The town of Kensington wants to connect its east and west sides with a pedestrian underpass under Connecticut Avenue.
‘‘One of the problems that we have in Kensington is that it’s very difficult to get from one side to another, whether you’re on foot or a bike or a car or whatever,” said Town Councilman Al Carr said. ‘‘It might be possible to connect the two sides of traffic [with] a pedestrian pathway and a bike way"
Lots of places are finding that their car-friendly designed cities are difficult to get around in by foot.
The bridge they plan to use for this is the Connecticut Avenue bridge over the Metropolitan Branch of the old B&O railroad (now CSX) - the same line the Met Branch Trail runs alongside. It's a good idea, but why stop there. With all of the low hanging fruit as regards to rails to trails opportunities already plucked (think CCT and W&OD), now's the time to look at "rails with trails."
Just north of this point, the rail line crosses Rock Creek Park and Beach Drive (and the Rock Creek Trail). Just south of it, it meets up with the Kensington Parkway. A small railside trail from one to the other would provide a shortcut for bike commuters using Rock Creek, a direct way to get to the Kensington MARC station, and a nice detour for weekend cyclists looking for a bite to eat.
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