The project aims to develop a linear park on two lanes of the four-lane parkway. Montgomery Parks, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, will again reconfigure lanes on Little Falls Parkway for Phase Two of the pilot project to repurpose two lanes of the parkway between Arlington Road and Dorset Avenue and create a linear park. Work is scheduled to begin on Monday, October 17, 2022. The new park will add much-needed recreational space in an area where land is at a premium, and adjacent to the Capital Crescent Trail – one of the most popular trails in Montgomery Parks’ system.
The ultimate planned linear park will be located on a portion of Little Falls Parkway that was previously part of Montgomery Parks’ Open Parkways program between River Road and Arlington Road (1.3 miles). That portion of the Open Parkways program was suspended last summer, to study the operational effects of permanently reducing a segment of the Parkway from four lanes to two. Phase One of the pilot project implemented a road diet from Arlington to Dorset, with one lane in each direction and a median in the middle of the traffic flow. MCDOT and Parks independently completed several rounds of traffic counts during Phase One of the pilot and determined that Little Falls Parkway functioned well with two lanes, allowing the project to proceed to Phase Two.
