raw fisher purple line debate: the real no-spin zone

Definitely check out this week's edition of Raw Fisher Radio, featuring Councilmember George Leventhal and Chevy Chase mayor Kathy Strom duking it out over the Purple Line and Capital Crescent Trail (pictured). Marc Fisher's always been good at calling bullshit on anything he thinks lacks merit, so it's pretty amazing how willing he's been to sit on the fence in a pair of recent columns on the debate over that oh-so-controversial transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

You wonder if Fisher, a very respected columnist, ever had the urge to smack Strom whenever she tries to talk over him or Leventhal, yelling "I WOULD LIKE TO RESPOND TO THIS!" like she's on the effing O'Reilly Factor or something. Strom's interested in finding the "most cost-effective solution" possible for the Purple Line (in her case, using Bus Rapid Transit along Jones Bridge Road) which is ironic, because it seems like choosing to live in Chevy Chase is not a "cost-effective solution" to housing compared to settling in more affordable locales like, say, New Carrollton. And so far as I know, the City of New Carrollton has not spent four hundred grand to find said "cost-effective solution" to the Purple Line.

Nonetheless, Leventhal and Strom do acknowledge that the fight over whether and where to build the Purple Line has been a clean one. And if it weren't for all of the accusations of "No Train on Wayne" yard sign theft on some of the Silver Spring-area listservs, I might believe it. But if you have a half-hour to spare, give them a listen and afterwards, read Wayne Phyillaier's [pro-light rail] re-cap of it on Finish the Trail.