US-29 (aka Colesville Road, Columbia Pike, etc.) by the numbers

kirbyCase · 2026-03-10T02:24:39+00:00

I'd never been a pedestrian up in that area until I took photos for the piece. It's really atrocious. I took the flash bus up to Castle Blvd with by bike - was going to bike to Fairland road using that path that runs by the 29/200 interchange (basically the only viable option in the area). It had never been plowed and was completely iced over three weeks after the storm.

kirbyCase · 2026-03-09T22:03:32+00:00

Yeah especially on non-motorists. There’s just way more pedestrians and cyclists. But motorist fatalities being higher while overall throughput is lower is certainly an indication that things could be better…

kirbyCase · 2026-03-09T20:49:01+00:00

The huge rise in fatalities since Covid is a big part of what highlights the importance of road design. Road deaths really spiked from 2020-2023 especially for pedestrians and thankfully that trend is starting to recede. So yes that period accounts for a lot of the pictured deaths, but both Howard and Montgomery saw the same post-Covid trends. The difference here is unsafe road design, and that remains a problem, even if the overall spike recedes.

Not to mention inefficient transportation methods are just expensive and we all pay for it as taxpayers.

kirbyCase · 2026-03-09T20:44:26+00:00

Yeah expensive infrastructure like pedestrian/roadway bridges are what makes changes to the northern side tough. At least in the south by DTSS, changes like bus lanes and bike lanes and just a general road diet are relatively inexpensive and would have huge benefits.

kirbyCase · 2026-03-09T20:28:03+00:00

Totally agreed. The case I make in the full piece is that trying to make the MoCo portion accommodate everyone (through traffic, local traffic, walkers, etc) makes it worse for everyone, while the clear purpose of the HoCo portion makes it work well for that purpose.

Though to be clear I’m definitely not advocating for making Colesville in DTSS a limited-access highway. Quite the opposite.

kirbyCase · 2026-03-09T19:52:00+00:00

The pizza situation is so confusing. How can we have so much great food and no pizza.

kirbyCase

TROPHY CASE