For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 5, 2015
Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett announced today that rehabilitation of roads in the Sligo Park Hills neighborhood in Silver Spring has been completed through a program that is taking a more systematic and comprehensive approach to maintaining the County’s transportation infrastructure.
“To keep Montgomery County economically competitive, we are investing in our transportation infrastructure so our older communities stay vital,” said Leggett. “The departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection have joined forces as part of our continuing effort to find better and more cost effective ways of providing services. This approach is revitalizing our roads and sidewalks while taking a more environmentally sensitive approach to stormwater management.”
The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Division of Highway Services rehabilitated the streets, curbs and sidewalks in Sligo Park Hills. MCDOT’s Division of Transportation Engineering, in collaboration with the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (MCDEP), managed the construction of state-of-the-art stormwater improvements that were funded by MCDEP and grants from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Funds. The two departments worked together to minimize disruptions to the neighborhood by doing the work concurrently. As an added benefit, the project was coordinated with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and Washington Gas so they could upgrade their equipment while the streets were under construction.
“Improving mobility in Montgomery County includes ensuring that neighborhood roads and sidewalks are in good condition,” said Acting MCDOT Director Al Roshdieh. “Our enhanced process for coordinating with other departments and agencies is working to minimize disruptions to communities. These efforts help ensure that environmental improvements can be incorporated in transportation renewal projects at the same time as other infrastructure upgrades are completed.”
The roads in Sligo Park Hills targeted for reconstruction were in very poor condition. MCDOT removed and replaced deteriorated curbs and gutters, ground up the old roadway surface, further evaluated the road substructure for damage, patched where needed and reconstructed the roads with hot mix asphalt. Damaged sidewalks were also replaced or repaired.
Sligo Park Hills is located in the Sligo Creek watershed, which is designated as a high priority area for reducing rainfall runoff from paved surfaces to meet permit requirements. During reconstruction of the streets, MCDOT constructed 127 projects to filter rainwater and improve stream quality as part of MCDEP’s Green Streets initiative. These projects included rain gardens, bioswales, tree boxes, porous concrete, bioretention gardens and permeable pavers in the public right-of-way. MCDEP is in the process of retrofitting more than 4,300 acres of paved surfaces in the County that do not have stormwater management controls, including roadways.
“The Sligo Park Hills project is one of the best Green Street projects that Montgomery County has completed so far,” said MCDEP Director Lisa Feldt. “The project improved the neighborhood while treating stormwater and protecting Sligo Creek. The partnership would not have been possible without the strong support of the community and the Friends of Sligo Creek.”
MCDOT assesses the condition of all 5,300 lane miles of County roads every two years assigning ratings of very good, good, fair, poor, or very poor to each road using a formula-based scoring system. The scores are then used to prioritize the department’s maintenance, rehabilitation and resurfacing efforts.
MCDOT’s road condition ratings help direct resources to maintain the high quality of good roads and target the worst roads for rehabilitation and repair. Every dollar spent by the County to keep a road in good repair reduces future repair costs by $6 to $14 that would have to be spent to restore a more deteriorated road.
More information about the Division of Highway Services road projects is available on its website.