Curb and drainage work on Fernwood and Greentree

New curb on Fernwood, just south of Michaels Dr

 For the past couple of weeks they have been replacing the curbs and improving drainage on Fernwood road near Michaels drive.  For all the talk Montgomery county does about permeable pavement, I hope this is porous asphalt, but it doesn't look like it to me.

Newly refinished drainage ditch on Fernwood, just north of Michaels Dr

 They have now started to improve some of the drainage on Greentree Road near the Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, clearing out the overgrown and clogged ditch that was there, and in at least one place re-surfacing the bottom of the ditch.

WMAL field housing development community meeting

Toll Brothers held a community meeting today about a revised concept plan they are working on for the WMAL radio transmitter field in Bethesda, MD.

The original concept plan was submitted last November and the planning board as well as the fire department had extensive comments on it.  Toll Brothers went back and updated the plan based on those comments, and this meeting was the first chance the community got to see the plan.

The meeting was held at North Bethesda Middle school and was packed with almost every seat taken and many people standing along the sides of the room.

The new plan hasn't changed very much from the old plan (the top link in the story discusses the old plan, I won't repeat it here).  There is still 328 houses, some single family and some townhouses.  There is also still a 5 acre site reserved for 3 years for the county to purchase at fair market value if they desire it.  That reserved area includes some of the mature woodland that they can't build on anyway (and that the county probably couldn't use either).  If the county exercises the option to buy the total number of houses built would be reduced from 238 to 306 units.

Removed from the plan are any mention of a dog park, as well as the wide boulevard running north/south in the middle of the site.  Based on comments from the county, the Greyswood to Greentree interconnection has been straightened out and an access to the neighborhood via Renita lane has also been added (Toll Bros. was clear they would like this to be for fire department access only, possibly by having it gated, but the county has to agree to that).  I understand the county also didn't like the alleys behind many of the houses and how close the houses were to the road, but those concerns don't appear to have been acted on.

In addition to the road access points (three on Greentree, one on Greyswood, and the possible Renita lane access) there would be a pedestrian only access onto Derbyshire, and, if the Renita Lane access were fire department only that would be a pedestrian access as well.

The plan they showed us was just the pretty overview drawing, it didn't have lot sizes or road widths on it, so it isn't clear if any of that has changed.

School enrollment projections for the WJ cluster based on development of the WMAL radio transmitter site.

This property is zoned for the Walter Johnson cluster.  They used the county guidelines for how many students would be added to the cluster.  These projections (which during the questions, several residents suggested were too low) call for an additional 153.2 students.  That rounds out to be 78 new elementary students in Ashburton ES, 38 new middle school students at North Bethesda MS, and 38 new high school students at Walter Johnson HS.

They talked about the scope of the traffic study but said it was not complete.  One of the Toll Brothers representatives promised there would be another community meeting at a yet-to-be-determined date to focus on traffic.  One small piece of useful information they gave was that they estimate in the peak hour, this development will generate an additional 209 trips on local roads.

The site plan makes extensive use of bioswales for stormwater management.  Toll brothers claims that the impact of the development on the Chesapeake bay after the houses are built will be lower than it is today, however I find that claim dubious since it is currently undeveloped forest and grassland.  The bioswales will mostly be on neighborhood association owned land, but some (on the east side) will be on private property easements.  All the bioswales will be maintained by the association.

A line of people waiting to ask questions at one of the two microphones.

After the presentation, the community was given time to ask questions.  People lined up for access to the microphone.  Questions focused on the roads/traffic, the schools, and the size of lots and prices.  People also asked about the environmental impact of the project, such as wildlife, energy efficiency and carbon footprint.

There will be four types of housing on the site, Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs) The pricing formula is set by the county and wasn't discussed, but they will all be townhouses.  The townhouses (not all will be MPDUs) will have two car garages with rear (alleyway) access.  They will start above $900,000.  Some of the detached houses will also be rear-load (alley access to two car garages), these will start around 1.1 million dollars.  There will also be houses with front driveways (and two car garages) on slightly larger lots starting around 1.3 million dollars.

One person asked about the 15 foot buffer between the houses on the east side and existing houses on Corkran Lane.  That will be planted as a water swale, but will be owned by, and be part of the backyard of, the new houses backing it.  Another person asked about the current wildlife in the area, including the sizeable deer herd on the property.  The response was that nothing special was planned, and they expected the deer to move out on their own as development progressed (undoubtedly onto the interstate and into the backyards of existing houses).

One interesting thing I noticed from the questions, is the people who live on the Greentree side of the field think all the traffic from the development will end up on Greentree road, and all the people on the Fernwood side of the field think all the traffic will end up on Greyswood Road.

Updated 4/9 6pm:  changed the number of access points on Greetree from 2 to 3.  A closer look at the plan reveals they plan roads that connect at Barnett Rd, Grubby Thicket Way, and at the current end of Greentree Rd.

Updated 4/14 9:45 am: Toll Brothers has posted  the presentation from the meeting here: http://tinyurl.com/TollBrosPrelimPresentation.

Linifying pictures

 I ran acrross an interesting website called linify.  You upload a picture, and it tries to automatically recreate it with nothing but colored straight lines.  I decided to give it a try with a picture I took of delicate arch in Utah.

 For the first pass I took the defaults, the picture recreated with 2,500 lines.  It looks pretty good, but looses a lot of the detail.

Next up I went all the way, 10,000 lines, trying the 500 times for each line to find the best one.  It showed up with lots of detail, but it is way too dark and too red.

