Chevy Chase Village Wants Signalized Connecticut Avenue Crosswalk

Lenox Street icorner at Connecticut Avenue, image via Google Maps

Chevy Chase Village isn’t satisfied with a plan to put a flashing yellow pedestrian signal on what the Village says could be a key crossing of six-lane Connecticut Avenue.

The Maryland State Highway Administration has proposed the flashing yellow signal for Lenox Street and Connecticut Avenue, which leads to the Village Hall — a center of activity and home to the Village’s Police Department.

In a letter to SHA Administrator Melinda Peters, Gary Crockett from the Village Board of Managers wrote that a resident crossing with his walker was recently hit by a car, illustrating the danger.

“The flashing yellow light planned by SHA will not protect pedestrians and may even increase the risk of pedestrian and vehicle crashes,” Crockett wrote. “Based on a review of extensive Federal research on pedestrian safety, the only truly effective protection is to install a full color traffic signal.”

The Village’s Board of Managers created an ad hoc Pedestrian Safety Committee in March to push for the full signal, which would be pedestrian-activiated and which Crockett wrote wouldn’t adversely affect vehicular traffic.

According to the Village website, the SHA denied that request, saying the Village lacks the minimum number of pedestrians seeking to cross Connecticut Avenue per SHA metrics. The Village argued that more pedestrians “would undoubtedly seek to cross if there was a safe way to do so,” but that “the State continues to point to the failure to meet the warrants as insufficient basis to proceed with the installation of a signal.”

Crockett wrote that the Village Hall and the post office unit inside the Village Hall are home to more than 33,000 transactions per year.

Image via Google Maps

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