what's up the pike: two bike paths diverged . . .

Simple and inexpensive, bike trails like the Capital Crescent Trail (pictured in Bethesda) offer an alternative to driving in an era of increasing gas prices and traffic. In actuality, bike paths get the short end of the stick. Here's a look at what's happening this week in trails:

For joggers and bikers in Silver Spring, the Purple Line may be the only way that the popular Capital Crescent Trail gets completed east of Rock Creek Park. As the MTA nears its decision on how and where to build the proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton, those on both sides have stepped up their game recently, from reaching high school students to launching a "grass-roots coalition" bankrolled by the exclusive Columbia Country Club.

While the contact page of new anti-Purple Line group Alliance For Smart Transportation lists an address in Silver Spring, suggesting a connection with the east side, their list of talking points focus on the Purple Line's effects on the trail in Bethesda, or a Town of Chevy Chase-funded study that was largely debunked by state Secretary of Transportation John Porcari.

You'd think that a so-called "Alliance" would move away from Bethesda and ally themselves with their anti-Purple Line counterparts in Silver Spring - SSTOP and the nascent "No Train on Wayne" group, some of whose members do support the project, if not in their backyards. It reminds me of my meetings last summer with activist Pam Browning, who admitted she didn't know about anything east of Silver Spring, or former Chevy Chase mayor Mier Wolf, who'd never really driven on congested East-West Highway (which parallels the proposed Purple Line route) before.

Not that I personally support the forming of a cross-county anti-Purple Line coalition, though it would be nice to see Silver Spring and Bethesda come together on something. I mean, think of all the lemonade that could come from it!

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

A redevelopment of the Burtonsville Shopping Center could include a bike path along Route 29 between Route 198 and Dustin Road.

IN ADDITION:On Thursday, the Planning Board holds a hearing for the ICC Limited Functional Master Plan, which lays out how the InterCounty Connector, currently under construction, will accomodate bike paths and interchanges. Dismayed by the highway's potential effects on the environment, many anti-ICC groups - or groups seeking more alternatives to driving - saw the State Highway Administration's plan to include a bike path parallel to the ICC as a compromise. As The WashCycle explained in a two-part series last month, the state wasn't willing to meet bikers halfway.

In 2004, SHA deleted the trail, saying it would do even further harm to local parkland and streams by increasing the paved area. And while seven miles of the path were added back to the ICC in 2007, the new route follows local roads, like New Hampshire Avenue and Fairland Road, that add extra travel time. Not only that, says the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, but they may also be more unsafe for bikers than a path next to the highway.

FINALLY: Up The Pike, a bike path makes a minor hurdle for the long-awaited Burtonsville Shopping Center redevelopment. Also on Thursday, the Planning Board will decide whether Bethesda developer Chris Jones, whose BMC Property Group will be knocking down the forty-year-old strip mall later this summer, will be required to install a trail and landscaping along old Route 29 between Route 198 and Dustin Road. The project would require cooperation with other properties north of the shopping center, including a church, a garden center and several houses, and planning staff isn't entirely sure that it's feasible to do so.

While it does concern a bike trail, the report from Park and Planning has no images what the project make look like. After years of controversy over potential "big-box" stores in the new center, Jones has returned with a plan for what he calls one the most "environmentally friendly plaza" in the country. But for all the press the Burtonsville Shopping Center over the past year, few people - outside of an East County Citizens Advisory Board meeting last month - have actually seen it.

Read more!

JUTP interviewed on rockville central radio

Continuing with this week's theme of "How Could You Possibly Consider This To Be East County," I appeared on Rockville Central Radio, an online talk show hosted by Brad Rourke and Cindy CG of Rockville Central, the premier Rockville blog and a resource I encourage you to check out.

We talked about how Just Up The Pike got started, Don Praisner's first week in the County Council, and the Dutch Country Farmers' Market in Burtonsville. Check out the interview right here - if you're impatient, fast forward about fourteen minutes.

Read more!

what's up the pike: friday the what?

MTA's proposed transit center at University and New Hampshire in Takoma Park would collect several local bus routes and the Purple Line into one consolidated facility.

We're a little all over the place at JUTP this week. Here's a look at what going on as we head into the weekend:

- The MTA promises that a proposed transit center at University and New Hampshire can boost development in the Takoma-Langley Crossroads, but ridership numbers aren't enough to convince the Taco Bell currently at that corner to give up its location.

