Monday, May 28, 2007

Contrast our Town Center with our more public face on 410


Unfortunately, most people don't see our attractive Town Center. The Riverdale Park most people know is what they see while cruising through on MD-201 (Kenilworth) MD-410 (Riverdale Rd/East West Highway) and U.S. 1 (Baltimore Ave). While I'm assuming the primary responsibility for maintaining the look of those highways rests with the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA), I think it is clear that not all towns and cities in our area put the same kind of face on that we do! I am posting a few pictures here and will post more in the days to come...

As discussed recently on TownTalk, the face our town puts on is critically important to enticing new businesses to locate here. It's not just the empty storefronts that would scare them off. Frankly the impression one gets of Riverdale Park by driving Rt 1, 410 and 201 isn't very pretty. The town does a wonderful job of maintaining the landscaping around Town Center -- what can be done to improve our look on the state and federal highways that traverse Riverdale Park?


The median on 410 as you drive across between U.S. 1 and Kenilworth is often unkempt and unsightly... These photos were taken on 410 @ 49th Ave.
Posted by Picasa
I've got some more streetscape photos from the area posted here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dwightrholmes.

2 comments:

Not Her Again! said...

State Highways maintains Route 410 (East-West Highway), Route 1 (Baltimore Blvd), and Kenilworth Aven (Route 201.) The Town of Riverdale Park has agreed to maintain the medians where we have planted trees on 410, but the areas where there are culverts and no trees are maintained by State Highways.

I agree - it looks pretty bad.

Dwight Holmes said...

I wonder if SHA takes better care of the routes it's responsible for in Chevy Chase, Kensington, Bethesda -- or if the locals just take it over and do it themselves?

And what would it take to get SHA to do a better job?