The Silver Spring Penguin

Residents along a stretch of Cedar Street near downtown Silver Spring voted to make improvements to a bike path there — sort of.

Five out of 13 homeowners on Cedar between Wayne Avenue and Bonifant Street voted to run a bike lane against the traffic flow on the west side of the street (below), Patricia Shepherd, project manager for the county’s transportation department, reported Wednesday to Silver Spring’s transportation committee.

The problem with that design, Shepherd explained, was that cyclists would be rolling next to parked cars and their unpredictable car doors that tend to swing open without warning. On top of that, five more homeowners on that block didn’t vote on the changes, she said.

A vote was necessary because back in the day, homeowners there asked the county to reserve curbside parking for permit holders only. A two-thirds vote would have flipped the script on what exists today: parallel parking on the street’s west side, with one-way northbound traffic rolling on the street’s east side.

The existing bike path on Cedar’s west corner with Wayne Avenue is about 20 feet long and dead ends in a curb, according to Slate magazine. Because of these characteristics, Slate dubbed it “America’s stupidest bike lane” in May 2008.

The transportation department’s preference would have been to extend the bike lane on the west side of Cedar, and allow parallel parking on the east side (below). That design would have minimized the car-door hazard. However, only 2 of 13 homeowners swung that way, Shepherd said.

Homeowners were not asked to reveal why they voted one way or the other, or why they didn’t vote at all. A newsletter describing proposed changes was mailed last fall to each home on the block, with a simple ballot enclosed. Some on the transportation committee wondered if residents mistook the newsletter for junk mail.

It’s unclear whether the transportation department will pursue its preferred design, or if it will hang with block residents’ choice.

Lead photo courtesy of Flickr user SashaFatCat. Embedded photos courtesy of the Montgomery County department of transportation.