- Today, I'll be interviewed on Rockville Central Radio, an online radio show hosted by Brad Rourke from Rockville Central, representing the other Pike in Montgomery County. The show's at noon; you can listen to it here.

- Voters in the 4th Congressional District, which includes a healthy chunk of East County, get a head start on November with a special election next Tuesday to replace Congressman Al Wynn (at left), who resigned after losing the Democratic primary to Donna Edwards in February. Edwards will be running against Republican Peter James of Germantown, who's profiled in the Post today.

I've never met Peter James, though he did take me to task (in a comment I can't currently find) for not talking to him after a candidates' forum last April. James and Edwards will be running again in November - by then, hopefully, we'll be able to talk to both candidates in depth.

- Speaking of people I'd like to talk to: Just Up The Pike is developing a little planner-crush on Rollin Stanley (pictured at right in 2004), the recently-appointed Planning Director for Montgomery County. An Ontario native, he cut his teeth revitalizing Toronto and St. Louis before Montgomery County tapped him to come down here. Earlier this week, he told the Greater Bethesda Chamber of Commerce this week that big houses will be "the next slums" and that future development will have to be smaller, and I'll bet everyone in that room had to pick their jaws off the ground.

Park and Planning did a little last-minute switcheroo on us when we tried to interview Stanley for our East County-unrelated story about 4 Bethesda Metro Center, but I'm looking forward to meeting him for reals. (Nothing's planned yet, of course.) Call it a new "Head-to-Head Tour," if you will, except there's only one stop.

Read more!

different views clash in developer spat over proposed bethesda tower

UPDATE: The Planning Board has unanimously rejected Meridian's proposal for 4 Bethesda Metro Center. Board member Jean Cryor says the building "overshot the mark. I am not opposed to seeing more development right there . . . But this building a couple of feet away from another building isn't it."

We know, Bethesda is NOT East County. But there's a photo of Downtown Bethesda in my room, one taken inside 3 Bethesda Metro Center, from which you can see the Silver Spring skyline. It's a view that may or may not exist in a couple of years. When I was asked to write this piece, all I had to do was look at my wall and I said "yes."

A rendering of the Meridian Group's 4 Bethesda Metro Center, a controversial proposed office building in Downtown Bethesda. Clark Enterprises, who owns 1 Bethesda Metro Center (at right), claims the building violates zoning restrictions.

Two summers ago, I interned at an architectural firm in Bethesda. Our office filled the entire floor of a building downtown; from one side, I could see out to Tysons Corner, and from the other, to Downtown Silver Spring. Staring out the window proved to be an excellent way to fight boredom. This week, the Planning Board will look at a proposed office building in Bethesda that could change the way Montgomery County’s downtowns are developing – and the way many office workers waste their time.

“Right as we're speaking, I’m looking down East-West Highway from the eighth floor of BMC 3,” says Bob Harris, lawyer for Holland and Knight. He’s representing the Meridian Group, whose proposed 4 Bethesda Metro Center would sit more or less in front of his office, atop a food court that most agree has seen better days. Will the new building block his view? It’s already blocked, says Harris, “by Frank Saul’s building, towards the north of Silver Spring.”

Frank Saul, or B.F. Saul II, is the chairman and founder of Chevy Chase Bank. His twin Chevy Chase Bank Towers sit directly across Wisconsin Avenue from the Metro Center, a complex Meridian purchased in 1999. “You can reportedly see the Tysons Corner skyline from his office,” a penthouse, says Harris, “and this would partially block the view.”

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Looking east from 3 Bethesda Metro Center towards Downtown Silver Spring in 2005. Most or some of this view would disappear behind 4 Bethesda Metro Center, if built.

But the view isn’t the only reason why Chevy Chase Bank, along with local developers Chevy Chase Land Company and Clark Enterprises, are opposing 4 Bethesda Metro Center in what the Washington Post calls a "struggle among real estate titans." As Adam Pagnucco explains on Maryland Politics Watch, it comes down to the process. The six-acre block known as Bethesda Metro Center, with its four 1980’s-era concrete towers, has reached the maximum density for its site.

