Purple Line supporters were out in full force Monday night in Annapolis, something Purple Line opponents say means “they know the project is in trouble.”
More than 150 residents, business leaders and elected officials took part in “Transit Night” in the state’s capital, a few months before Gov. Larry Hogan is expected to decide whether to move forward with the long-debated 16-mile light rail from New Carrollton to Bethesda.
The elected officials included County Executive Isiah Leggett, Councilmembers George Leventhal and Roger Berliner, local Delegates Ana Sol Gutierrez and Marc Korman and District 16 State Sen. Susan Lee.
The advocates continued to make the economic development argument that became the talking point of choice when Hogan — a Republican who campaigned on improving the state’s business climate — upset Purple Line supporter Anthony Brown in November.
“We probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 85,000 to 100,000 jobs in the pipeline in Montgomery County,” Leggett said, “and what is tied to all of that is transportation, and most specifically transit. There is no ‘Plan B’ for the Purple Line. Any backup is a mild substitute and we all will suffer.”
Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, a Chevy Chase-based group that opposes the light rail because of environmental and cost concerns, wasn’t in Annapolis on Monday.
But the group made a preemptive plea to its followers, claiming that “Purple Line forces” were holding the event Monday because the project may not proceed as planned.
Hogan is expected to decide the fate of the project in mid-May. His new Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn has told state lawmakers he’s going through an exhaustive review of the project to see if there are any ways to reduce costs. The light rail is estimated to cost $2.45 billion, $900 million of which would come from the federal government and approximately $240 million that would come from Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.
The Friends group urged followers to contact Hogan’s administration with a list of 10 reasons to oppose the project, including:
The safer, less expensive, and more beneficial alternative to the Purple Line is to devote some of that money to higher priority projects to support productivity and quality of life in the Maryland and the National Capital Area, and not spend the rest.
In addition to fixing Metro first, which requires cooperation among more jurisdictions, there is a wiser approach that Maryland and the affected counties can take as an alternative to the expensive, and high-risk Purple Line. That wiser choice is a combination of:
a) An expanded fleet of nimble, quiet, clean, internet-connected buses that use existing roads and can connect with waiting passengers and coordinate traffic lights. Such a system could be easily updated and rerouted as demands and technologies change;
b) Fee-for-use Bus Rapid Transit lanes that can serve buses and expedite commercial deliveries, emergency vehicles, and other high value traffic;
c) A modern regulatory system for Uber, Lyft, Lyft-Line, and other current and future app-driven, flexible taxi and jitney services to augment transit systems; and
d) Full and permanent Park status with both bikeway and biological integrity for the Capital Crescent Trail/Georgetown Branch Trail and its neighborhood green spaces.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and supporters of the Red Line light rail project in Baltimore also joined Monday night’s event. The two projects, both administered by the Maryland Transit Administration, have often been tied together, though it’s unclear if both would go forward at the same time.
Flickr photo via betterDCregion
