Friday, April 13, 2007

a loss for the purple line, a victory for lemonade

BUT FIRST: Could trailers solve the housing crisis in College Park? And how has "mandatory busing" returned to Montgomery County? Read more.

Just when you thought that the Purple Line was already on life support, we find out the Chevy Chase Town Council wants County taxpayers to fund their anti-Purple Line lobby. It's all here in this press release (warning! PDF file) from the Action Committee for Transit, which covers the town meeting last Wednesday where Purple Line foe Meir Wolf requested $250,000 for "independent studies" of the beleaguered transitway. (Sources close to Just Up The Pike say that Wolf will blow the quarter-million in Vegas and write his "findings" on a dirty cocktail napkin reading "make people take the bus.")

Town resident and lemonade magnate Amy Kostant, whose business is threatened by the proposed transitway, was not available for comment. Nonetheless, I declare this another victory for lemonade. I mean, who cares about traffic on East-West Highway? I'd sit in traffic for three more hours for a cold glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone in Chevy Chase actually said we don't want people from PG County entering our town? Seriously, isn't that the main reason for the fuss? Didn't they influence the fabled MoCo S-curve on the beltway back in the 1960's anyway? Don't most of these people identify themselves as "liberals"?

It makes me furious to think that the purple will probably be derailed due to these folks. This means more vehicles on the beltway and more frustrations.

Face it Chevy Chase, your town is in a large, increasingly dense, metro area. If you're worried about "outsiders" coming through your neighborhood, why not invest your protest funding into your police force?

Anonymous said...

This light rail plan is a small time, band-aid of a solution for transportation issues that demand a scalable system. The DC area needs a line that will circle the city. The Light Rail Purple Line (formerly known as the Georgetown Branch Trolley) is being promoted primarily by one developer who is paying off several groups to promote this plan. Take a look at the Chevy Chase Land Company's website.

This light rail will not remove cars from the road. The proponents of the currently configured light rail could care less if it goes west to Tyson's and southeast from New Carrollton.

For proof notice that ACT (Action Committee for Transit) has a website dedicated to the Purple Line but none the Corridor Cites Transitway. I would love to see how much money the Chevy Chase Land Company is paying ACT. ACT has been pushing this trolley idea long before the concept of running to UMD was on the table. They are using the folks from Rethink College Park, and the Sierra Club, for strictly mercenary reasons. Check out the Sierra Club's website. Their map of the Purple Line circles DC. The light rail can circle DC as well (in about 5 hours) with 21 stops between New Carrollton and Bethesda and as Dave Daddio says, "a bell you can ring to stop the trolley". What a joke. These ideas don't belong in Higher Ed, they belong in Junior High.

Build it right as heavy rail buried, fast and part of the current Metro.