For the safety of residents, especially children, Montgomery County needs to install sidewalks on Bentley Lane and Jutland Ave between McComas Ave and Maybrook Ave.
Over a dozen elementary and preschool-aged children live in the immediate area. Most of them currently walk along Bentley Lane and on Jutland Ave. every morning to get to school and others will do so in the years to come.
Additionally, there is a bus stop for Newport Mill Middle School on the corner of Bentley Lane and McComas Ave. Almost a dozen students wait there every morning and about half of them use Bentley Lane to walk there. There is no sidewalk on that corner so the kids have to wait on a private lawn.
There are no stop signs at the intersection of Bentley Lane and McComas Ave, even though that is a corner where a school bus picks up and drops off. Cars are free to pass that corner at or above the speed limit. When turning onto Bentley Lane, they do not come to a stop and make their way around the corner at unsafe speeds without checking for pedestrians.
On a typical walk to school to along the blocks without sidewalks, pedestrians have to make way for multiple cars driving the roads. This is complicated by the fact that residents of those blocks park on-street and pedestrians have to navigate the parked cars as well as the moving ones. On a busy morning, as many as ten cars and school buses might pass pedestrians headed to the school.
There are also two three-way intersections that only have one stop sign apiece. Cars are not required to slow down so they speed through despite the sharp turns they have to take and despite the fact that there are people on foot. Depending on the locations of parked cars, drivers might not be able to see pedestrians, particularly children.
That addition of sidewalks along Bentley Lane between McComas Ave. and Jutland Ave and on Jutland Ave. up to Maybrook Ave., as well as the addition of stop signs to calm traffic, would enhance pedestrian safety in general, and the make the route to school safer.
