Recommendations for improving traffic and creating a more walkable community for Burtonsville are moving through Montgomery County's planning process. 

Previously, Kristin O'Connor, senior planner with Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, conducted a study of Burtonsville's commercial district and a rural area just north.

O'Connor described the town's main drag, at Route 29 and Route 198, in the planning department's video as "a crossroads and a very vehicular dominated area." 

"You've got no pedestrian infrastructure, no sidewalks," she continued. "There aren't any gathering spaces of note that you would want to sit down and have your ice cream and have your cup of coffee.

"It just has the roads and the pass-through traffic," O'Connor said. "They need more human scale connections to walk, to walk to a park, to bike."

O'Connor's plan will add sidewalks, bike lanes, public spaces and landscaped sidewalks to slow down traffic on Route 198 and encourage walking and biking. 

The planning department's draft was presented to the planning board in May. A second public hearing on the draft is scheduled for July 12.