Thunder Hill Neighborhood, Oakland Mills Village, Columbia, MD January 26, 2019

Fourteen neighbors walked from my house in Thunder Hill to Sapwood Cellars. The distance is slightly more than .5 miles along a Columbia path to the Orchard Green tot lot, through a gap in the fence, jaywalking across MD 108, and crossing the Wells Fargo parking lot.

When Sapwood opened this September, I discovered that walking there was a quick 11 minutes. There is an alternate route, not involving jaywalking where I would cross Maryland 108 at the light at Mellenbrook and Bendix Road. This Howard County sanctioned route triples the distance to Sapwood Cellars (1.57 miles according to Google maps. The very caring Mrs. Adventures provided a safety vest for my future adventures when she learned about the dangerous shortcut I was taking.

I am currently reading Walkable City by Jeff Speck. In Speck’s book, he talks about the striking advantages of walkable cities – wealth, health and sustainability. Also, he mentions an interesting website that reports your walk score: Walk Score. Just put in your address and it reports Walk Score (mine is 22 out of 100, car-dependent), Transit Score(mine is 31, some transit), and Bike Score (mine is 33, somewhat bikeable). This is a disappointing score for a home in Columbia, MD which Money named #1 for the Best Places to Live 2016.

For an afternoon, some of my neighbors and I thought we’d make our car-dependent neighborhood a little more walkable. So, 11 adults and 3 pre-schoolers headed to Sapwood Cellars. We walked to the Orchard Green tot lot.

We then headed across MD 108.

Here’s looking back from MD 108 at the fence gap.

Across the Colonial Pipeline and MD 108.

Arriving at our destination

and enjoying our reward

A few others joined us at the taproom. The food truck opened at 2:00 PM. We had a great walkable experience.

It is my hope that the county will put a crosswalk in at the Red Branch Rd light at MD 108. Perhaps I’m pushing my luck but it would be even better if the path from the Orchard Green tot lot extended to the light at Red Branch. Some of my neighbors and I will be talking with our new County Councilman, Opel Jones about the possibility of a crosswalk. Even Sapwood Cellars has expressed an interest in attending that meeting.

Just a slight update. I talked to Albert Engel (Howard County Bike/Ped guy) and Jessica Bellah (Columbia Association) about putting our hopes for a crosswalk. Jessica suggested an alternative location, crossing at Summer Hollow out of the Glenmont development, since there are sidewalks on both sides of MD 108. Albert did mention that CA does have a plan to extend the path from the Orchard Green Tot Lot to Old Annapolis Road. (108).

Cheers!

Warren