Montego Bay Bike Path Grant Denied

OCEAN CITY – It appears a shared bike path project in the Montego Bay community will not move forward after resort officials learned the town did not receive grant funding from the state.

In a meeting of the Ocean City Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee this week, President Paul Mauser announced the town did not receive grant funding through the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Bikeways Program to construct a shared bike path in the residential community of Montego Bay.

“We put in a grant request for something like $60,000 through MDOT Bikeways, and we just recently found out that we did not get that,” he said.

The Montego Bay project would have included a 2.5-mile shared bike lane, signage and new crosswalks. The idea was to make the project part of an ongoing effort in Ocean City to establish a continual bike path system along side streets from one end of the resort to the other, minimizing the need for bicycles to interact with vehicles on the town’s major roadways.

In 2016, for example, the city received more than $50,000 from the Bikeways Program to create a bike route along Sinepuxent Avenue, which runs from 146th Street to Montego Bay.

Mauser told the committee this week a review of grant awards this year made it clear MDOT had funded larger projects. Anne Arundel County, for example, received $880,000 for two trail projects and Baltimore City received $360,000 for its own trail network.

“Essentially the Eastern Shore ended up with 5% of the total funding,” he said. “Salisbury got an award for $100,000. They are the sole representative from the Eastern Shore that got any funding. It was very clear the awards are going toward large, substantial projects.”

Mauser said the results of this year’s grant awards emphasized that Ocean City needed to develop a bike master plan. Councilman Tony DeLuca, liaison for the committee, agreed.

“That would be my recommendation, given what you just said,” he said. “The next year, we go in again for a master plan.”

Last year, the town sought $80,000 in Bikeways funding to hire a consultant that would develop a bike master plan for the town. Mauser, however, told DeLuca the request did not meet the criteria for eligible projects.

DeLuca noted that many residents and board members of the association were happy the project was not funded. He said Montego Bay community members wanted the town to address speeding issues, but were not fond of the shared bike path concept.

“They were really happy it was denied,” he said.

About The Author: Bethany Hooper

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Bethany Hooper has been with The Dispatch since 2016. She currently covers various general stories. Hooper graduated from Stephen Decatur High School in 2012 and the University of Maryland in 2016, where she completed double majors in journalism and economics.