Buchart-Horn Designs Hiking/Biking Trail

Sligo Creek Hiking/Biking Trail
and sewer reconstruction share the
same alignment,minimizing disturbance
to the park.

By Karla Farrell,L.A.
Senior Landscape Architect
General Engineering

From its creation in the '30s the Sligo Creek Greenway provided public park land along a meandering stream just north of the nation's capitol. When the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) planned major sewer improvements that would disrupt park activities, a new hiking/biking trail became part of a mitigation plan.

Actually a joint effort of Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties, the Sligo Creek Citizens Advisory Committee and WSSC, the 3.1-mile long trail is a crucial link in a network of bicycle paths that connect Wheaton Regional Park to the Metropolitan Branch Trail that provides off- road access to Capitol Hill, the Washington Mall and other trails in Virginia. The network will eventually connect with the planned Anacostia Greenway trails, taking cyclists to Baltimore and beyond.

In 1989, the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission selected Buchart-Horn for a feasibility study of the hiking/biking project, looking at aesthetics, community and environmental impact, costs, and safety. That study earned high praise from the Planning Commission's project manager, who lauded Buchart-Horn's work.

When the study was accepted by the National Capital Planning Commission, Buchart-Horn's mission included planning for the hiking/biking trail as part of ongoing design work for sewer rehabilitation and mitigation work for WSSC. The sewer work included relining existing pipes, manhole replacement, and reconstruction to expand capacity on portions of the existing trunk line.

Construction plans incorporated all improvements into one contract to minimize disruptions to the park. The trail itself crossed three roadways, including two state highways, and bridged Sligo Creek eight times.

Within Buchart-Horn, the Sligo Creek project was interdisciplinary. As the firm's environmental engineers prepared documents for rehabilitation of the sewer trunk line, B-H's landscape architects designed the trail, safety railings, safety barriers and landscaping. The company's surveyors painstakingly located every tree within 50 feet of the proposed trail alignment. Structural bridge engineers designed three custom spans and abutments for prefabricated units where the trail crossed Sligo Creek. Stream bank restoration was a joint effort of the landscape architects and engineers and utilized imbricated stone and native plants and grasses to help control erosion and also provide habitat and food sources for aquatic life.

Rob Bushnell, former chief of the Maryland Scenic and Wild Rivers Program, said the B-H-designed Sligo CreekHiking/Biking Trail "is very, very environmentally sensitive." The project was strongly supported by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, Anacostia Headwaters Greenway and the Coalition for the Metropolitan Branch Trail. The bikeway benefits the area in a number of ways: it encourages bicycle commuting to improve air quality, it provides local children with a safe alternative to cycling on the road that winds through Sligo Creek valley, and it leads to greater public appreciation of Sligo Creek and the area's environmental assets.