Letter: FY26 M-NCPPC Prince George’s County budget

WABA shared recommendations for the FY26 M-NCPPC Prince George's County budget.

You can view this document in PDF form here.

M-NCPPC Prince George’s County Planning Board

October 16, 2024

Chair Shapiro and Planning Board Members,

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is a nonprofit organization active in Prince George’s County and throughout the Washington region. We envision a just and sustainable transportation system where walking, biking, and transit are the best ways to get around.

WABA offers comments on the FY 2026 M-NCPPC Prince George’s County budget.

We will start, as we have in the past, by commending Prince George’s Parks’ efforts at trail maintenance: resurfacing and repairs, bridges, wayfinding signage and pavement markings, and other elements needed to maintain a first-class trail system for bicycling, walking, and rolling in Prince George’s parks, whether for recreation or as a green, healthy way of getting around the county. Your investment is paying off.

Please continue fully funding trail construction and maintenance – for both paved and natural-surface trails – and improvements that enhance safety, in particular where trails and roads intersect.

We recommend that M-NCPPC – Parks and Planning – augment design and engineering staff focused on pedestrian-safety improvements, safe roadways, and bicycling infrastructure, to accelerate project planning, development, contracting, and construction, tapping federal and state transportation funding. Please add personnel resources to pursue federal and state grant funding.

WABA is eagerly awaiting release of Go Prince George's, the county’s new Master Plan of Transportation.

We urge you, in cooperation with the County Administration and Council, to launch development of a comprehensive Prince George’s County Bicycle Master Plan, a roadmap for realization of the vision and opportunities described in Plan 2035 and Go Prince George’s.

(WABA also supports development of a Prince George’s County Pedestrian Master Plan.)

The Prince George’s County Bicycle Master Plan would build on the 2009 Countywide Master Plan of Transportation’s Chapter IV: Trails, Bikeways, and Pedestrian Mobility, the 2016 draft Trails Master Plan for Prince George’s County, the 2018 Strategic Trails Plan, the 2024 Bike and Pedestrian Network Plan developed by Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation, and the 2050 Maryland Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan issued by MDOT earlier this year.

The Prince George’s plan should address bicycling facility types (trails, bike lanes, sidepaths, cycletracks, etc.), bicycle parking including for cargo and e-bikes, bikeshare and shared micromobility, wayfinding, and the integration of bicycling in multi-modal transportation contexts. The facilities classification should be applied to roads and trails in the county to create a map that will guide the build-out, from current conditions, of a comprehensive, connected bikeways network covering the entirety of Prince George’s County. (We are especially concerned about the southern regions of the county, which currently have less access to and fewer options for existing trails and bike lanes.)

This network must interconnect with the regional Capital Trails Network, bicycle facilities in neighboring jurisdictions, and the transit network as well as residential, commercial, school, and recreational centers county-wide. Creating an inventory of existing facilities and a level of traffic stress (LTS) analysis is an essential part of this exercise. This inventory and analysis are the foundation for development of implementation plans. And plan inclusion of a schedule of periodic attainment reports would ensure implementation stays on track.

Of course WABA and the Prince George’s County bicycling community would be thrilled to take part in the development of this plan and support its realization in the years to come.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

Sincerely,

Seth Grimes

Maryland organizer

seth.grimes@waba.org

Copy:

Lakisha Hull, Planning Director

Bill Tyler, Parks Director

More about Prince George's County Budget

Prince George's County's budgeting process, both for its annual budget and its 6-year capital budget, takes place in the spring. WABA works with grassroots advocates and partner organizations to build support on the County Council for funding individual projects and to ensure that the Department of Public Works and Transportation and the Parks Department have the resources required to grow and maintain the County's active transportation network.

Current priorities include expanding Capital Bikeshare in the county, funding trail development to expand the Capital Trails Network, additional design, engineering, and grant-writing staff at DPWT, and an e-bike purchase rebate program.

More about Laws & Policy

WABA works with grassroots advocates at the local, county and state level to support laws and policies that make it easier and safer to walk, bike, and take transit. And we work to changes ones that make biking less safe, make it harder to build bike infrastructure, or that deprioritize the safety and convenience of people walking, biking, or taking transit.

In practice that means advocating for robust and transformative Vision Zero programs, enforceable Complete Streets policies, and funding for new infrastructure that supports biking, walking and transit.

Other regional legislative priorities include:

Reforming Contributory Negligence (passed in DC, in the works in Maryland and Virginia).
Getting rid of the Level of Service engineering standards in transportation decision-making.
Funding E-bike purchase rebates.

More about Advocacy

WABA fights for a region where biking, walking and transit are the best ways to get around.

We educate policymakers and organize grassroots advocates for to speak up for safer places to bike and walk; and for laws and policies that protect people who are walking and biking, reduce dangerous driving, and facilitate changes to the built environment.