 For the final picture I used a pretty common cheat.  I took the first 2,500 line picture and overlayed it on the original, letting about 30% of the original show through.  This gives me the detail of the actual picture but with the straight lines from the redrawing.  I like how the lines are clearly related to the picture and not randomly placed around it.  I like the final picture, but not as much as I like the original.  Non-the-less, it is a neat effect.

Concrete Construction

Concrete Construction is great, but I'm more into Abstract Construction.

From the Miller & Long building on the Corner of Rugby Avenue and Del Ray Avenue.  This building is being demolished for a new residential tower called "The Rugby".

More rail road remanants

 A couple of years ago I posted about some interesting un-identified track equipment along the Capital Cresent Trail that seems to have been part of a rail road car.  I was walking through the same area the other day and noticed that just on the other side of the trail down the embankment is what appears to be the rest of the railroad car.

  Here is one side of it, you can see the coupling where it would connect to the next car.  There are plants growing in the bed of the car and the whole area is completely overgrown, which is why I haven't noticed it before.  In another month or two this probably won't be visible from the trail (until next winter anyway).

 This is the back half of the above car.  Since there is no coupling and now sidewall, I surmise that there is only one railroad car that was intentionally cut in half and left behind.

this is the other part of the car, again you can see the coupling for connecting it to the rest of the train. The Capital Crescent Trail is at the top of the hill to the right.

The bed of the car was made of wood planks.  many of them have rotted away, especially in this area.

The Capital Crescent Trail runs along what was the Georgetown Branch rail road line, there are many small reminders of this that you can find if you look hard enough.  I have written about many of them.

No more paper farecards

As of this Sunday, March 6th, metro will stop accepting paper farecards for for travel within the metrorail system.  Metro has been preparing for this change for a while, and all the blue fare machines in metro stations have been dispensing smart trip cards instead of paper farecards since last December.

If you have a paper farecard (or a pile of them) you can still turn them in until June 30th and add the value to a smart trip card at any brown fare machine at a metro station (the blue ones don't have a spot to accept paper farecards).  I tried it out earlier this week and had about a 50% success rate with the cards I had.  (Admittedly though, some of my farecards are pretty old.) You can also take them to any Metro sales office.  For more information see the Metro press release.

The future may be riding on Metro, but the future isn't riding on Metro using paper farecards.

What to expect on the roads in Bethesda this morning

I saved some images from the traffic cameras so that you can see how many lanes are open on the roads leading in to downtown Bethesda.  I saved these pictures at 7 this morning.  You can see that most roads are only one or two lanes each direction.  Even heavily used roads like Old Georgetown Road and East-West Highway are only one lane each way.

Wisconsin Ave and Bradley Blvd,  looks like two lanes each direction are open

MD-355 at Ceder Ln, heading towards NIH and downtown.  Two lanes open

Bradley Blvd at Arlington Rd, one lane open each direction

East-West Hwy at Montgomery Ave.  Looks to me like there is about one and a half lanes open

Old Georgetown Rd at Arlington Rd.  One lane each direction

Old Georgetown Rd at Cedar Ln One lane plus two half lanes.

Woodmont Ave and Norfolk Ave. One lane each way plus the turn lane

Are Bethesda roads ready for you?

Arlington Road and Bethesda Avenue

 So you've been cooped up in your house/apartment for the past 3 days, your neighborhood road just got plowed and you are ready to get out and get to work first thing in the morning.  But are the roads ready for you?  I drove around downtown Bethesda, MD this evening and the answer is "probably not".  Most of the roads were wet and plowed down to the pavement, but only for one lane each direction.  Even Old Georgetown Road is one lane each way (plus the suicide turn lane in the middle), there doesn't seem to be any place to put the snow.  Even places where it is two lanes don't last long before being filled with piles of snow again.

As more people head back to work on roads that can handle significantly fewer cars than usual, be prepared for delays.

Bethesda Avenue sidewalk near Uncle Julios

  

Even the sidewalks are narrowed if they are clear at all.

Bethesda Avenue at the parking garage

Snow, wonderful snow

We now have well over a foot of snow here in Bethesda, MD and it much more to come.  I went out this morning to take a look around.  The state and county are doing a pretty good job keeping the roads passable (at least for 4-wheel drive vehicles) and this is helped by almost no one being out on them.  With few exceptions, the only vehicles on the road are state/county plows and private plowing contractors going from job to job.

Snow is still coming down hard and there is over a foot on the ground.  Interstate 495 has been plowed but is mostly deserted, only a single car drives on it.

A front-end loader equipped with a plow clears snow on Old Georgetown Road

A John Deere tractor, equipped with a plow clears snow on Old Georgetown Road

The county is pulling out all the stops, even putting a plow on the front of this full-size tractor

The intersection of Old Georgetown Rd and Democracy Blvd. Both roads have been plowed, but there are a couple of inches of packed snow on them, and the intersection itself has small mounds of snow in it.

Sign for Interstate 495 in the snow.

Prepping for the Impending Doom snow

It is getting close to time for the snow to start and everyone is doing last minute preparations I went to Giant and Balducci's around noon today to see how they were coping.  Balducci's was busy but not much worse than the average weekend, all the registers were open with 2 or 3 people in line for each.  I didn't notice anything out of stock and there were several employees stocking shelves.

Giant was a bit of a different story.  Again, they had a bunch of people stocking shelves, especially in the dairy area, but it looks like they have run out of milk, eggs are almost gone, and other areas of the store (such as the soup aisle) had limited selection available.

The place was also packed.  The line for the self checkout was well over half way down the aisle behind it, the express lane had a similar number of people in it.

The gas station across the street was busy, with all pumps being used, but not more than one car waiting in line.

I didn't see many plows out in Bethesda, but towards Silver Spring they were starting to stack them up on the side of the road to be ready.