More excuses from MoCo NIMBYs as to why the Purple Line "just doesn't work" in this week's Gazette letters to the editor:
"Consider cost of Purple Line infrastructure"
The June 21 article, ‘‘Candidates make no Purple promises,” will undoubtedly revive the debate about the advisability of creating the Purple Line, a light rail connection between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
One of the problems that has escaped the attention of its proponents is that in order to build a rail line, it is insufficient to merely lay track and purchase rail cars. Stations will have to be constructed, and each will require a large car park to attract enough riders to justify the project. The space that must be consumed to put all the required infrastructure in place is simply unavailable in the inner suburbs.
It would also be necessary to create numerous new bus routes to enable riders, who will have left their cars behind, to reach their final destinations after exiting the trains. With a new highway such as the Intercounty Connector, none of these problems exit. No stations or car parks are necessary and travelers will complete their journeys in one vehicle.
I'd like the writer to consider how much space the ICC would take up compared to the Purple Line, stations and all. Whether you're for or against either project, it's fairly obvious how poor the NIMBY arguments are going to get. Everything takes up space. McMansions take up space. People take up space. And a new rail line will take up space formerly given over to something else - an old rail line.
I'd like to know what the rest of the County thinks - the people who are too busy trying to feed their families to worry about the state of the transit system that many of them are so dependent on. If the Powers-That-Be were listening to Langley Park and White Oak instead of Kensington and Bethesda, we'd have had a Purple Line a long time ago.
3 comments:
>> If the Powers-That-Be were listening to Langley Park and White Oak instead of Kensington and Bethesda, we'd have had a Purple Line a long time ago.
You're being unfair to us on the west side of the county. The vast majority of people in Kensington and Bethesda support the Purple Line. The reason the Purple Line hasn't been built can be stated in three words: Columbia Country Club.
Kensingtoner here, and pro-purple...
I stopped reading the Gazette letters. They're too frustrating, and writing back (which I used to do often) is really just a waste of time.
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