Snow piles, potholes linger in storm’s wake

By Jennifer Deseo | Jan 5, 2010

A few days after December’s snowpocalypse, a middle-aged man using an electric wheelchair was spotted on East-West Highway in South Silver Spring, attempting to navigate a narrow strip of bare sidewalk. He wasn’t having much luck.

Photo: Dude, whats the deal here? Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Dude, what's the deal here? Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

After squeezing past snow piles nearly as high as his head, he encountered unshoveled sidewalk too sloppy for his wheelchair to manage. He was forced to throw the wheelchair in reverse, back the way he came, to find a clear path.

That particular sidewalk has since been cleared, but one downtown sidewalk (photo) remains unshoveled two weeks after the snowpocalypse buried the hood under 20 inches of snow.

Along Colesville Road, outside a short office building and yards from a bus stop, a snow pile blocks passage for peds on foot and wheels. Ironically, the sidewalk around it and an adjacent parking lot are clear slabs of concrete and asphalt.

The storm’s cleanup left a nasty, metallic taste on the palettes of some, including council member Valerie Ervin (D-District 5). Soon after the storm subsided, she requested a council hearing on why the county’s volunteer center wasn’t dispatched to help shovel sidewalks. (more…)

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New ped path bisects South Silver Spring block

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 23, 2009
Photo: Evan Glass, of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association, speaks at the opening of Bottleworks Lane. Courtesy of Jason Gedeik.

Photo: Evan Glass, of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association, speaks at the opening of Bottleworks Lane. Courtesy of Jason Gedeik.

County officials and residents last Friday celebrated the opening of a new roadway and pedestrian path connecting two South Silver Spring streets.

“We’ve hit the trifecta,” MoCo council prez-elect Nancy Floreen (D-At large) said of the newly constructed Bottleworks Lane. The one-way, southbound street connecting East-West Highway and Kennett Street “improves pedestrian safety, promotes business and helps to make Silver Spring a generally great place to live.” she said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Other big wigs at the ceremony included MoCo exec Ike Leggett (D), US Rep Chris Van Hollen (D-Md 8), and State Sen Jamie Raskin (D-20). “Southside Evan” Glass, friend of The Penguin and president of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association, and Reemberto Rodriguez, director of Silver Spring’s regional center, were also there. (more…)

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Storm is over, but snow lingers in Silver Spring

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 22, 2009
Photo: Thanks for not shoveling the sidewalk, asshole. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Thanks for not shoveling the sidewalk, asshole. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

The snow dumped by this weekend’s gangbuster storm is off the main roadways, though residential streets could use a touch-up, the county’s transportation department reported Tuesday.

The area’s emergency routes, bus routes, and main roadways were passable after Saturday’s storm unleashed 21 inches of powder in Silver Spring, the transportation department announced in a press release. By Monday night, Colesville Road, Georgia Avenue and East-West Highway in downtown Silver Spring were back in business, though rush-hour traffic was lighter than usual.

However, residential streets were still in need of a snow plow’s scrape despite an initial visit. The transportation department’s goal was “to make every residential street passable — not to necessarily clear them to bare pavement,” the press statement read. The department will continue to plow and spread “abrasives” onto those streets until conditions improve, it added. (more…)

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State must address downtown’s ped-safety woes: advisory board chairman

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 15, 2009

Maryland’s highway administration must take more responsibility for improving pedestrian safety in Silver Spring’s central business district, the chairman of Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board demanded Monday night.

Photo: A dude in uniform navigates around some jackass whose car stopped in the crosswalk on Colesville Road. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Pedestrians navigate the crosswalk on Colesville Road, a state roadway. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

In a draft letter presented to the board at its monthly meeting, chairman Darian Unger claimed the county’s efforts to make streets more pedestrian friendly were “limited by a lack of authority over state roads and an overall car-centric view by most transportation authorities.”

“This car-centric view is harmful and dangerous to our community and should be changed to adapt to the needs of a more urban Silver Spring,” he wrote to state and county transportation departments, as well as to MoCo exec Ike Leggett and the county council.

Some of downtown Silver Spring’s main roadways — Georgia Avenue, Colesville Road, East-West Highway and 16th Street — are under the state’s authority. Meanwhile, The District controls Eastern Avenue along its border with South Silver Spring, as well as the southern half of the 16th Street traffic circle. Montgomery County takes care of the rest. (more…)

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Blasting schedule set for Silver Spring transit center site

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 9, 2009

After endless digging and more digging, construction crews at downtown Silver Spring’s transit center site will begin blasting at bedrock later this month, county reps announced.

Expect the walls to shake, the earth to quake, and perhaps your mind to ache on or after Saturday, Dec 19, Don Scheuerman, with the department of general services, said at last Tuesday’s pedestrian safety committee in downtown Silver Spring.

Daily blasting will go down at 2:00 p.m., during which car and people traffic will be stopped along Colesville Road and Ramsey Avenue. Scheuerman did not say how long the street and sidewalk would be off limits, but a daily blast job in South Silver Spring last year was a 15-minute (or less) routine, as recorded in a YouTube video.

Once the blasting work is completed, crews can begin to lay down the three-tiered transit center’s foundation, David Dise, director of the general services department, told the pedestrian safety committee. That action should start next spring, and by summer 2010, the transit center’s skeletal structure should be apparent, he said.

The transit center eventually will house local and regional bus stops, with connections to the Metro’s Red Line, MARC rail and possibly the Purple Line light-rail system. Dise predicted a spring 2011 opening.

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Ped-safety improvements bungled by bureaucracy, county rep claims

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 7, 2009
Photo: Round and round it goes! Courtesy of Google Maps.

Photo: Round and round it goes! Courtesy of Google Maps.

Police investigators are still piecing together movements that led to last month’s fatal car-on-pedestrian collision on 16th St, but one thing is known for sure: The collision scene has been on the county’s radar as a dangerous crossing for at least a few months, the county’s pedestrian-safety campaign coordinator claimed.

Jeff Dunckel revealed to Silver Spring’s pedestrian safety committee last Tuesday that plans existed to enhance crosswalks at the intersection of 16th St and Colesville Road, both state roads through the central business district. He also recalled speaking with South Silver Spring’s neighborhood association last spring about pedestrian crossings at a traffic circle there.

The traffic circle is a few yards south of where 63-year-old pedestrian William Guy was struck and killed by a car last month while crossing 16th Street during the evening rush hour.

“Unfortunately, things take a long time to be implemented on state roads,” Dunckel told the committee. “It’s a bureaucracy.” (more…)

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