking spots on the garage’s bridge level for cars with handicap plates or tags only. That is, Olaf’s “damn old people” would have to hoof it around the garage to catch the bridge, or down onto Wayne to get to the library.
Thoughts? Will that deal be enough to dissuade driving into an urban area, while still giving disabled patrons bridge access?
Not saying I favor the bridge, but have people forgotten there is one to City Place from the Ellsworth garage? So how does the argument about the urban plan hold?
I really don’t understand the idea that a bridge would somehow make the library more accessible to the disable
You want people on the ground bumping into people because that creates a sense of place in mixed use development in an urban setting. And you want wheel chairs and special needs to coexist with the rest of us.. not hidden in skywalks. We have to embrace diversity in every form and I’m all for holding a door for someone who would appreciate a friendly smile at street level. It is not an essential add-on and we need to keep costs down. What is essential is is treating the disabled as equals.
I think the city place idea is great. A group should be formed to promote the idea or something…Friends of shitty place library.
Thanks for your comments. Mike asked:
According to the planning department, that bridge was built back in the day when sky bridges were the shit, and an urban-renewal plan didn’t exist to frown upon them.
Everyone else wrote:
Good idea, but it ain’t gonna happen, in my opinion.
The county has already thrown a couple million bucks at the Fenton Village library site, booted a few businesses and the Moose Lodge in the name of eminent domain, and bulldozed an old apartment building on Bonifant to build a newer one.
They’re rolling with that site, if only to save face.
So then put the Library in City Place, move the Civic Center to the library spot and put an open area where “The Turf” used to be. Everyone is happy.
Let’s face it, City Place is a disaster. ‘The bridge to bridge to nowhere’ didn’t help City Place either. Good friendly design is what it’s all about and City Place doesn’t have it. Perhaps the Library will. I’d say, blow up City Place and put our beloved ‘The Turf’ there!
Agreed, urban design shouldn’t include express-routes for folks to get from their car to where they’re going without interacting with anyone else – doesn’t create an urban environment. If accessibility is such a problem, they should go back to the building design and figure out how to stick half a dozen handicap spaces right next to the building – it can’t be that hard.
As for City Place – what ever happened to their development application they had in to build an office tower through/on top of the place? I think forcing the foot-traffic of business folks through the mall might do well for that place – granted, it would have to to be large enough to have some critical mass to business folks to make a dent (not claiming to know what the critical mass is either).
And.. I must say I’d happily trade the turf for some real grass as well… just something softer than concrete :-)
Editor’s note: I think current economic conditions have put the kibbosh on that office tower for now. However, the mall’s owners might be moving forward with turning the old top-floor cinema into office space. A sign posted recently at the Fenton Street mall entrance advertised 80,000 square feet of office space available for rent in the building. — JD (Feb 18, 2009)