Community Corner

Wisconsin Avenue Tunnel at Walter Reed, NIH Gets Public Hearing

The project involves a Wisconsin Avenue underpass and a new entrance for the Medical Center Metrorail station.

The tunnel planned to connect the Walter Reed National Military Center with the National Institutes of Health is slated to get a public hearing next month, Phil Alperson, Montgomery County's Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) coordinator, reported.

Also part of the project is the construction of a shaft of three elevators—and a stairway and escalators—connecting the east side of Wisconsin Avenue outside Walter Reed with the Medical Center Metrorail station under the 8800 block of Wisconsin Avenue. Currently, the Metro station is connected only to the west side of the highway, at the National Institutes of Health.

"Before BRAC relocation [of Walter Reed from Washington, DC, to Bethesda] officially began in September 2011, some 3,000 pedestrians crossed Rockville Pike" at South Drive each day, Art Holmes, director of the Montgomery County department of transportation, said, NIH Record reported. That number is projected to increase to 7,000 by 2020; currently, 50,000 vehicles travel that segment of Wisconsin Avenue each day, Holmes said.

On the east side of Wisconsin Avenue, stairs, escalators and three elevators will connect the tunnel—a pedestrian and bicycle underpass—with Walter Reed, Alperson reported. The project is fully funded by the federal government, he added.

Montgomery County will design, construct and operate the underpass, and Metro will own and operate the new entrance shaft and elevators, according to a Metro document published earlier this year. The tunnel and new Metro entrance are expected to open in early 2015, the document added.

A public hearing about the tunnel and Metro entrance is slated for Thursday, Jan. 9, at the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission headquarters at 8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring. The date is tentative—the confirmed date and time of the hearing will be posted on the Montgomery County Planning Board's website on Monday, Jan. 6.


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