Downtown Silver Spring Bike Network Beginning To Come Together

Transportation department plans to finish separated bike lanes on Spring and Cedar streets by end of month

By Andrew Metcalf

A separated bike lane along Spring Street has been painted and soon will get plastic bollards to separate the lane from vehicles on the roadway.

The first piece of a new network of separated bike lanes in downtown Silver Spring is nearing completion.

The county’s Department of Transportation plans to complete bike lanes on Spring and Cedar streets this month, according to Matt Johnson, who oversees bicycle and pedestrian priority areas for the department.

This week, workers began melting green pavement markings at intersections for the bike lanes that will allow cyclists to travel each direction on the streets. Once that work is complete, crews will install flexible plastic bollards and signs to protect and help guide cyclists along the new bike lanes. The roads where the lanes are being installed are also undergoing repaving.

Raised concrete pads have been installed at pedestrian crossings along the route. Street parking has been moved away from the curb, the truck in the photo is parked in one of the newly painted parking spots. Credit: Andrew Metcalf

After the work on Spring and Cedar, Johnson said the county plans to move forward with construction on a two-way separated bike lane that extends south along Second Avenue from the intersection of Spring Street to the intersection of Wayne and Georgia avenues.

Johnson said the county is obtaining permits to build the bike lane. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018.

The Second Avenue bike lane eventually will connect to the Silver Spring Green Trail, the shared-use path that will be updated as part of Purple Line construction to extend along the northern side of Wayne Avenue and connect to the Sligo Creek hiker-biker trail.

Once all of the bike lanes are completed, they’ll create somewhat of a loop around downtown Silver Spring.

A map showing the bike lanes. The blue line is the Spring and Cedar Street lanes that are planned to be completed soon. The brown line on the left is the Second and Wayne Avenue route the county plans to build next year. And the Silver Spring Green trail is marked in green next to the Purple Line route in purple. Image via Google Maps and lines drawn by Bethesda Beat.