Shared-use Path Would Improve Access to Schools, Neighborhoods
Rockville is moving forward with a study of the feasibility of a path for pedestrians and bicycles along Scott and Veirs drives after the project was one of four approved by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board for Transportation Alternatives Program funding.
Presently, both Scott and Veirs drives lack curbs, and the sidewalk on Scott Drive is narrow and inadequate. The 1.2-mile shared-use path, between Wootton Parkway and Glen Mill Road, would connect Rockville with North Potomac, greatly improving pedestrian and bicycle access between Robert Frost Middle School, Thomas S. Wootton High School, The Village at Rockville senior community and the surrounding neighborhoods.
The $60,000 in funding, approved July 18, will be used for a feasibility study, to be conducted by a consultant tasked with finding the optimal alignment for the path. If such an alignment exists, the consultant will develop preliminary engineering plans.
The proposed path was included in the city’s Bikeway Master Plan, which was approved last year. It would provide the first leg of a potential connection between Rockville’s Millennium Trail and a proposed shared-use trail to be built by Montgomery County and Pepco, between the South Germantown Recreational Park and Cabin John Regional Park.
The TAP program provides funding to transportation projects that are not traditional highway construction, including bicycle, pedestrian, trail and Safe Routes to School projects. To learn more about the $1.2 million in Maryland bicycle and pedestrian projects approved by the TPB, visit www.mwcog.org/newsroom/2018/07/16/transportation-planning-board-approves-funding-for-bicycle-and-pedestrian-projects-in-maryland.