Residents come out to support hiker-biker connector trail

Some concerns raised about path’s proximity to train tracks

Bowie resident Harry Cypher said after the meeting that he ‘‘would like to see some kind of barrier [next to the train tracks], maybe a chainlink fence,” to protect children and animals from the trains. He said this trail alignment was not as aesthetically pleasing as other possible routes because of the railroad tracks.

Robert Patten, a senior trail planner at Toole Design, which was hired with a $20,000 grant awarded to the city by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, presented a map with the alignment.

Under his design, the trail would start at the WB & A trail and lead into Northridge Development and through Tanglewood Park. The path would come out of the park at Zug Road, follow the CSX railroad tracks and go under the Route 564 bridge. The trail would follow Chestnut Avenue north to 7th or 8th Street and through the Adnell Woods Development. It would follow Myrtle Avenue north into Jericho Park. Lemon’s Bridge Road would be used to cross Route 197 to the MARC station.

Joseph Meinert, Bowie’s director of planning and economic development, said Patten’s plan ‘‘has a lot of virtues to it,” but a route will not be finalized without community consensus.

Meinert said the best option for the trail would be to follow the most direct route from the Route 564 bridge, leading north of the Amtrak line to the MARC station, rather than using the north and south sides of the train tracks. This trail would avoid most sloped land and wetlands indicated in the feasibility study, which looked at the trail from Zug Road to the city limits.

‘‘This puts the trail where it serves people the most,” Meinert said, allowing travelers to visit attractions on both ends.

The goal, he said, is to ‘‘get the City Council to endorse a plan of action” and approve funding in the 2010 budget. There is no set date of project start or completion yet.

The Bowie and Vicinity Master Plan, published by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, estimates the cost of the trail at $240,000.

Residents suggested Huntington-Bowie heritage trail or Huntington-WB & A as names for the trail, and said there should be a plaque along the path for Morris Warren, the father of the WB & A trail. They said the history of the water tower and a sharecropping neighborhood also should be explained along the trail.

A citizen’s advisory committee will be formed shortly to discuss feasibility and alignment, stress wider public involvement and engage stakeholders, Meinert said.

E-mail Anya Bergman at abergman@gazette.net.