Bike advocates push for repaving Rock Creek Park trail

If you’re a bike rider in DC, odds are you have ridden in Rock Creek Park at some point. The park’s roads are closed off during the weekend for bikers and runners, and I’ve heard it’s a great spot for both.

Today I got an email that the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is asking the city to repave the trail, complete with a petition.

Here’s their argument and petition:

The Rock Creek Park Trail is, literally, falling into the creek.

In fall 2013, the National Park Service had to put up a fence along a section of the Rock Creek Park Trail to keep its users from slipping into Rock Creek. Repaving, rehabilitating, and upgrading the trail—as WABA has called for NPS and the District Department of Transportation to make moves to do—could have prevented this. But NPS and DDOT have moved extraordinarily slowly on matters related to Rock Creek.

In June 2013, we posted an extensive progress report on the project’s status to the WABA blog. There has been no public movement on the Rock Creek Park Trail since December 2011. We are still waiting for a Final Environmental Assessment to be released, more than two years since the last public meeting regarding the trail. Enough is enough.

WABA is calling on its members and supporters, along with community members and leaders, to sign a petition to fix the trail. We have waited too long for the Rock Creek Park Trail to be repaved and upgraded.

The spring riding season is almost upon us. It’s unfortunate and the fault of NPS and DDOT that the region’s riders will go another year of biking in the nation’s capital with an crumbling, inadequate, and unsafe Rock Creek Park Trail.