Pedestrian Safety

Montgomery County has made the improvement of pedestrian safety one of its priorities. The County’s program for improving pedestrian safety by managing speeding and other unsafe driving practices includes three components: education, engineering, and enforcement. To learn more about how the County educates, engineers and enforces traffic safety follow this link.

 

For a summary of Montgomery County laws governing pedestrian behavior follow this link.

The County’s program for improving pedestrian safety by managing speeding and other unsafe driving practices includes three components: education, engineering, and enforcement. To learn more about how the County educates, engineers and enforces traffic safety follow this link.

Montgomery County’s Sidewalks

Most of the streets within SOECA’s boundaries do not have sidewalks. This is a vestige of our days as one of Washington DC’s oldest suburbs. Montgomery County’s Department of Transportation does not mandate the construction of new sidewalks along county roadways even in roads adjacent to schools or in densely-populated neighborhoods such as ours. Instead, requests for sidewalks must come from residents and a majority of residents on the street where a sidewalk would be constructed must approve of the addition of a sidewalk.

The Montgomery County Division of Transportation Engineering (MCDOT) administers and manages the County’s Sidewalk Program. It receives and reviews requests for sidewalk construction along County-maintained and State-maintained roadways. To learn more about how sidewalks are requested, approved, and installed follow this link.

Current and Past Sidewalk Projects

To see an interactive map of pending sidewalk requests follow this link.

To see completed sidewalk projects from past fiscal years follow this link.

Clearing Sidewalks of Snow and Ice

It is the responsibility of each property owner to remove snow and ice from walkways within 24 hours of the end of the precipitation that caused the condition. If a snowplow re-deposits snow or ice on a sidewalk or other walkway after a person has cleaned the sidewalk, the person is not responsible for clearing the walkway until 24 hours after the snowplow re-deposited the snow or ice.

Letters are sent to homeowners who are reported to be in violation of the cleaning requirement. Inspections of commercial properties and multi-family properties are conducted within one business day of a complaint.

In order to efficiently handle the large volume of requests following a snowfall and to ensure that the DHCA Housing Code Enforcement Unit has the most complete information required to enforce the law, please call 311 to report an un-shoveled sidewalk and have the following information ready to report:

  1. The exact property address of the alleged violation is requested in order to identify the property owner responsible for snow removal.
  2. Please advise the agent if this is a commercial, multi-family (apartment or condominium), or residential property.

Sidewalk Budget

To see the resources dedicated to sidewalk projects in Montgomery County follow this link.

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