Community and developer efforts for a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly Old Georgetown Road in White Flint appear close to getting some results.
Dee Metz, Montgomery County’s White Flint coordinator, told community group Friends of White Flint that the county’s Department of Transportation and the State Highway Administration “have begun discussions of a possible road transfer” that would make the section of Old Georgetown Road between Hoya Street and Rockville Pike a county road.
That county control would conceivably give it “greater flexibility in narrowing that segment of the roadway,” Metz told Friends of White Flint.
The Friends group, Pike & Rose developer Federal Realty, neighborhood representatives and smart growth advocates have been pushing for a more narrow Old Georgetown Road in that section that would include bicycle lanes.
After Friends of White Flint Executive Director Lindsay Hoffman criticized the county’s ongoing design process for the section of Old Georgetown Road between Hoya Street/Executive Bouelvard and Grand Park Avenue, county officials said the criticism was unfair — in part because the State Highway Administration has final say on any road design.
The back-and-forth continued for weeks until seven councilmembers put their names behind a capital budget amendment that would allow the county to rebuild the section of Old Georgetown Road only once, and only if the design matched the four-lane width prescribed in the 2010 White Flint Sector Plan.
In the update she provided to the Friends of White Flint, Metz said the current design of the road has been put on hold, “pending what the County Executive expects to be a successful outcome to allow construction of the cross section that is the ultimate design in the Sector Plan.”
The state will still have final say over how Old Georgetown Road intersects with Executive Boulevard and Hoya Street, once it is extended into the intersection, “but we are working closely with them to co convince them of our vision,” Metz said.
The county project only applies to Old Georgetown Road between the new intersection of Hoya Street (which will become Towne Road) and Grand Park Avenue — the new street that leads into the first phase of the Pike & Rose project.
