Kenwood's Fall Routes: The Lasting Change Is at the Parkway, the Detours Are Downtown

This fall, the walking and biking routes out of Kenwood fall into two groups. Near the neighborhood, Little Falls Parkway between Arlington Road and Dorset Avenue has an approved permanent design of two lanes with space set aside for people on foot and on bikes. Construction on it began in late September 2025, after more than three years of the road's layout changing. Toward Bethesda, the trail is still temporary. The Purple Line project lists the interim trail closure and the Wisconsin Avenue pedestrian detour through December 2026. Montgomery County's schedule for the finished Capital Crescent Trail along the rail line says Spring 2027.

Put simply, the closest stretch to home is the one whose design is settled. The farther out you go toward Bethesda, the more you're dealing with construction schedules.

The parkway used to change by the weekend

For several years, Little Falls Parkway's layout depended on the day of the week. Montgomery Parks started its weekend Open Parkways program in 2020, and this parkway was part of it. In June 2022, Parks took Little Falls Parkway out of the program as of June 18. The goal was to test a two-lane pilot and respond to complaints about cut-through traffic on nearby streets during the weekend closures. Beach Drive and Sligo Creek Parkway stayed in the program.

After the pilot came the approvals. The dates explain why the current layout looks the way it does:

The Council's version matters most day to day. The Planning Board had wanted to send all traffic onto the northbound pavement. The Council kept the existing grass median between the two directions and put a protected shared-use path where one of the old southbound lanes used to be. So the plan turns a road that used to close on weekends into one with car lanes on one side, a planted median in the middle, and a path that's always there on the other side.

What the design calls for on the 0.4 miles

The design treats the Arlington-to-Dorset stretch as three pieces. Each one works a little differently for someone heading out from Kenwood:

• Arlington Road to the Capital Crescent Trail crossing. A separated shared-use path is planned to link to the existing path at the north end of Little Falls Parkway.
• Arlington Road to Hillandale Road. The Council approved permanently removing the unused asphalt. The project page says this is meant to make the trail crossing safer.
• South of Hillandale Road to Dorset Avenue. All the existing pavement stays. The plan puts a buffered bike lane in the old southbound lane, with low-profile separators to keep cars out of the unused lanes. Emergency vehicles can still get through.

The project also includes safety work at the Arlington Road, Hillandale Road and Dorset Avenue intersections. It covers new signs, moved traffic signals, stormwater management and accessibility upgrades, plus changes to the interim Capital Crescent Trail crossing.

The public record doesn't yet show when construction finished. In September 2025, Montgomery Parks said construction would begin around September 29 and wrap up in early December, weather permitting. It also said the parkway and trail would stay open, with lane shifts, signs and flaggers. A later Montgomery County Vision Zero progress report covering October through December 2025 said work was still going on and would finish in "winter 2026," depending on the weather. The status note on the Parks project page is still labeled "Updated September 2025." The layout is settled. A confirmed completion date hasn't been published.

Opinions came first, and there's no evaluation yet

The parkway has been argued over for years. Bethesda Magazine described the project as controversial because of congestion and cut-through traffic. It also reported a Parks planner's account of fewer crashes during the earlier pilot, along with concerns from speed studies. When construction started, DC News Now talked to neighbors and heard both sides. Cyclists praised the safety changes, and another neighbor described heavy backups and called for bringing back the old layout.

All of those reactions came from the first weeks of construction. No post-construction traffic counts, crash data or resident survey has been published yet. Any claim about how the new layout performs over a full season is ahead of the evidence for now.

Heading north, the trail is still temporary

Head north from Kenwood toward Bethesda Row and the routes are a different story. The Purple Line project's live updates page lists two closures with end dates in December 2026.

For now, the Purple Line detour for walkers between Wisconsin Avenue and Elm Street goes like this:

1. Cross at Elm Street and Waverly Street.
2. Go west on Hampden Lane to Woodmont Avenue.
3. Continue to Elm Street.

The 47th Street path is the one new piece open this year. MCDOT describes Capital Crescent Surface Trail Phase 2 as a 10-foot shared-use path along 47th Street from Willow Avenue to Elm Street. It connects to the bike lanes on Bethesda Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue and will eventually tie into the trail along the Purple Line. The county's capital budget treats the long-planned trail tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue as a separate project. That budget still shows it in final design, with bid documents, utility relocation and construction all more than six years away. It won't be part of this year's reopenings.

The rail line is on its own timeline. In May 2026, Bethesda Magazine reported that Purple Line officials were still aiming to start service in late 2027, while acknowledging it could slip to early 2028. That date is for trains and says nothing about when the trail reopens.

The nearest weekend car-free road is now Beach Drive

Little Falls Parkway no longer closes to cars on weekends. The closest Open Parkways road is Beach Drive, where 2.2 miles from Knowles Avenue to Cedar Lane close to cars every weekend. Its hours change this month:

• Current spring/summer schedule: Saturdays 7 a.m. to Sundays 6 p.m.
• Fall/winter schedule, beginning October 30, 2026: Saturdays 7 a.m. to Sundays 4 p.m.

Parks says it closes the road by the listed time and starts reopening it at the listed time. Reopening can take up to 30 minutes while Park Police check the road. Starting the first weekend of November, a Sunday afternoon ride on Beach Drive ends two hours earlier than it did all summer.

Sligo Creek Parkway goes on the same fall/winter schedule October 30. Between Forest Glen Road and University Boulevard West, it's car-free from Friday at 9 a.m. through Sunday at 4 p.m.

Two volunteer Saturdays in the stream valley

The parkway runs through Little Falls Stream Valley Park, a 160-acre park on both sides of the parkway and the Capital Crescent Trail, with a playground, a bike path and open space. The Little Falls Watershed Alliance has two volunteer mornings there this fall:

• Saturday, October 17, 2026, 10 a.m. to noon. Invasive plant removal at the park's MacArthur Boulevard and Sangamore Road entrance.
• Saturday, November 14, 2026, 10 a.m. to noon. Clean Parkway, Clean Creek, a cleanup at Little Falls Parkway and Massachusetts Avenue.

The November cleanup is at the Massachusetts Avenue end of the parkway, the opposite end of its 1.5 miles from Bradley Boulevard. It falls about six weeks before the Purple Line's December closure dates. The next date after that is the county's Spring 2027 target for the finished trail into Bethesda.

How close a street is to the trail crossing at Arlington Road, or to the planned path toward Hillandale, is the kind of block-by-block detail that rarely shows up on a listing sheet. If you'd like to talk through how these route changes affect a particular Kenwood street, Haleh Troy is glad to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.