Harris says a 1989 zoning law allows developers to include “any land attributable” to a property, including surrounding streets. Old Georgetown and Wisconsin are “public use easements,” he argues, given to the State and County to use but legally owned by Meridian, providing the additional land to give them a density bonus.

The method’s legality has been controversial. “We don't think it has any merits,” says communications director I.J. Hudson, representing Clark Enterprises, owners of 1 Bethesda Metro Center. “There were trails here before there were property rights,” he adds, pointing out that Wisconsin Avenue was once a Native American trail.

Hudson, who was a Channel 4 anchor for over two decades, works for Garson Claxton, located a few blocks away. He’s no fan of the Metro Center’s aesthetics – white concrete and tinted glass – but he and his client remain faithful to the project’s original vision.

“These people working on the urban study back in 1980 . . . they were talking about ‘smart growth’ before that word was used,” Hudson says in that smooth, encouraging TV voice. “The buildings aren’t the most attractive, you know, tastes change in architecture. But they followed the rules. This thing is built out.”

The Bethesda Metro Center plaza, seen from ten stories up. Saul's Chevy Chase Bank towers are to the left, and the BMC food court is at the bottom.

Montgomery County planner Josh Sloan disagrees. As project director for 4 Bethesda Metro Center, he’s confident that Meridian’s proposal is legit. “We're not setting a precedent with calculating the density this way,” Sloan says, pointing out that other developers have done the same. “If we thought that [the opponents’] claim was valid, we wouldn't have recommended approval.”

For over a year, Sloan and his staff worked with the developers, wrangling as best a product he could from their vision and what the zoning would allow. “We all had concerns about several things about the project, in the building, and typical review process we get input from all the divisions,” Sloan says.

Last fall, a series of memos were circulated by one staff member who argued that the proposal would burden local infrastructure without providing enough amenities. In response, Sloan made sure that Meridian would keep its promise to activate the windswept plaza below. As for the views? “The building is quite narrow, so it's not going to completely block it,” he offers.

“We really worked on the footprint of the building and accessibility through the building to increase pedestrian access and liven more areas of retail,” says Sloan. “The entire first floor is retail. It's more accessible than the building.”

Recent developments like Bethesda Row and Bethesda Lane (pictured) have drawn customers away from the nearly thirty-year-old Metro Center.

For Harris, whose office looks down on the plaza, the Meridian proposal could dramatically change his perspective. “I must confess that I don't always have my nose to the grindstone,” he says sheepishly. “I sometimes gaze out the window. I see the plaza seven times a week, almost always six times a week, and it has never performed the way people thought it should.”

The problems are numerous. “It's inaccessible,” he says. “It's hot in the summer because of the reflection off the white pre-cast buildings that surround it, and it's cold in the winter. It will get moderate use on a day when the temperature is between sixty-five and seventy-five degrees, and between the hours of twelve and one-thirty when the office workers are eating lunch. On the weekends it's particularly dead.”

“We believe that by putting an office building whose front door is on the plaza so it will draw people there to begin with,” says Harris. The Meridian Group is also in talks with restaurants like the Corner Bakery, whose presence in the building they hope will “encourage other restaurants to set up business there.”

To keep visitors from slipping away to Bethesda Row, Meridian promises “significant improvements to the plaza itself,” Harris says, including “landscaping and greenery” and “new water features that will draw people in.” The bus terminal below will be revitalized with artwork and new lighting.

Looking southwest from 3 Bethesda Metro Center, towards Bethesda Row.

They will also install a stage and screen for outdoor movies, an idea that came up in the developer’s meetings with the surrounding neighborhoods. Harris doesn’t say that won them over, but he hasn’t heard any complaints from the neighbors, either. “We have met with various civic associations,” he says. “To my knowledge, the ones that we met with have not opposed it.”

“Everyone agrees that the plaza space could be improved, probably quite a bit, but the answer is not to attach those improvements to a sixteen-story building,” says Hudson. “It goes against the master plan, it goes against the sector plan. It measures density in a way that no one else gets to do it.”

When it was drafted in 1994, the Bethesda CBD Sector Plan didn’t anticipate a fifth high-rise in the Metro Center, though it does recommend “[improving] visibility of the food court by modifying building entrances, façade treatments, and lighting in a manner compatible with the surrounding buildings.”

