Silver Spring, MD – As a first step in what will become a comprehensive look
at the future of the Takoma/Langley Crossroads, a new planning study recommends
important safety measures to protect pedestrians and bicyclists in a half-mile
radius of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard, an area known for
bicycle and pedestrian accidents, some of them fatal.
Some 90,000 vehicles a day drive through the intersection
known as the Crossroads. Pedestrians and bicyclists make up a large percentage
of the community’s 20,000 residents and use shopping centers as de facto town
squares for eating, socializing, shopping, finding work and using public
transit.
The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) sought and successfully applied for grant funds for the Pedestrian Access and Mobility Study to consider new ideas to improve pedestrian conditions. Funded by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and prepared by Toole Design Group, the study calls for upgrading crosswalks and adding pedestrian-activated traffic lights among ways to improve mobility and safety.
The recently completed study took a rare look across
municipal boundaries at the multi-cultural community that straddles Prince
George’s and Montgomery counties. It launches M-NCPPC’s
focused look at the Takoma/Langley Crossroads leading to a sector plan that
will prescribe the land uses and enhance the character in a 15-year vision of
the half-mile area circling the Crossroads. M-NCPPC’s plan will build upon the
pedestrian study to consider transit-oriented development, economic development
and pedestrian access.
With a 2009 expected completion date, planners have begun
gathering input from the community, such as collecting survey information
during last Tuesday’s National Night Out.
The Purple Line, a rapid bus or light rail system slated
to run from New Carrollton to Bethesda through Takoma/Langley, and the planned
construction of a bus transit center that will consolidate eight bus stops,
represent great opportunities to redevelop the crossroads, the pedestrian study
says. About 13,000 people per day ride buses through the Crossroads.
Many of the short-term recommendations to create a safer,
more easily traversed pedestrian environment are underway by the Maryland State
Highway Administration, among them:
– Building fences atop some road medians to block jaywalking
– Extending sidewalks
– Installing pedestrian-activated signals along New Hampshire
Avenue and University Boulevard
– Adding high-visibility crosswalks with median refuges for
slower-paced walkers
– Reducing traffic speeds and narrowing travel lanes for cars
Some of the study’s longer-term recommendations will be
addressed in the sector plan M-NCPPC will draft, including developing a
community-wide system of walkways; creating vibrant civic spaces; separating
automobiles and pedestrians with landscape buffers and other design elements;
and subdividing large properties into uses that would mix residential, office,
retail and open spaces. Public spaces might replace some of the bus stops to be
replaced by the bus transit center planned for 7900 New Hampshire Avenue.
The Council of Governments report was funded by a grant from
the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board’s
Transportation/Land-Use Connections program. In addition to M-NCPPC, the City
of Takoma Park, the Maryland State Highway Administration and the University of
Maryland provided guidance for the pedestrian report.