Posts about Purple Line

Last night, in the straw vote, the council unanimously agreed to defer 3 road projects which Cavan Wilk argued aren't necessary right now: Montrose Parkway East, Goshen Road South, and part of Snouffer School Road.

Marc Elrich (at-large) joined in, but not without a few complaints. The Examiner wrote:

"It's becoming harder to tell when you're entering Montgomery County and leaving another jurisdiction," said [Elrich], saying that the difference in road quality between Montgomery and neighboring counties used to be obvious.

Repairing roads is important, but perhaps instead of spending lots of money just to make sure Montgomery's roads are even better than perfectly usable ones in neighboring jurisdictions, the county could invest in signs to help people know when they've crossed its borders.

The vote repudiates Leggett, who argued in a letter that those 3 projects are absolutely necessary because of growing population and congestion. One point he ignores, however, is that the Bethesda entrance and Purple Line also respond to growing population and more severe congestion.

The entrance makes sense on its own as well

The Purple Line is the primary reason for building this entrance, but there is ample reason to push ahead with the project even ignoring the Purple Line. Since before the station opened, people have bandied about the idea of adding a second entrance. There are many reasons to build it.

It would reduce crowding: Bethesda is one of Montgomery County's densest job centers, and it continues to grow. New housing, offices, and retail mean increasing demand for the station. Already the third busiest Metro stop in Maryland, ridership will grow, and the station needs improved accessibility to accommodate this growth.

It would provide an alternative during escalator replacement: The escalators at Bethesda Metro station are scheduled to be replaced in 2014. Considering the depth of Bethesda station, closing escalators will potentially be very disruptive. A second entrance would ultimately make replacing escalators a much safer and easier proposition.

The entrance will take years to build, so it may already be too late to build it in time for the scheduled 2014 escalator replacement. However, if Montgomery started on the second entrance soon, then it might make sense for Metro to push the escalator project back a couple of years.

At Dupont Circle, Metro is currently replacing the escalators at the 19th Street entrance. Luckily that station has a second entrance, but Metro trains still bypass the station if anything goes wrong with the north entrance.

It would put more of Bethesda within walking distance of Metro: A new southern entrance would greatly expand the area of Bethesda that is within walking distance of the Metro stop. Properties further south along Wisconsin Avenue would come into easy walking range, while those already in range would have their access to transit greatly enhanced.

Additionally, the new southern entrance could provide a direct connection to the Capital Crescent Trail, one of the most popular multi-use trails in the region.

If delayed, it might not be ready for the Purple Line: Deleting funding from the six-year Capital Improvement Plan would push construction of the new entrance back to 2018 at the earliest. The Purple Line is scheduled to open in 2020. Pushing back funding might mean that the new entrance wouldn't be ready for the start of service on the Purple Line.

Without that direct connection, riders will face a walk of several blocks to change trains. Such a disincentive would have a strong negative effect on ridership.

The Maryland Transit Administration, which is building the Purple Line, says that construction on the second entrance must start in 2016 at the latest in order to be ready to open with the Purple Line. Pushing construction back 2 years is a bad idea for that reason alone.

Under Leggett's proposed timeline, there is no room for error. Any additional delays would result in the Metro entrance not being ready for the Purple Line. Not having a southern entrance to Bethesda station on the Purple Line's opening day would severely reduce the light rail's utility, and might even delay the opening of Purple Line altogether.

The design can be ready: One argument for waiting is to make sure the design is right. The entrance will open onto the Purple Line station in the Bethesda tunnel, and the county needs to decide the elevation.

Under initial plans putting the Capital Crescent Trail into the tunnel, engineers would excavate the floor of the tunnel to place the Purple Line below the current grade. If the trail doesn't go in the tunnel, as MTA now recommends, the station would be at the level of the floor today.

The County Council's Transportation and Environment Committee recommended last week to construct the Purple Line without deepening the tunnel.

While the full council hasn't yet voted on a final decision, that will come soon, and final design for the station can move ahead.

Montgomery County needs to fund the second entrance to make sure it's ready for the Purple Line, and improve mobility in Bethesda. The county is committed to getting the Purple Line built, but even if the Purple Line never opens, Bethesda residents and commuters will benefit greatly from an alternative to the current entrance.

