If the Purple Line is built, Capital Crescent Trail users will have to navigate Bethesda and Chevy Chase streets during construction.
While neither the county nor state have made an interim on-road route available, the county has posted signage at the intersection of Bethesda Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue directing bicyclists and pedestrians around the existing Georgetown Branch Trail extension.
In October, a Maryland Transit Administration spokesperson said the agency had started a study “to determine safe, accessible routes which can be used by pedestrians and bicyclists traveling between Bethesda and Silver Spring during construction of the Purple Line and Capital Crescent Trail.”
“Some of this route would require using streets within the Town of Chevy Chase,” read an MTA statement. “We have advised the Town of the alternatives under review and our preliminary recommendations but agreed with the Town’s suggestion that these discussions can be held off until early 2015.”
In November, the county’s Department of Transportation presented some options for the on-road interim route, including plans for buffered cycle tracks and one that would cross Wisconsin Avenue at Leland Street instead of Bethesda Avenue/Willow Lane.
The sign posted on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue and Bethesda Avenue points trail users south toward Leland Street.
