Save The Trail Coalition

Testimony -- December 10, 2009

before the Montgomery County Planning Board

 Mary Anne Hoffman, Chevy Chase

 I am Mary Anne Hoffman, a resident of the Town of Chevy Chase.

I co-chair our Town’s Long-Range Planning Committee, but I am not here in that capacity tonight.

Councilmember Pat Burda is speaking for the Town, and I am here simply as a resident.

Saving the leafy path seemed like a lost cause.  The year was 1954, and the federal government had decided to pave over the C&O Canal towpath to build a scenic parkway.  A Washington Post editorial endorsed

the idea.

            But an outdoorsman named William O. Douglas, who also happened to be a Supreme Court Associate Justice, dared the Post’s editorial writers to walk with him the full length of the canal to discover what would be lost if the highway were built.

            The Post and others who favored the road took him up on his challenge, and by the end of the 8-day hike, they no longer thought the highway made sense. As the Post wrote, “Out here, the first signs of spring

seem far more important than what Congress does with the tax bill.”  Plans for the parkway were abandoned, and the towpath became the C&O Canal Park we all treasure today.

            More than half a century later, we in Montgomery County have our own chance to leave something as lasting as the tranquil towpath Justice Douglas left us.  Yet here we are tonight, wading through the details of how a significant portion of our treasure, the Capital Crescent Trail, is to be destroyed by an ill-conceived transit project.

Return to List of  Planning Board Testimony