Bethesda generates much of the employment and tax revenue for the county to pay for schools and other services. The new entrance and the Purple Line benefit all residents, even those who might never ride the Metro to Bethesda or take the Purple Line.

The fact that large majorities of people don't want new highways and are closely split on widening existing ones shows the effect of our region's decades of debate on these issues. Residents realize that new roads actually don't make their lives better, since new vehicle trips just fill up the new capacity within a few years, and the existing driver faces the same traffic as before.

About two thirds of residents thought new bridges across the Potomac River were a good idea, though it's less clear what those bridges would connect to, since many of the same respondents apparently don't want to increase road capacity on each end.

Also not surprisingly, people don't want to pay for any transportation projects. They oppose both tolls and higher gas taxes.

Given this, it's sad that Governor McDonnell keeps pushing the Outer Beltway, and Maryland continues to put the $3 billion I-270 widening ahead of the Purple Line in its priority list for how to spend future federal funds. That's because 82% of respondents "agree with the strategy of locating growth around existing employment centers," while large numbers (about half of respondents regionwide) oppose growth in rural areas. Yet the big-ticket transportation priorities of both states would push rural growth over strengthening today's job centers.

Smart growth is what the region wants. We should focus on transit, expanding walkable neighborhoods and building more, and putting new housing and jobs in existing dense areas and near underutilized transit stations. That's the only way to add more people to the region and help everyone get to and from work without the massive highway expansions which many people don't want and very few want to pay for.

Correction: I listed some of the numbers as reflecting public support for widening existing highways that are actually the levels of support for new highways. The post has been updated.

The original plan: This design, the "locally preferred alternative," calls for lowering the floor of the tunnel to make room for an elevated CCT above the Purple Line. The Purple Line station would sit under the Apex Building, adjacent to the planned elevator connection to the Red Line.

Don't keep the trail in the tunnel: Another option would be to create a new trail alignment through Elm Street Park and along Bethesda Avenue. The tunnel would not have to be lowered, and the Purple Line would run alone in the tunnel. The station would be located in the same spot as in the original plan.

Don't put the Purple Line in the tunnel: The Purple Line could terminate east of the eastern end of the tunnel, letting the trail to remain in the tunnel. Passengers transferring to the Red Line would have to walk approximately ¼ mile to get to the new southern entrance to the Bethesda Metro.

Tear down and rebuild the Air Rights Building: Tearing down the Air Rights Building, above the tunnel, would make it possible to create a wider tunnel and fit the trail and train station side-by-side. It would require a slightly longer walk for transferring passengers than the original plan. It would also cost a lot of money to purchase and demolish the Air Rights Building on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue.

Have a narrower Purple Line through the tunnel: Several alternatives looked at using single track or gauntlet track in the tunnel. Station locations included placement in the original location or farther west in the Woodmont Plaza.

The County Council's Transportation and Environment Committee will discuss this issue on March 1.

The findings are disappointing to those of us hoped to escape making a very hard decision. All of the new alternatives for keeping the trail in the tunnel would either seriously degrade the level of service and operational capabilities of the Purple Line, or have an unreasonable cost.

The MTA draft report could do a bit more to persuade everyone by giving more details about why they rejected some alternatives. For example, the report says that operational models showed that the reduced transitway width alternatives didn't work, especially since the Bethesda station will be the end of the line.

But the report gives no information on the method and assumptions behind the simulations. It would be easier to accept the conclusions if they made those available for review. In any case, the MTA is likely right about this. I can find no examples of successful single-track operations for a terminal station with a short headway.

As much as I wish it were otherwise, we are back to the hard choice: either spend a now-estimated $50.9 million and take considerable construction risk to keep the trail in the tunnel in an overhead structure, or develop the alternative surface route across Wisconsin Avenue.

The right choice is to develop the surface route to the fullest extent possible. $50.9 million is simply too much money to spend to avoid one at-grade crossing for the trail. That cost will double the total cost of rebuilding the CCT, putting the whole trail project at much higher risk of being abandoned in these very difficult budget times.

Also, the elevated trail will involve a narrow switchback to climb above the tracks, and then run in a cage above the tracks. This will not be attractive to most trail riders, and certainly not inviting enough to justify spending $50.9 million.

