The comment period for the Rock Creek Park General Management Plan (GMP) runs through February 28 of this year. I've poked through the report and I have trouble determining why the Park Service chose Alternative A over Alternative D. The difference between the two is that Alt D would eliminate automobile traffic along three segments of Beach Drive from 9:30 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. each weekday. By the admission of its own report, it's the environmentally preferred solution. For Alternative A they give a very non-specific argument that it will
most effectively balance the recreational, environmental and traffic consideration for the short- and long-term future of the park.
So, the WABA preferred alternative gives too much consideration to recreation and the environment over traffic. One would think that a park would err on the side of recreation and the environment.
That is until you read these choice words from local elected officials:
Further restricting the permissible uses of Beach Drive during the week strikes me as unfair to those citizens wishing to enjoy the park whose mobility requires a car. The new proposal would eliminate use of Beach Drive during the one segment of time when individuals with disabilities, and others who require a car for mobility, can enjoy the park without having to compete with rush-hour traffic. (U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen)
I write to express my concern about Alternative D in the absence of information that significant numbers of residents would benefit. The Park Service has conducted no survey or offered any information regarding how many people might use the park during the proposed closure, and who they might be.(U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton)
These residents already contend with cut-through traffic on the weekends, due to the closure of Beach Drive. (Senator Barbara A. Mikulski)
Van Hollen, Norton and Senator Paul Sarbanes also promised (amid some nice self-aggrandizing) that they could provide money for a complete and improved trail (ostensibly to get cyclists off the road).
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