A 311 RequestPedestrian Safety on Quail Valley Blvd. Bus Stop v.

UPDATE: MoCo DOT responds on April 14, 2025:
"MCDOT’s evaluation will take approximately 40 days (excluding weekends and public holidays), and we will share our findings and course of action by June 10, 2025."
So, we are hopeful the DOT will understand the need to move the NO PARKING sign to the appropriate location. -SL

UPDATE:
I submitted a new request submitted on April 11, 2025. The automatic response reads, "Thank you for using MC311. Your Service Request has been successfully submitted. The details are as follows:Service Request Number is: 1590303186. Status: In Progress. Estimated Time to Resolve in days: 30."
Moving the NO PARKING sign to the proper location ought to be a trivial (to-code) task. So we will report on the outcome. -SL

Dear Montgomery County 311,

We thank Montgomery County D.O.T. and our HOA for working in collaboration to install some speed humps on Quail Valley Boulevard. There have been too many collisions on that residential road, and the humps seem to remind most drivers to slow down. We would like to describe three public-safety problems, and to suggest solutions. We hope the Department of Transportation can act on them soon ...

PROBLEM & SOLUTION #1. THIS PROBLEM IS MOST URGENT, AND EASY TO SOLVE.
This “No Parking” sign is misplaced. A resident says, "The RideOn bus is often unable to let me off properly at the sidewalk where the bus stop sign is located (on Quail Valley Blvd. at the intersection of Bluebird Terr., western side of the street). The cause of the problem? A NO PARKING sign is very close to the “Bus Stop” sign." See photos. At no other spot in the community are the Bus Stop sign and NO PARKING SIGN co-located.

"The poor location of the NO PARKING sign allows people to park their cars at the very edge of the sidewalk slab where I need to debark. The bus can’t angle into that space. It has to continue on for another 30 feet, where it then lets me off in the driveway to the court, which is very dangerous. Once the bus pulls away, I could be run over by a car pulling into Bluebird Court. This is especially dangerous at night," says the resident.

Here is a quick fix: Please move the “No Parking” sign far away, uphill, so there is always space along the curb for the bus to pull up to the bus stop and concrete sidewalk slab.

See the two photos. The location of the red car is about where the No Parking sign should be placed. But that sign is right up next to the Bus Stop sign, where Mr. Segura is standing in the photo

PROBLEM & SOLUTION #2. The community needs a crosswalk to help pedestrians get across Quail Valley Boulevard safely, just north of the intersection with Blue Bird Terrace.

"Many families need to cross the boulevard to get to the Quail Community Pool, which is directly across the boulevard at this point. I also need to get to the RideOn bus stop at this location. Crossing the street is hazardous, especially if you are in a wheelchair like me. Cars race in either direction on this slope. The county, in collaboration with our HOA, recently installed speed humps, but none was installed at this spot, for various reasons. But we do need white-paint crosswalk markings on the boulevard. The nearest crosswalk is more than a city block away (~660 feet) and up a steep incline," says the resident.

PROBLEM & SOLUTION #3. "When I’m traveling alone, I cannot get safely over the curb on either side of Quail Valley. We need two “skirts” to be constructed to allow access from the street to the sidewalk by a person in a wheelchair. As you can see in photo B, these are “soft sloping,” or so-called “mountable curbs,” but if I tried to steer my wheelchair over that curb, I could tip over backwards. A ramp is needed (also called a “skirt”, it’s often covered with hard yellow dots) that allows bicycles and wheelchairs to get safely from street to sidewalk, and vice versa. The ramps would embrace the proposed crosswalk."

Interview with V______ on Bluebird Terrace

Neighbors in Support:

Eric Segura (Bluebird Terr. neighbor; fellow in the two photos)

Steven Sellers Lapham (Purple Martin neighbor; submitting the 311 form)

311 AUTOMATIC REPLY:

Thank you for using MC311. Your Service Request has been successfully submitted [6/23/2024]. The details are as follows:
Service Request Number is: 1567420881
Status: In Progress.
Estimated Time to Resolve in days: 30
"File (with photo) upload successfully completed."

[“Resolve” means that the county will send a response in 30 days, not that a crosswalk and skirt will be built in 30 days. That will take some time, but we hope it can happen soon.]

THE STATUS WAS MARKED "CLOSED" IN JUNE 2024. I SEE NO FURTHER EXPLANATION IN ANY EMAIL ABOUT THIS REQUEST (1567420881), FROM THE COUNTY, OR IN THE REPORT AT THE WEBPAGE ABOUT THIS SERVICE REQUEST NUMBER. --Steve Lapham, 11 April 2025.

P.S. By the way, the Quail Valley HOA is taking Eric to court on August 7, 2024. Case # 06-01-0011083-2021. The HOA has denied him access to the community pool for six years now. Watch this space for more news about that soon: tinyurl.com/CuckooCourt. --S.L. An update on that case is here.