Tom,
Thanks for this post, it's very interesting, and I'd be happy
to post the graphic when you send it to me. As I mentioned to
you in a private email, I think that your original message didn't
go out because it was over the 40KB limit due to the attachments.
I also have been concerned about the State's plan for West Diamond,
and I had separately written to the Council wondering about the
wisdom of the plan to bring that street through to Summit. For
referenece, people might want to take a look at the map I snagged
from Mapquest: http://www.eskimo.com/~bob/gaithersburg-list/wdiamond.gif
In there, one can see exactly what we're talking about. West Diamond
(117 on the map) comes from the West and does it's on/off-ramp thing
around 355. The State wants to re-do the part on the East side of
355, running 117 into, I believe, the bend in E Cedar so that that
East-bound traffic will dump onto Summit, presumably with a traffic
light. This would, of course, put additional pressure on the grade-level
crossing on Summit. Right now, an effective, although non-obvious
and inconvenient, way to get from 117 to Olde Towne is to come up
over the bridge and zip (poor choice of words, but then that's part
of the problem, no?) down Brookes. With the State's plan, drivers will
be able to continue down 117 to Summit, but then will have to cross
the tracks at-grade to get to the businesses along East Diamond.
What would seem to many of us to be a far superior option would be
to dig an underpass for 117 near Uncle Bob's. You can see on the
map that 117 and East Diamond are very close there, and there is
actually a reasonable stretch of undeveloped land (amounting pretty
much to just the CSX right-of-way) there, so it might be possible to do
without sigificant displacement of businesses or residences.
Such an underpass would, in my mind, result in a number of
positive outcomes:
* Traffic on 117 could enter Olde Towne without (a) crossing
the tracks at-grade, (b) making any use of 355 and (c)
making any use of residential, neighborhood streets.
* Businesses at the West end of East Diamond would gain
a much greater visibility. The underpass would probably
come up somewhere between Roy's and Old Siam, and could
improve the viability of that area for these businesses
and others that might follow.
* Traffic coming off 355 headed for 117 or Muddy Branch,
that now go straight down Chestnut, would have a new,
grade-level-crossing-free route to do this; they
could simply turn off Chestnut, onto East Diamond,
and then onto West Diamond through the underpass.
This seems an ideal, or at least optimal, solution to a number
of traffic problems that we have in the area, but as far as I
know it will elude us, for what reasons I'm not sure.
--Bob
On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 04:33:08AM -0700, Thomas Patton wrote:
> Thanks Becky for bringing up Chestnut/Meem and the RR crossing.
>
> I would be interested to see the results of the Chestnut/Meem charrette posted.
>
> I also think the the removal of the crossing via and underpass would make the
> area safer (see attached post article). It would also reduce the air-horn blasts
> by 50% (they would only need to blast at the Summit Ave. crossing). See attached
> article on other community attempts to stop the air-horn blast.
>
> Rick Marvin has requested that the City investigate the Federal "G" funding to
> support the under-pass concept. Rick's suggestion is that the underpass be
> located East of the Cannery building, and cross near where the Steel Fabricator
> and Uncle Bob's self storage are currently located. I will send a graphic to
> Bob. He may choose to post it on the web site.
>
> See the attached FHA document that describes the federal funding guidelines.
>
> Judging from the staff's response to Rick's inquiries, I don't think that the
> City plans to do more that state that it is economically un-feasible.
>
> -Tom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 19 2000 - 16:04:17 EDT
