Wednesday, July 12, 2006

purple line what?

Sitting in traffic at Conn. Ave and East West Highway (next to the Columbia Country Club) this morning, I wondered how many people on my bus know there could be an alternative. I wondered if they knew that the very establishment we were sitting in front of was stealing a faster commute from them.

According to this week’s Gazette, that may not be the case. Despite continuing efforts to educate the public about the Purple Line and a continuing stream of articles about its possible effects to Silver Spring neighborhoods, many people don’t even know it exists.

Other commuters, like David Keyes of Takoma Park, were uncertain whether or not the Bi-County Transitway was the same as the Intercounty Connector, the highway project which will link Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
‘‘I don’t really know much about it. Is it like the ICC?” Keyes said.


Surprising, huh? The ICC’s pretty famous, but unless you live in Chevy Chase or East Silver Spring, the Purple Line is all but invisible.

The few commuters who were aware of the Bi-County Transitway spoke of it as a positive addition for the commuting community.
‘‘I think that it will be very good,” Takoma Park resident Pedro Bela said.


Seems like the State could stand to put up a few more Spanish-language signs in Langley Park. It’s not a racist comment: these are the people that matter, and they deserve more than another bus to take them to Bethesda in the morning.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The purple line will be nothing more than a conduit that criminals from Langley Park can use to get in and out of Bethesda.

MoCoPolitics said...

Ahhh... racism rears its ugly head. Funny thing is, that's exactly what people in Georgetown were saying when the metro system was built originally, and why there is no metro station in that part of the city. Which is one reason why economic development in Georgetown has not kept pace with places like Chinatown, Bethesda, or Courthouse.

Anonymous said...

The Purple Line is great, until you see the new development that new transit stations will spawn in places like the Corner of Connecticutt and Jones Mill. There's a reason that developers, like the Chevy Chase Land Company, are big supporters of such a large expenditure of public tax dollars.

Anonymous said...

The Purple line will only be great if it is built as a Metroline, so Montgomery County doesn't get stuck maintaining a small fleet of (obsolete in a few years) expensive and hard to get parts for rail cars. Most of it should be underground, with a well defined bike path on top. The people who expanded into the railroad right of way should be reminded where their property lines end.