Montgomery County Council Approves 25-Year Bike Master Plan

ROCKVILLE, MD — The Montgomery County Council unanimously approved a large-scale bicycle plan on Tuesday that could make traveling easier and safer for bike riders.

The Bike Master Plan would create a network of more than 1,000 miles of trails, paths, and protected bike lanes for cyclists, according to county officials. In addition to more and better connected bikeways, the county wants long-term bicycle parking stations at all Metrorail Red Line, many MARC Brunswick Line, future Purple Line, and Corridor Cities Transitway stations.

The decision Tuesday is a culmination of more than three years of public meetings, community bike rides, and other outreach efforts. The 25-year plan focuses on four main goals: achieving higher bicycling rates in the county; establishing a "highly-connected, convenient and low-stress bicycling network;" offering community members "equal access to low-stress bicycling;" and improving bicycling safety.

"When fully built out, the network envisioned by the plan will make biking a real option for cyclists of all ages and experiences in their trips for work, shopping, and recreation," said Council President Hans Riemer. "Advance work on this network is already happening with protected bicycle lane networks in Silver Spring and White Flint and soon coming to Bethesda. In addition to completing these networks, we need to lower speeds on neighborhood greenway streets, address unsafe trail crossings across the County, and bring the State Highway Administration to the table to make improvements on State highways. The plan shows us the way to a world-class bicycling community. Now we need to roll up our sleeves and get it built."

So far, approximately 261 miles of the recommended bikeway network exists. According to the plan, an additional 356 miles will be constructed within 25 years. About 44 percent of the network will take more than 25 years to build.

"A new classification system is proposed in the plan to evaluate cycling routes based on their level of separation from traffic," according to the 378-page plan. "A new concept, the Breezeway Network, is recommended to create a high-capacity system of arterial bikeways between major activity centers. This network allows faster bicyclists to travel with less delay and is one in which all users — including slower moving bicyclists and pedestrians — can safely and comfortably
coexist."

While drafting the Bike Master Plan, county officials wanted the recommendations to align closely with the goals of Vision Zero. The county's Vision Zero plan aims to eliminate severe and fatal collisions by the year 2030. Since the beginning of 2018, there have been at least 105 vehicle crashes involving bicyclists, according to Montgomery County crash data.

"This visionary and innovative plan recommends a network of protected bike lanes — lanes where people can bike and ride in a manner that is protected from cars — as well as low-stress routes throughout the county, in our urban centers as well as connecting major activity centers," said Riemer. "As such, the plan supports the county’s mobility, environmental sustainability, and Vision Zero goals. It will have a long-lasting and deep impact on the county’s infrastructure as it will guide budget decisions in the decades to come."

Image via Shutterstock

(For more news and information like this, subscribe to the Rockville Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. Don't forget to like us on Facebook.)