Letter: Montrose Road Diet

Montrose Road needs traffic calming and safe spaces for pedestrians and bicyclists.

You can view this document in PDF form here.

MCDOT - Montrose Road Diet - 2023Mar1

March 1, 2023

Dear Montgomery County Congressional Delegation:

I am writing on behalf of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) and its more than 7,000 members across the Washington metropolitan area to express our strong support of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation’s (MCDOT’s) proposed project to implement a road diet on Montrose Road between Josiah Henson Parkway and Towne Road.

For fifty years, WABA has worked to transform the capital region by improving the conditions for people who bike. Our work to advocate for dedicated bike infrastructure, pass laws that promote safe roadway behavior, and provide education programming for all road-users has resulted in a drastically different cultural and political approach to biking for transportation. Biking can and should be an equitable, safe, low-cost, time-saving, and sustainable way to navigate our region for all residents and visitors.

For much of its history, Montrose Road served as an important artery between I-270 and MD-355 in Rockville. The construction of the now renamed Josiah Henson Parkway in 2008 diverted the majority of the 74,000 vehicles per day to a new, parallel roadway. The existing 5-lane Montrose Road now has excess capacity. Several crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists, including a fatal crash in 2019 have occurred on this segment of Montrose Road. The proposed road diet to reduce the number of travel lanes for cars and provide a safe space for pedestrians and cyclists will improve safety and reduce vehicular speeds, helping the County to achieve its Vision Zero goal of eliminating serious and fatal collisions on County roads by the end of 2030.

I appreciate the Montgomery County Congressional Delegation’s commitment to funding high-quality projects with visible and sustainable community benefits, and we urge you to support this worthy project.

Sincerely,

Jeremiah Lowery
Advocacy Director

More about Complete State Roads: Montgomery County

WABA’s Complete State Roads initiative aims to remake state highways in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties as complete streets, boosting safety and mobility for people who walk, bike, roll, or use transit as well as for drivers and their passengers.

The Complete State Roads–Montgomery County report is available at waba.org/stateroads and you can watch a presentation delivered about it at WABA’s 4th Great Montgomery County Bike Summit in 2023.

As part of the Complete State Roads initiative, WABA backed the development of legislation for introduction in the 2024 Maryland legislative session.

More about Complete Streets

Complete Streets are streets designed to accommodate all users, and that prioritize historically underinvested modes of transportation like transit, walking, and biking. An incomplete street might lack adequate sidewalks, low-stress bike infrastructure, or safe and comfortable access to transit.

Effective Complete Streets policies change the way a jurisdiction plans and builds transportation infrastructure—sidewalks, low stress bike infrastructure, and transit should be included in any new or rebuilt street by default, rather than as an add-on when there's space or demand.

While most regional jurisdictions have a Complete Streets policy of some sort, they lack teeth and permit transportation departments to continue to build streets that put cars first and squeeze other modes into the margins.

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.