Bethesda

By themarylandrealestateexpert.com

Revamping of Montgomery County Maryland real estate
Those interested in Bethesda Maryland real estate located in a close proximity to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center may notice construction going on in the near future.  A $750,000 study for developing walking and bike paths around this Bethesda MD real estate will begin this summer and is scheduled to end by next spring.  According to the deputy Director of Transportation policy for Montgomery County’s Department of Transportation the improvements on these paths can begin as soon as September 2010 and take about one year to complete.  An interesting fact to note about this study is that it’s being funded by a grant from the Defense Department.  

The study on these walking paths and biking paths around the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will be comparing the outcomes of either expanding or building a new path along Cedar Lane, Rockville Pike and Jones Bridge Road.  There will also be new signs put up, as well safety improvements for bikers and walkers who use these paths around the Navy Medical Center and the National institute of Health.     The Deputy Director of Transportation believes that these improvements should roughly cost five million dollars, this is significantly less than the estimates that the Washington Metro Area Transportation Authority gave.  One of the reasons for this new transportation project is to deal with Base Realignments and Closures (BRAC).  As of now the new Walter Reed development is scheduled to open on the Navy Medical Center Campus in September of 2011.  With Walter Reed moving to Bethesda it is predicted to create roughly 2,500 new jobs, on the campus.   

Do to the base realignments and closures this area is predicted to see an increase of walking and commuter traffic in order to deal with this, there will need to be updates done on the Medical Center Metro Station. At a BRAC presentation earlier in the month the WMATA station planner showed her slightly different updates for access to the Medical Center Metro Station.  She has come up with five different ideas to help manage the increase of pedestrians that will be commuting through this stop.  

• Increasing the size of the pedestrian crosswalk between NIH and Navy Medical, which has an estimated cost of $700,000.
• Another option is to have a couple of elevators on the Navy Medical Side of the pike to the Metro.  This should cost around $30.5 million.
• She also proposed building an underground tunnel that would travel underneath the Pike.  Which would cost around $31.5 million.
• There is also an option that is pricier, it would be to have both a deep elevator as well as a tunnel that goes underneath the pike.
• The final option that she presented at this BRAC meeting was to build a bridge that would go over the pike for pedestrians to use.  This is estimated to cost around $14.6 million.