The County Council’s Transportation & Environment Committee held a briefing this morning on the Forest Glen east-side Metro entrance. The committee held the briefing to hear information on pedestrian difficulties at Georgia Avenue and Forest Glen Road and possible solutions, including a new Metro entrance on the eastern side of Georgia. Committee chair Nancy Floreen and committee members George Leventhal and Tom Perez attended. Also in the audience to show support for the Forest Glen community were Valerie Ervin, the next County Council member from District 5, and Jeff Waldstreicher, who will soon represent District 18 as a state delegate in the General Assembly.

View the powerpoint presentation given by Nat Bottigheimer of WMATA

Nat Bottigheimer of WMATA handled most of the presentation to the committee. Also briefing the committee were Gene Counihan and Kathy Mitchell of WMATA and Edgar Gonzalez, Deputy Director of the County’s Department of Public Works & Transportation (DPWT). Bottigheimer showed the committee the results of an assessment conducted by WMATA last year on the feasibility of building a new Forest Glen Metro entrance on the eastern side of Georgia which would be connected to the station by a tunnel. (Readers can view the assessment at http://www.crossinggeorgia.com/images/forest_glen_tunnel_0506.pdf.)

Bottigheimer said that the Forest Glen Metro station had about 2,200 daily boardings. Of those boardings, about 60% come from drivers who park in the station’s lot and about 35% come from pedestrians. As of 2005, the intersection saw 85,000 cars per day on Georgia and 7,000 on Forest Glen. The county’s 2006 mobility study found that the Georgia-Forest Glen intersection was the most congested in Montgomery County.

Throughout the briefing, the council members regularly commented on the dangerous and confusing nature of the intersection. Council member Perez called the intersection a “pedestrian nightmare.” While he praised the newly built pedestrian bridge across the Beltway, he said that a new Metro entrance on the east side of Georgia was “unfinished business” that was among the top 3-5 items that should be done. Council member Leventhal said the intersection was “particularly dangerous at night” and suggested the possibility of lit crosswalks.

Council member Floreen said she uses the intersection frequently when driving to Silver Spring. She questioned the location of the current Metro entrances, asking, “What were they thinking by putting them in such inaccessible spots?” She also called the intersection “a very confusing place” and said, “People in a hurry to get to Holy Cross Hospital are not worried about pedestrian safety.”

The committee called for two measures to begin improving the intersection. First, they called on DPWT to look at any possible short-term measures to improve safety at the intersection, including but not limited to signage, signals and changing walking times. Second, they called for a longer-term study that would examine traffic and pedestrian flow through the intersection and analyze the placement of a new Metro entrance on the eastern side of Georgia Avenue. In fact, the Forest Estates Community Association’s Crossing Georgia Committee is already working with Mid-County Services and WMATA to draft a scope for such a study.

Council members Floreen, Leventhal and Perez deserve credit for examining the problems of the intersection in great detail this morning. They have heard the community’s outcry about the problems of crossing Georgia Avenue. Leventhal said “the community did a tremendous job” and put the intersection “on everybody’s radar screen.” However, this is only the start of a very long process to deal with Forest Glen and Georgia. It will likely take the county and state governments a few years to examine the intersection and decide on the specifics of building a new Metro entrance. We appreciate the county council’s attention to the issue, but we must remain engaged as they move forward.

– Adam Pagnucco, Crossing Georgia Chair

Photos by John Howley