Officials cut the ribbon Wednesday to mark the opening of two parts of the Bethesda Bikeway project, which they hope will reduces crashes and fatalities and bring Montgomery County closer to its goal of zero deaths.
So far this year, 47 people have died while biking, walking, motorcycling, scootering or driving.
Council Vice President Evan Glass elaborated, noting that there have been 478 pedestrian and biking crashes this year. “Those are tragedies. Quite frankly, those are failures. Any tragedy is a failure,” he said.
The project highlighted at a rainy news conference Wednesday morning revealed two protected intersections along Woodmont and Bethesda avenues. The goal is to ensure drivers yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk as well as 0bey the legal speed limit.
The bikeway project enables those on the Capital Crescent Trail to continue through downtown Bethesda while being protected from motor vehicles. It is the third such protected installation in the county.
The new cycletrack segments run along Bethesda Avenue and Willow Lane from the Capital Crescent Trail to 47th Street near Elm Street Park and along Woodmont Avenue between Miller Avenue and Montgomery Lane.
Both bikeways are separated from traffic by raised concrete medians to protect cyclists. The two cycletracks are bright green separated bike lanes.
“Ultimately, this is what saves lives. We need to make sure we prevent the next tragedy,” said Councilmember Andrew Friedson. “Each and every one of these is a failure of policy, a failure of infrastructure,” he said.
Montgomery County Transportation Director Chris Conklin and Police Chief Marcus Jones stressed that no amount of infrastructure changes will end these tragedies if drivers, bikers and walkers are not respectful and do not follow safety rules.
Police officers conducted 18,000 traffic stops this year, issuing three times as many warnings as citations, Jones said. Speeding and red-light cameras cited 200,000 people. More than 40,000 citations were issued for passing a school bus.
“Believe me when I say that they take safety on our roadways personally,” Jones said of his officers.
“We are not doing a victory dance on pedestrian safety, because we are not there yet,” said County Executive Marc Elrich. Council President Gabe Albornoz agreed, calling the project “another step forward.”
Additional red light and speed cameras will be installed around the county during the next five years.,
Following the ribbon cutting, Elrich posted on Facebook, “Since I’ve become County Executive we’ve worked hard to slow down drivers and make the roads safer but we have yet to prevent all injuries and deaths. We’ll continue to work hard to make #VisionZero a reality.”
Montgomery County invested $101.5 million for Vision Zero projects and operations in FY22 and increased the budget for roadway safety projects by 21% to $123.1 million in FY23 on roadways by 2030.
Today at 10:00am, MCDOT will be celebrating the completion of two 🚴♀️bikeway🚴projects in Downtown #bethesdamd along Woodmont Ave and Bethesda Ave. @MontCoExec @MontgomeryCoMD @bethesdatransit @BethesdaUP @WABADC @Wash_cycle #bikemoco #MoCoBikes pic.twitter.com/wrinmXquPr
— MCDOT (@MCDOTNow) November 30, 2022
