An open letter to Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, the Montgomery County Council, and other representative bodies:

If you've ever used the Wasington DC Metro, you've likely noticed a significant fact about it: all lines lead downtown. The Metro is great for getting people from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs into DC, but if you want to get from point-to-point outside the Beltway, you have to ride into DC and then out, a ride that could take you an hour at the minimum that a car trip does in less than 15 minutes--even in rush hour traffic. This lack of an effective mass transit system outside the Beltway is the one of the reasons that the Capitol Beltway is as crowded as it is, not to mention other East-West through ways such as Hwy 410. Looking at the Metro map, it's not hard to imagine a Metro line that creates a loop around the city, connecting the ends (or near ends) of the lines to each other so that one could ride from, say, Grosvenor to Forrest Glen (both on the Red Line), without having to make that trip downtown. In the last election cycle, many of the candidates were asked to support such a connection line, tentatively called the Purple Line.

Or at least that's what some of us thought we were asking for. And it should come as no surprise that we were fooled, mainly because of the name given to it (Purple Line) and the graphics prepared by one of the advocacy groups, PurpleLineNow (which uses the existing Metro map and places a purple line on it that matches the red and green lines). Unfortunately, the Purple Line as it is currently being proposed is a lie, because:

1. It's not heavy rail (which means it will be slower than a Metro train)
2. It's not connected to the WMATA system (i.e., you would have to exit the Metro to take the proposed light rail train)
3. It's not only above-ground, but it's street-level and is being proposed as taking up current traffic lanes that then could not be used for cars.
4. The Montgomery County Maryland Transit Authority is seeing it as a feeder to the Metro system, not a method to connect the Metro stations to each other.

I support mass transit, but smart mass transit. A light-rail line that simply helps people who live more than a mile away from a Metro station get to it is a boondoggle for the owners of apartment buildings that are not currently near a Metro station, while not helping the East-West congestion. If anything, by taking up traffic lanes that currently exist, the proposed light rail system will likely increase East-West congestion and increase spillover to residential streets. At its best, such a light rail system is a stop gap measure--in ten or twenty years, the need for a true Metro line around the beltway will be even stronger, and it will be delayed because of the money spent on this ill-conceived idea.

I urge my elected representatives to revisit this topic and realize that the Purple Line is a Purple Lie. Please take the leadership necessary to build a true, effective mass transit system for the region, one that extends existing transit, not grafted onto it. Build a real Purple Line that is managed by WMATA, not a glorified bus route.

UPDATE following Monday night's Focus Group meeting at the Silver Spring Library: Just Up the Pike has a report on the meeting that does a good job of summarizing it. Most of the folks there wanted to talk about the impact to East Silver Spring (i.e., the above-ground portion running down Wayne Ave.), but there were a number of people rightly concerned about the effect this will have on Bonifant and the businesses there. The MTA presenters focused on the traffic impacts, but didn't address at all the pedestrian impact. As someone said, this rail line could effectively split the neighborhood just east of the Central Business District. As is, an already tough pedestrian crossing (at Fenton and Wayne) would be made much more difficult.

One thing that was mentioned tonight that disagreed with what was said at the SOECA neighborhood association meeting is that they are considering a "shared lane" light rail system. That is, cars and the light rail train could share one of the lanes of traffic, particularly on Wayne. As J says, they should perhaps consider the experience of Houston, Texas's light rail system and particularly evaluate the incident of accidents such shared use has.