The City of Bowie is committed to preserving
its historic heritage. The City has renovated five historic sites
that now operate as museums
and has also developed a brochure
mapping a walking tour of 46 historic buildings in Old Town Bowie.
The Lansdale Trail project
consists of constructing 1,500
feet of new trail and major trail linkage, enclosing an existing
gravesite with cast iron fence, and installing benches. A historic
marker will be erected at the burial site of Bowie’s only Revolutionary
War patriot, Major Thomas Lancaster Lansdale. Remnants of the Major’s
headstone were retrieved from the hillside and donated by the City
to the Society of the Cincinnati located in D.C. The headstone has
since been replicated and will be installed along with other the trailside
amenities. The developer of the Town Center, The Simon Property Group,
has agreed to help preserve it in order to comply with a development
stipulation that the company contributes to the public park system
and/or recreational programs. Private developers of two adjacent parcels
have also agreed to contribute to the City’s recreational/trail
program.
The
Lansdale site is across State Highway 197 to the North of the
Bowie Town Center, just off Exit 11 on Route 50. With the Town Center
now open for operation with over 900,000 square feet of occupied retail
businesses, and the Pedestrian Footbridge soon to be installed over
Route 197, non-vehicular traffic in this area will increase dramatically.
With the completion of this trail, occupants of the single family
homes, apartments, town houses, and businesses that densely populate
this area will have easier and safer access to the historic Lansdale
site, as well as to the Town Center, public facilities, and to parks
and trails across Route 197.
The
proposed linkage runs east-west approximately half a mile, passing
directly in front of the Lansdale property, along State Highway 197.
It will facilitate access to the Pedestrian Footbridge that will be
installed over Route 197 this fall, through the assistance of an Enhancement
Grant from Maryland State Highway Administration and a match from
The Simon Property Group. The Lansdale property is within a quarter
mile to a Park and Ride lot, an elementary school, three (soon to
be five) major office buildings, a theatre, hotel, the Town Center,
multiple restaurants, and is along a Metro bus line. Many public facilities
are within a half mile vicinity: the Bowie Gymnasium, the Senior Center,
five assisted living centers and senior housing complexes, and the
Bowie Health Center. The Bowie Town Center Park, the Bowie Dog Park,
and Allen Pond Park are all less than a two-mile radius of the project
area.
The City has been developing Global Information
Systems (GIS) capabilities and has embarked on adding trail specifics
to its data bank. Grants totaling $80,000 have been awarded to the
City from the Maryland
State Highway Administration. These funds will not only provide
for the trail construction, but also allow staff to acquire software
that will further enable the City’s GIS staff to include the
contour, slope, and aspects of a given trail into the existing data
bank, and generate the appropriate surface representation. This will
help staff determine optimal locations for trails given certain criterion
and expand GIS capacities to locate steep grades that may impair public
safety. Safety Signs and/or handicap accessibility signage could then
be installed at those locations. ArcView Spatial Analyst would also
be used to perform neighborhood analyses and to create density maps
to be used in consideration for new development. ArcPress for ArcGIS
will optimize printing speed of maps, and the Beacon on the Belt will
provide the City the accuracy of differential GPS, ensuring more accurate
data. This software is necessary in implementing multiple objectives
outlined in the Trails Master Plan.
