Traffic-calming measures temporarily added in 2021 to Grove Street in downtown Silver Spring will be made permanent and also added on select roads throughout the East Silver Spring neighborhood, according to Montgomery County officials.
On Sept. 12, the county Planning Board approved a proposal that will allow the county to bring to life the East Silver Spring Neighborhood Greenway, a roadway project aimed at improving the experience of pedestrians and cyclists. The greenway was included in the county’s 2018 Bicycle Master Plan and initially began as a pilot project on Grove Street in 2021. Grove Street does not have sidewalks and some of the measures included a walking lane and high-visibility crosswalks.
Before the board approved the mandatory referral by the county’s transportation department, two residents of the East Silver Spring neighborhood testified in favor of the project.
“It’s been a massive improvement — what we’ve seen with the temporary improvements. This area has needed significant pedestrian and bike improvements for years,” said Gray Kimbrough, a Grove Street resident. “I see a ton more bikers than we saw before and there’s just a massive flow of kids in both directions right before and after school.”
David Schneider, another resident of the neighborhood, said the temporary treatments put in place through the pilot project have been helpful.
“I’m glad to see this [project] is finally making it along to permanent treatments. I’m looking forward to that,” he said, noting that he was concerned for his children’s safety when they used to walk along Grove Street to go to school.
Neighborhood greenways are streets “with low motorized traffic volumes and speeds, designed and designated to give walking and bicycling priority,” planning officials explained at the meeting. Tools used to create a greenway can include adding stop signs, pavement markings and speed and volume management measures that “discourage through-trips by motor vehicles and create safe, convenient crossing of busy arterial streets,” planners said.
Six streets in the East Silver Spring neighborhood are expected to receive permanent traffic calming treatments:
- Grove Street: Temporary treatments that were implemented during the pilot will be made permanent and improved upon with the construction of a 5-foot-wide sidewalk;
- Woodbury Avenue and Cedar and Bonifant streets: Construction of neighborhood greenway treatments such as speed humps, expansion of an existing traffic circle and improvements to intersections;
- Houston Street: Construction of a 5-foot-wide sidewalk; and
- Sligo Avenue: Construction of a 10-foot-wide side path and protected crossing.
Matt Johnson, a project manager for the East Silver Spring Neighborhood Greenway, said in an email to MoCo360 that construction for the project is unlikely to begin before the spring of 2026.
“Construction will take a few months and more details will be provided to the community as we get closer to construction,” Johnson said. “We look forward to continuing to work with the community in the coming months to revise the design to meet their needs.”
Now that the mandatory referral has been approved, transportation officials will continue working on the design of the greenway and incorporate “refinements” based on Planning Board and community feedback, Johnson said.
The first stage of the greenway pilot program was implemented on Grove Street in the summer of 2021, according to the county transportation department’s website. Initial implementation included the installation of a walking lane, painted bump-outs on the east-west streets, high visibility crosswalks, and a mini roundabout at Grove Street and Silver Spring Avenue.
In May 2022, the transportation department held a meeting in which community members expressed their support for the first stage of the pilot but not for a second stage that included treatments that diverted traffic from the street, according to the county transportation department. Ruling out the second stage put the focus on making the temporary treatments permanent, according to officials.
