Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Lawmakers will mull ways to fund state transportation projects at a Wednesday summit, where the light rail project will be identified as "at risk."
The cost of building the Purple Line has jumped from $1.93 billion to $2.15 billion, marking the second price increase in the last two years, the Washington Examiner reports. The 16-mile light rail that will connect Bethesda and New Carrollton, recently hailed as one of he best transportation projects in the country, is planned to open in 2020. But Maryland has none of the $4.7 billion it needs to build the Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line, according to the report. If the Maryland Transit Administration is approved for the federal funds it’s hoping to secure from the Federal Transit Administration for the light rail projects, the money would only cover 40.6 percent of the Red Line and 46.8 percent of the Purple Line, according to the …
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Critics say line will hurt; others disagree.
Nora Levy-Forsythe jogs the Bethesda segment of a 13-mile nature trail that links Georgetown to Silver Spring almost every day when home from college. But, as construction of the $1.93 billion Purple Line threatens to plow through several miles of the Capital Crescent Trail, Levy-Forsythe said she would give up this oasis of nature. And it’s not just the trail—19 acres of forest and more than 5,000 feet of streams may be demolished when the Purple Line is built, according to environmental impact documents the Maryland Transit Administration drafted in 2008. “I’m totally for more public transportation,” Levy-Forsythe said. “If it means less SUVs in this neighborhood, less big cars, less any cars really, I’m fine with it.” MTA officials …
Friday, November 18, 2011
Running both rail and trail through a tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue could be cost-prohibitive. The MTA is considering other options, including putting the Bethesda Purple Line station east of Wisconsin Avenue, near Chevy Chase's Elm Street Park.
In case the variety of options available for how to route both the Purple Line and the Capital Crescent Trail across (or under, or over) Wisconsin Avenue at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase border wasn’t broad enough already, a couple more options have been added to the mix. At a Montgomery County Planning Board meeting on Thursday, planning commissioners asked Maryland Transit Administration staff to consider building the Bethesda Purple Line station east of Wisconsin Avenue, rather than west of it or under it, as previous options had suggested. Right now, the Capital Crescent Trail, which follows an old CSX railroad right-of-way from Bethesda to Silver Spring, crosses Wisconsin Avenue underground, through a tunnel that passes (from west to east…
Wayne Phyillaier
1:54 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2012
@Commentous: Your point is taken, everything is in competition with everything else at some level. My point is that at no point was the Wheaton project singled out to be cut so the money could be diverted to the Bethesda project. more ›