The county is bankrolling a study to find a safe and cost-effective way to get pedestrians across Route 355 near Bethesda's Medical Center Metro station, although it is unclear how much federal money will be available for the estimated $40 million project.

The MD 355 Multimodal Crossing Study, an environmental impact assessment required for projects with federal funding, began in December using $350,000 in county money to determine what kind of pedestrian crossing should be built at Route 355, also called Rockville Pike, to accommodate the expansion of National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

The purpose of the project is to "enhance/improve access to mass transit facilities" and "improve the mobility and safety of pedestrians, bicyclists and emergency and transit vehicles crossing MD 355/Rockville Pike," according to a draft Purpose and Need Summary released Jan. 26. Comments on the draft summary are due Friday.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is set to open at Navy Med in September 2011 through the Base Realignment and Closure process. Medical Center Metro station is on Rockville Pike between Navy Med and the National Institutes of Health.

"That's in a very compact area that's already overtaxed," county BRAC coordinator Phil Alperson said. "Today you have about 3,000 pedestrians crossing between the Metro and the Navy campus and that will more than double to 6,700 pedestrians and bicyclists."

The study is expected to be completed in June and will identify a variety of options, which could include a tunnel, bridge, underpass or an improved at-grade crossing, Edgar Gonzalez, the county's deputy director for transportation policy, told about 60 people at a public meeting Jan. 19 in Bethesda. The meeting was held to present and gather input on the Purpose and Need Summary.

Some criticized the fact that the draft summary was not available until after the meeting. There will be several opportunities for public comment during the study, said Gonzalez, who stressed that no decisions have been made.

"Theoretically it makes all the sense in the world but the devil's in the details and we don't have a lot of details yet," said George Milne, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart's representative on the BRAC Implementation Committee. The school is located on Rockville Pike about half a mile from Navy Med.

Several possible federal funding sources have been identified. The county applied for a $20 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, and the project was also part of a $267 million grant package submitted by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board.

A Defense Appropriations Bill for fiscal 2010 that includes $300 million to be shared between Walter Reed's relocation to the National Naval Medical Center and Fort Belvoir in Virginia was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in December. There is also a $20 million "placeholder" for a new entrance to the Metro station in the federal fiscal 2010 budget.

The crossing is expected to cost up to $40 million, according to the county's grant application.

At the January meeting, transportation officials addressed allegations by the Action Committee for Transit that the county has "secret" plans to use funding for the pedestrian crossing to build a four-lane automobile underpass beneath Rockville Pike that would be the first phase of a larger project that would add lanes to Interstate 495, which Gonzalez described as untrue.

"It's not misinformation, it is a lie," Gonzalez told the standing-room-only crowd.

"[The Montgomery County Department of Transportation] should stop maligning citizens who want the truth and let the public see the plans that it was promoting last summer — plans described by the Navy as including ‘270/495 road design,'" ACT President Ben Ross said Monday. Ross said documentation in support of the group's statements are available on its Web site, www.actfortransit.org. County responses to the statements are posted on its Web site, www.montgomerycountymd.gov/brac.

Much of the controversy stems from the county's grant application, which included a redacted five-page section titled "The Project: Designs, Cost Estimates and Other Details."

The section includes an unsolicited proposal from Clark Construction for a pedestrian/bicycle underpass wide enough for eventual inter-campus emergency vehicle access, according to Alperson, who has seen the proposal. The specifics of the proposed underpass are proprietary information belonging to Clark, he said.

Clark's proposed underpass would cut through a hill in nearly a straight line and consist of four lanes separated by buffers — one for pedestrians, one for bicyclists and two for emergency vehicles and perhaps eventually shuttles buses, he said. There are no plans to remove the pedestrian crossing signal at the Metro station, he said.

"The whole idea of this is to get 6,700 pedestrians across the street safely," he said. "What we want is the pedestrian access and to someday have the connectivity between the campuses. Pedestrians weren't an afterthought — they're the main emphasis."

To view the draft Purpose and Need Statement for the MD 355 Multimodal Crossing Study, visit www.montgomerycounty

md.gov/brac and click on "MC-DOT NEPA STUDY: MD 355 Crossing Project." Comments on the statement are due Friday and should be sent to kenneth.kendall@

montgomerycountymd.gov or Kenneth Kendall, Montgomery County Department of Transportation, Division of Transportation Engineering, 100 Edison Park Drive, 4th Floor, Gaithersburg, MD 20878.