Report a Comment

I just want to correct some Purple Line yard inaccuracies in comments.
The most recent documents are at: http://www.purplelinemd.com/public-involvement/work-sessions/81-lyttonsville-station-area

@jj, As MTA presented on Oct 3, before 2003 the 1990 planned Purple line was going to be half as long and would have required a much smaller yard in Lyttonsville. The yard size needs expanded with the line expansion to College Park in 2003. Anyone who bought their house before 2003 would have had no way of knowing this. In addition, some of the nearest residents' families have been there for several generations so, no, they had no reason to consider the Purple line in home purchase planning.

The current businesses there definitely do not make noise 24/7 like the yard is expected to do. The open yard will be used for cleaning cars and moving them around at all hours so, no, @Cavan, the noise won't be all indoors.

@Matt Johnson, if the line is built, there will be a train stop near the Walter Reed Annex whether or not there was a yard here too. The neighborhood is accepting of the yard, but that doesn't mean there aren't a range of opinions regarding design and size. It seems like most people (possibly including MTA) now agree that the current design is suboptimal. I'm particularly disturbed by the very recent addition of a 200 car employee parking garage when they're only planning to have 200 employees total over 3 shifts.

I really want the Purple Line and trail built as soon as possible. This yard debate might cause real delays. My biggest complaint is that these delays would have been completely preventable if MTA bothered to directly interact with the community and present design mock-ups during the past few years. If MTA started neighborhood yard design meetings October 2008, when the first sketch of the official yard size was produced, this could have been dealt with by now instead of a panicked redesign effort now.

by Dan on Oct 14, 2011 2:53 pm • link • report