There is also too much risk that digging under the APEX building will destabilize the entire building. The Silver Spring transit center turned into a fiasco because engineers underestimated the risk of a construction method. Nobody wants another mess like that along the future CCT in Bethesda.

Most likely, the council will decide against taking on the cost and risk that comes with keeping the CCT in the Bethesda tunnel. The political blowback from this decision will be intense; some of that has already started in the comments to the Washington Post's story about this report.

"Save the Trail" advocate Pam Browning and others are advocating for a third option: kill the Purple Line. But they have the tunnel vision that comes with thinking that CCT means "Chevy Chase's Trail." They care little about whether the CCT is ever completed into downtown Silver Spring, and would have us obsess about one trail crossing at Wisconsin Avenue while overlooking the many other at-grade crossings east of Bethesda that will be eliminated as a part of the Purple Line project.

A version of this article originally ran at Silver Spring Trails.

Actually, it can, easily. And it can afford $12 million for the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which Leggett also cut from the current capital budget. All the county has to do is defer some of the $359 million in new highways in the 6-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP). That $359 million is all for new capacity, over and above the necessary cost of maintaining the county's existing roads and bridges.

The projects include widening Goshen Road, which costs $129 million, but the justification in the CIP suggests it's not needed until 2025. Building Montrose Parkway East, for $56 million, will further despoil Rock Creek Park, while the completed western portion has already created a "Berlin Wall" that will hamper a future walkable, mixed-use neighborhood growing north of White Flint.

Widening Snouffer School Road and Snouffer School Road North, 2 projects costing $45 million, would meet "demands of existing and future land uses" in an area which "is experiencing growth with plans for future residential and commercial development."

Why does the County Executive claim that it doesn't have enough money for the Bethesda Metro, a necessary step for the Purple Line in the part of the county that generates the most tax revenue, and Wheaton, a prime spot for new mixed-use growth and an already-thriving community right on top of another Metro station, but can spend money on new roads in car-dependent areas which may grow in the future?

These new road projects would increase traffic congestion through induced demand, offer no economic development, and destroy irreplaceable Chesapeake Bay watersheds. Montgomery County has already agreed, through long public debates, to make the Purple Line, the Metropolitan Branch Trail, and growth in Wheaton top priorities. But Leggett's budget does not reflect this.

This is an unfortunate pattern with this County Executive. The Leggett administration consistently cries poverty when it comes to smart growth-oriented projects like these, or making Rockville Pike a boulevard in White Flint. However, it seems that no sprawl-oriented road project is too expensive to fund.

Whether it's putting up roadblocks to BRT, pushing harmful skybridges and underpasses, or a bizarre focus on resurrecting bad "zombie road" proposals from the 1960s, the County Executive's decisions do not embody Montgomery County's and Maryland's stated smart growth policies.

Fortunately, it appears the County Council does not share the County Executive's misplaced priorities. A council committee has since voted to restore funding for the Bethesda Metro entrance, and the full council will consider it soon. The council should also restore funding for the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

Despite claims to the contrary, these worthy projects need not compete with each other. The council can simply choose the least valuable of the plan's many expensive road projects and use the money to ensure Wheaton, Metro riders at Bethesda, the future Purple Line, and a valuable bicycle connection from Silver Spring to DC get the attention they deserve. Our county, state and region cannot afford more delay.

For example, in Montgomery County, the state will build a $63 million interchange at Georgia Avenue (MD 97) and Randolph Road, to speed up traffic near the Glenmont Metro station. With ramps and longer crossings, the interchange will further degrade pedestrian access to nearby shopping from residences.

For the amount spent on this project, the county could build much of the long-discussed Georgia Avenue bus rapid transit project from Wheaton to Olney instead.

Montgomery County is pushing another grade-separated interchange at the Veirs Mill Road (MD 586) and Randolph Road. Based on past experience, we can expect that the planned Veirs Mill bus rapid transit project (the county's largest bus route) will continue to lose out to the expensive interchange for priority.

The interchange would not only compete for funds with this proposed rapid bus corridor, it would also make conditions much worse for the many pedestrians who cross these roads to stores and bus stops at the intersection. Read the whole list of the county's priority transportation projects here.

