The Silver Spring Penguin

MoCo exec Ike Leggett’s reps continued to push for a pedestrian bridge between Silver Spring’s new library and the Wayne Avenue garage Thursday night. But some area residents wanted to keep a few more options on the table.

At a design discussion at ye olde library, Don Scheuerman, with the county’s department of general services, described how disabled drivers might access the future library’s Wayne Avenue entrance from the public garage across the street (below).

Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Currently, parking spaces designated for handicapped drivers sit towards the southeast corner on every level of the garage. To qualify for that parking under state law, drivers must not be able to walk more than 200 feet without stopping to rest.

If a disabled driver chooses to park on the ground floor, the safest pedestrian path would swing slightly west towards Georgia Avenue to avoid traffic at one of the garage’s entrances. Once on the sidewalk, the path would follow east again towards the intersection of Fenton Street and Wayne. There, a person can cross Wayne to reach the library entrance (blue line), Scheuerman explained.

Distance travelled on that trip: about 600 feet, according to The Penguin’s crudely drawn Google map and Scheuerman’s own field measurements.

If a pedestrian bridge were built near the garage’s southeast elevator, a disabled driver could park in a designated spot on the third level. Without driveway traffic to dodge, the pedestrian path makes a bee line (purple) onto the bridge and into the library. Total distance: 205 feet if you ask The Penguin’s Google map, 233 feet by Scheuerman’s measurements.

Just one catch: Large vans — the kinds with wheelchair lifts — won’t clear the ceilings on the garage’s upper levels, Scheuerman said.

But what about this scenario, suggested by Woodside Park resident Barbara Dietzler: Have disabled drivers pull into the garage’s designated spots on the upper levels, take the southeast elevator to the sidewalk, then cross Wayne at its intersection with Fenton (orange line). Would that distance be cool?

Scheuerman told Dietzler he’d look into it, but according to Google, that path would be 450 feet trip from the car to the library’s front door.

Here’s another scenario, pitched by area resident Lynn Hughes: Designate curbside parking along Fenton Street for disabled drivers. Parking is already permitted there, and Scheuerman indicated that it would stay there after the library’s construction as a “traffic-calming” measure.

There’s a snag to that idea, Scheuerman spelled out in an email to The Penguin. The slight incline along Fenton between Wayne and Bonifant Street is steeper than what the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) suggests. Instead, some of the curb space there might be used as a drop-off point, even if the slope doesn’t meet ADA requirements, he wrote.

And forget about on-site parking, architects and county reps have repeated ad nauseum. Given the library’s small footprint, a ramp leading down to an underground garage would take up so much space as to eat the entire first floor, architect Bill Evans told meeting participants.

The bridge’s status — that is, whether Silver Spring’s urban-renewal plan permits its construction — will be bounced around the county council’s planning and human services committees next Tuesday.