The Montgomery County (web|news) Planning Board is considering changing a planned bike path along the controversial intercounty connector.

Bike advocates argue in a time of sky-high gas prices, the government should encourage people to park their cars and pick up a bike. But with work on the intercounty connector now underway, plans for a continuous 18-mile bike path are now stalled. 

The chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Board blames money and environmental issues. That's something the Washington Area Bicyclist Assistant Director Eric Gilliland calls ridiculous. 

"The ICC is going to cut across some very environmentally sensitive areas," he says, "If you're going to go ahead and build a six-lane highway, you might as well add a 10-foot bike path to it."

"I think that is a reasonable argument except it goes nowhere just as the bike path will go nowhere if we don't make these connections," said Montgomery County Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson.

Since the Federal Government's plans for the ICC eliminated several sections that would have made a continuous bike path, the county has to figure out how to connect the pieces that the state will build by either using parkland or using existing roads and bikeways. Planners say cyclists will have to divert off the ICC bike path onto local roads such as New Hampshire Avenue and Layhill Road. 

Bicyclist Glen Harrison considers the proposition dangerous. "It just creates a lot more crash zones and conflicts in between walkers, bikers, automobiles and other road users."

The Planning Board is expected to review the bike path issue next month and then make its recommendation to the county council.

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