Skip to main content

Dangerous Crossings Revisited

When I wrote about pedestrian safety on Snowden River Parkway last week, a friend mentioned:

You know someone died there on Wednesday morning...drove his car into a tree right near Lincoln Tech. Now you make me wonder...was he swerving to avoid a pedestrian?

That is a truly scary thought. I haven't seen any followup to that crash, other than the suggestion that speed was a factor.

Andy Stack, the CA Rep from Owen Brown, sent me a note responding to the same post.

I ready your article about the walk-ability of Snowden River Parkway. The County has a plan to widen Snowden River Parkway to 3 lanes and to add sidewalks/bike lanes between Broken Land Parkway and Oakland Mills Road. The Owen Brown Village Board has been carefully following this and it wants to ensure that the sidewalks and bike lanes get built. We believe they would be a great addition and improve the usability of Snowden River Parkway. Walk-ability is important to Owen Brown. I believe we have asked the County to come to a future OB board meeting to give us an update.

This is great news. I have to admit that my first thought was, "ohhh...that's in Owen Brown..." I hadn't really given much thought that an area which has so much retail and traffic was actually in a Village. Well, some of it is. I think some of the actual retail space may have pockets of outparcels. But to me, it is encouraging to think that this area "belongs" to someone, and they care about it. I am excited to see that this issue is already on the radar of the Owen Brown Village Board. Clearly they'll need an active partnership with the County to get positive changes made.

And now, that's enough Snowden for the day. I'm going to turn my attention to being snowed-in.

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Columbia Chance Connection

  Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!”  We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...
Post a Comment
Read more