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zOMG Dave, now you're in my neck of the woods. I've been living in Aspen Hill since 1963.

The Montrose Parkway is, of course, a truncated version of the original "Rockville Facility".

As to the dumping of traffic right onto Parkland Drive, Ah, no, go see Nancy Floreen's blog where she and I have a bit of a tissy spat and she assures us that it's been designed so that traffic can't cross over between Parkland Drive and the Parkway, which basically defeats the main selling point for the Parkway as far as Aspen Hill is concerned, and forces people from Aspen Hill to drive miles out of their way to get onto or off of the Parkway.

My advice on this, before you go too much further, is to go to AspenHillNet.Net and read all of the articles you get from searching for "cloverleaf".

Note that there will definitely be a call for an extension at least to the infamous "cloverleaf to nowhere" where Connecticut Avenue crosses Matthew Henson State Park. That park was converted from old State Highway Administration land which was left undeveloped for about 50 years on the assumption that eventually it would have that freeway in it. The cloverleaf to nowhere was definitely built so that a likely termination of the "Rockville Facility" there would dump freeway-like traffic at a point with quick connections in all directions, including into Aspen Hill's single-family detached residential housing via either of two signal-controlled left turns from Connecticut Avenue; or, after a signal-controlled left turn onto Georgia Avenue, either an uncontrolled intersection at Heathfield or at a signal-controlled left at Bel Pre Road.

As it is, all of that freeway-like traffic will have to be dumped onto Veirs Mill Road, where it is only two lanes by two lanes, median-separated, with no easy way to get into Aspen Hill other than by going almost back into Rockville and traveling up Aspen Hill Road, or by taking a left at Randolph Road and another left from there onto Connecticut Avenue northbound. Both of those last two turns are exceptionally overloaded already at rush-hour, and Aspen Hill Road just was treated to "bump-outs" and "pedestrian safety center-islands" for traffic-calming purposes and to dissuade cut-through traffic.

Clearly this is yet-another scam by the planners and the Council to force traffic anguish onto a public who will endlessly thereafter wail for the final extension -- at least to Connecticut Avenue -- of the Montrose Parkway.

I might point out that you should drink less coffee and type a bit less, sir, and drink more coffee and drive more before you type. Parkland Drive isn't by any stretch of the imagination a "quiet residential street", other than perhaps at midnight. How would I know? I live at one of the two busiest intersections on that street.

Now, keep in mind that the Matthew Henson State Park was set aside by an amendment of the Constitution of Maryland, in a practically overnight move to forestall a possible permit to develop granted by a Republican governor to his developer crony friends. That same speed of amendment could be surpassed should it ever be decided that Democrat crony developers should complete the original "Rockville Facility" plan from I-270 to the expected intersection with the ICC very near the present site of the Trolley Park Museum in the Northwest Branch stream valley.

This road, I should mention, got plenty of debate, it's just that this was a "done deal" 50 years ago, it was just a question of "when" and which taxpayers would fund it. As best I can tell, this will not be a State road, and in some ways, it's going to be a welcome improvement over the hills of Randolph Road and Veirs Mill Road, which become pretty impassible in snow and ice.

Now if you want to have a fun little debate, let's discuss the Upper Rock Creek Freeway um I mean Parkway which would more or less parallel the route of Bowie Mill Road from the ICC near Redland Road out to end at MD-108 at approximately the southern terminus of MD-582, "Zion Road".

Nobody's talking about it but it's absolutely certain that it will happen, and within 20 years as long as developers keep running the County Council into promoting limitless Bay-killing population growth.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 28, 2008 1:33 pm • link • report