In Prince George's, despite numerous setbacks, the 6,000-acre greenfield Westphalia development project outside the Capital Beltway and miles from the nearest Metro station still maintains a top ranking on the list from local elected officials. The price tag for the road infrastructure to serve this massive tract of largely undeveloped land is $460 million.

The transportation projects would convert Pennsylvania Avenue (MD 4) into a freeway from the Capitol Beltway to Woodyard Road (MD 223), and add 4 interchanges along the way. The Westphalia plan calls for adding 14,000-15,300 new residential units and up 6 million square feet of commercial space.

The county transportation lists also contain important transit, bike, and pedestrian projects, but often these proposals languish while road projects advance. Other important transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and complete streets solutions never even make the list. We need to fund projects that meet the growing demand for more transportation choices that save time, energy, and money.

If Marylanders are asked to pay more, each dollar must be invested wisely. Residents need better and more affordable transportation choices. So where should this money go?

First, let's fix Maryland's existing infrastructure, like our aging roads, bridges and transit systems. Then, let's build modern transit to move more people efficiently and competitively, while providing alternatives to congested highways like the Beltway, I-95, and I-270. It's long past time for critical rail investments like the Purple Line, Baltimore Red Line and MARC expansion, and better bus service.

At the local level, state revenue to local governments should go to fix and maintain local street connections, sidewalks, and bikeways for existing communities.

Moreover, given high unemployment, smart growth transit options can help the economy. Public transportation and road maintenance are the biggest job creators. According to the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, investments in road maintenance projects create 9% more jobs than spending on new highway capacity; increasing transit capacity creates 19% more jobs than new highway capacity.

If Marylanders are going to pay more, we deserve to know what the money will buy. We need a bill that that specifies smart, fix-it-first policies for the state. Otherwise, we're just throwing our money into the dark.

Bike lane striping under the Gray administration has ground to a halt. Almost none of the promised 2011 additions to the bike network were delivered. And while DDOT promises to stripe new bike lanes as soon as the weather warms up, they are clearly falling behind.

Meanwhile, the most significant proposed bike projects, the L and M Street cycle tracks, remain mired in study. DDOT has said it won't commit to building them until it has completed a study of the existing 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue cycle tracks. That's a little odd, because DDOT already completed a similar study in 2010. Why do we need another one to tell us the same thing? And how long is this study supposed to take? It's already been six months.

No doubt Mayor Gray hears a lot about bike lanes. It must seem that half of his constituents want more of them, and the other half don't want them at all. Putting off the decision in order to avoid upsetting anyone must be a tempting solution. It's hard to know for sure, but the longer these studies drag on, the more likely this possibility seems.

But the delay-by-study strategy can only work for so long. Ultimately voters in Maryland saw through Ehrlich's Purple Line scheme, and it contributed to his defeat by Martin O'Malley.

When Gray was elected I said we should give him a chance to prove that he really will continue urbanist policies. After one year, the jury is still out. It is still too early to judge him. It is still too early to conclude that he is trying to study the cycle tracks out of existence. But if he hasn't decided to build them in another six months or so—a year after the study began—then we'll have our answer.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

It makes no sense to eliminate an excellent grade-separated facility that already exists in order to get drivers to understand that bikes "belong" on the street. Plus, with an improved trail to Silver Spring will likely increase the number of cyclists in the Bethesda area. Cyclists in the area will use the streets to get to and from the trail. The better the trail, the more will use it, and the more street traffic there will be.

In the '90s, cyclists fought long and hard to get the tunnel opened because it was a terrific alternative to the on-street routes. It was an enormous success and trumpeted in the biking community. The Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail not only supported the tunnel opening, but contributed thousands of dollars of funding to help make it happen. Clearly the biking community prefers the tunnel to the on-street routes.

It seems unlikely that one would argue to eliminate the Custis Trail through Arlington or the W&OD trail through Falls Church in order to put more bikes on the streets. But Dan thinks this is a good idea in Bethesda.

Creating cycling facilities like those found in Copenhagen or Amsterdam, including grade-separated facilities like the one shown here, makes it better for cyclists, and more cyclists are everywhere, creating a better atmosphere all around. Those cities did not achieve their high biking mode share by eliminating grade-separated crossings.

