The March 29 CJCA meeting promises to be of interest to almost every resident in Cabin John. The topic of the evening will be the county’s upcoming roadway rehabilitation project, which will touch almost every county road in the neighborhood. The meeting, to be held at the Clara Barton Community Center, will begin at 7:30 pm.
County officials from the Department of Transportation (DOT) will be providing an overview of the project, which is scheduled to begin shortly after July 1, the start of the county’s new fiscal year. Roadway rehabilitation is one of the most extensive repaving options. Established primarily for the county’s mature neighborhoods, rehabilitation Heavily damaged Riverside Dr. will be repaired as part of includes the total removal and replacement of pavement exhibiting widespread areas of fatigue-related distress as well as base and subgrade failures, according to DOT. The goal is to “fix and enhance existing roads, curbs and sidewalks. I am stressing existing,” says Josh Faust, public outreach manager for the department’s division of highway
services. New construction is not the purview of this project, he added.
That said, the DOT is working with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to see if some long-standing stormwater issues on CJ streets such as 76th Street and 81st Street above MacArthur Blvd. and 83rd Street below MacArthur might be addressed in conjunction with the resurfacing project, according to Pamela Rowe, a DEP staffer who has been working with the Friends of the Cabin John Creek on the county’s RainScapes program and other storm water issues. Engineers, arborists and project managers have already spent time in the neighborhood assessing the roads and determining a tree protection plan. Some of the county’s experts will join Faust and Rowe at the meeting. The work plan and schedule, which is typically phased, will also be discussed.
Cabin John has a number of other road concerns – from the dangers of cut-through traffic and the mounting frustrations of navigating MacArthur Blvd. during the morning and evening rush hours to the MacArthur Blvd. drainage issues impacting Cabin John Gardens. While extremely important to the community, these issues are not within the scope of the county’s Highway Services Division. If you have roadway concerns outside the repaving project, please contact CJCA President Susan Shipp to discuss. Work on these issues is ongoing.
— Susan Shipp