Zaid Hamid/Special to The Gazette Joanne Vorburger of the Longdraft Road Coalition helped lead dozens of her neighbors on a walk along the road Saturday.

It has been some nine months since the Longdraft Road Coalition was borne out of impromptu living rooms meetings and the weekend campaigns of one concerned neighbor to the next.

They brought the momentum they have built over those intervening months to fore Saturday morning, stickers on shirts and signs in hand, as three dozen residents walked up and down Longdraft Road between Quince Orchard and Clopper roads.

While the walk was a show of solidarity, the coalition is still working on exactly how and how hard to push back against the county plan to widen the 1.2-mile stretch from two lanes to four.

A Department of Public Works and Transportation workshop to look over three options brought that to bear Thursday night.

A "no build" option leaves everything as it is. The second option, "spot improvements," widens certain intersections, extends sidewalks and the bike path, inserts medians and destroys one home on the southeast corner of Longdraft Road and Great Seneca Highway.

The "four-lane option" carries out the proposal in the county master plan to the full, widening the entire stretch to four lanes, razing the home and cutting into the property of several others.

"It takes lots of land from lots of people," said Saqib Ali, a member of the coalition's steering committee. "Option three is really a non-starter for us."

Uzair Asadullah, the county's lead engineer on the project, oversaw the workshop, taking suggestions and comment cards from 100 or so residents poring over the maps and blueprints.

He said he got good feedback, especially on the "spot improvements" option, which he said "makes more sense right now," the full widening being a longer-term solution based on traffic predictions for 2030.

Public comment will be incorporated after the June 24 deadline into the completion of a phase one study, which includes traffic forecasts and analysis of environmental impacts.

The proposal then goes from the county planning board to the County Council.

Ali said that some coalition members support the "no build" option, but most support "spot improvements" option.

The coalition will study the full impact of the proposed spot improvements -- especially whether expanding the intersections will have similar effects to the full widening -- before making its decision at the end of next week.

"We remain optimistic that this road is not going to be widened to four lanes," he said. "But we're also wary that DPWT is going to try to pull a fast one on us and get something in that we don't like."

In the meantime, the coalition will continue its ongoing efforts to win over local politicians.

"We haven't had our say yet," he said, "so we're relying on our political leaders," like county councilman Phillip M. Andrews, who signed the coalition's petition Thursday night.

Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg said in a later interview that if the vote were now, he would oppose the full widening proposal.

"The council would have to be persuaded and the burden is on those who advocate widening it," he said.