Boulder, CO has added 20 new grade-separated crossings in the last 20 years, and cycling has gone up, not down. And there are lots more cyclists on the streets, too, not just the trails.

Minneapolis's new Greenway is celebrated as a fantastic success for cyclists and pedestrians. Cycling and pedestrian traffic has increased in Minneapolis as well.

Current estimates indicate that keeping the trail in the tunnel with the Purple Line will cost $40 million. Even at that price, the trail is worth the cost. However, the Maryland Transit Administration is undertaking detailed studies to determine whether the cost could be lower. The Montgomery Planning Board has also asked them to study alternative ways of fitting the trail into the tunnel.

The shortest on-street alternative to the Bethesda tunnel adds about 400-500 feet to the trip. (The longest adds about 1,500 feet.) The shortest on-street detour also entails a 30-foot elevation rise and fall and a major road crossing that will require a wait at a signal.

This route is likely to add at least 1 minute to any cycling trip, costing as much 10,000 hours per year cumulative for cyclists and peds (at current usage rates, before increased traffic when the trail is completed to Silver Spring). In addition, auto traffic will also be delayed by longer signal cycles to accommodate trail traffic. Some might argue that is good, but it's time lost, nonetheless.

Should Montgomery County propose closing lanes and parts of streets and eliminating parking in order to create this route, they are likely to receive pushback in the public process from drivers and businesses. Officials will likely end up scaling back the design as a compromise with opponents.

There's no guarantee that the alternative on-street route will end up with good design and execution. It could very well end up a lose-lose for cyclists and pedestrians: the tunnel option could be eliminated, and the on-street alternative could be adequate instead of excellent.

The Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda is equally as busy as the the Custis Trail through Rosslyn. There are approximately 23,000 weekly users on CCT and, according to Arlington County staff, about 26,000 users on the Custis Trail.

Building an at-grade crossing at Wisconsin may end up creating as big a problem as the Custis Trail/Lee Highway crossing. That intersection is a huge headache for planners there and a significant hazard to users. Admittedly, the Bethesda on-street routes do not suffer from the same design issues as the Arlington one, and it would likely be easier to make safer.

Should the cyclists and pedestrians lose this battle, it will once again send the signal that they are are lower-priority citizens. Cyclists showed up in droves a couple of years ago to keep the tunnel open during the upcoming development by JBG and, with the help of Councilmember Berliner, were able to win that concession from the developer.

Prior to that meeting, though, the county was intending to go along with the developer's plan to close the tunnel during construction, an option that would never be considered for a similarly important automobile route. Until the cyclists spoke up, the developer's needs were put ahead of them.

This is an almost identical situation: a proposal is being made to close the trail in the tunnel to accommodate development. Fortunately, this time, it appears pedestrians and cyclists are being given more consideration. A few weeks ago, the county planning board toured the tunnel and, according to the Washington Post, the board was very supportive of finding a solution to keep the trail in the tunnel.

Dan suggests that taking the trail out of the tunnel will make this a "better experience." Given the strong support, including actual financial contributions, from the biking community for the tunnel, it seems that most cyclists feel the tunnel is the better experience.

When I was commuting from Arlington to Silver Spring, I wanted to get home, not browse shop windows. I couldn't wait to arrive at the tunnel during the dark winter nights, and it made for great shelter during summer thunderstorms.

But other times when I was actually visiting somewhere in Bethesda, I could choose to proceed directly to my destination on the streets. The existence of the tunnel does not preclude cyclists and pedestrians from accessing local businesses. In fact, a superior facility is likely to attract more people to the area, which would be good for local businesses.

Lastly, on a per-user basis, my back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that the per-user cost of the Purple Line is actually higher than the per-user cost of the trail with the tunnel, and that doesn't include operating costs. With 60,000 estimated daily Purple Line in 2030 users and a cost of about $2 billion, the average cost per daily user is $33,333. The trail, on the other hand, is expected to cost about $100 million and handle about 4,000 daily users. That makes the average cost per daily user $25,000.

Keeping this excellent piece of the regional bike infrastructure is critical to the ongoing growth of cycling and continuing to improve Washington's standing as a good biking area. As Dan writes, the trail has been included in plans for the Purple Line for more than 20 years, including the tunnel portion, which shouldn't be eliminated to save a few dollars that no one will remember a decade from now.