Hudson would like to see “a smaller building, something less obnoxious than a huge building,” he says. “Open space is a premium in Bethesda these days . . . and there’s the matter of process.”

Whether or not Meridian’s method for measuring density is legal, their example could be repeated all across Montgomery County, fears Hudson. “What happens here, they kind of call it a ‘ground zero’ for what the county has to say about these sector plans,” Hudson says. “How important are they? If they can do it here, they can do it in your neighborhood.”

Read more!

going beyond the park-and-ride

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: Lisa Null series continues this week; County Council discusses Silver Spring music hall today; Lamari drops out of District 4 race.

Isolating transit facilities like the Briggs Chaney Park-and-Ride from housing, shops and other places make them targets for crime because there are no witnesses nearby.

It's on the other side of the County, but I was struck by a story in last week's Germantown Gazette about a woman who vows never to take the MARC train after being mugged at the Germantown station late one night:

The woman, who moved to Germantown six months ago, was considering using the train for her commute, and shortly before 10 p.m. decided to check it out. A man armed with a gun and wearing a blue bandana [the Gazette's mistake, not mine] to obscure his face demanded cash as the couple returned to their car in the parking lot.

There are two problems with this story. First of all: why do you go down to the train station at ten o'clock just "to check it out"? What is there to see? There are no MARC trains running that late, nobody to take your questions - and, worst of all, nobody watching to see if you get mugged.

And, second of all, the Germantown MARC station, like so many lonely park-and-rides in MoCo, enable crime because they aren't where the action is. On top of that, the ridership isn't very high. (The neighboring Boyds station, on the edge of Germantown, was threatened with closure three years ago.) No eyes on the street mean no witnesses for robbery.

Germantown Town Center, a mixed-use neighborhood with shops, a performing arts center and a spanking-new library fronting a pretty little square, is three-fourths of a mile away. Would that woman still have been mugged if the station was in the middle of Germantown Town Center, where even at night there would have been hundreds of shoppers, concert-goers and residents within earshot? Perhaps. But, even if she had, there would've been plenty of witnesses, and the robber would have been quickly caught.

Our friends in the Upcounty are also alarmed because of crime at the Lakeforest Transit Center and Shady Grove Metro, but no one in the article mentioned that they are, respectively, at the very edge of a mall parking lot and in an industrial area. These aren't places where you'll have people or any sort of activity late at night. The bus itself isn't the reason why robbers and gangs like to hang out there. It's because no one else has any reason to go.

We can learn from this in East County, where we haven't had anything in the way of transit-oriented planning. Route 29 from Four Corners to Burtonsville is lined with park-and-rides, which feed into some of the region's busiest bus routes. These seem like logical locations for development - perhaps not high-rises and shopping malls like in Downtown Silver Spring, but enough to give people a reason to be there if they aren't catching a bus. The park-and-ride behind Burtonsville Crossing Shopping Center has the proximity down, but because it's on the back of the shopping center, there are no "eyes on the street" keeping an eye out for potential danger.

I'm sure MARC and other local transit agencies have lost a lot of riders due to the perception of crime in and around train and bus stations. The key to increasing ridership and taking cars off the highway is by making them safer - not just with cameras and police presence, but by turning them into more than a place to wait for a ride. Read more!

el pollo rico burns down; chicken lovers distraught

Firefighters put out a fire at El Pollo Rico, a popular Peruvian restaurant in Downtown Wheaton. Photo by Chip Py.

El Pollo Rico, regional institution and purveyor of succulent Peruvian chicken in Wheaton, suffered major damage today as a grease fire broke out in the restaurant this morning. The restaurant, located in a strip of predominantly-Latino businesses on Ennalls Avenue in Wheaton, had previously been shut down by INS last summer for employing illegal immigrants. The owner of a neighboring dry cleaner explained that the fire broke out this morning and that it was put out shortly after. Several other businesses in the shopping center were also damaged by the blaze, according to Channel 7.

"El Pollo Rico is no El Pollo Fuego," laments local photographer Chip Py, who graciously offered us some photos of the damage. "I had planned on eating here tonight."

Two years after first hearing about El Pollo Rico in my Bethesda office, I have never gotten a chance to enjoy its chicken. Today, I am truly saddened by this great loss.

The restaurant this afternoon. Firefighters estimate some $1 million in damage was caused. Photo by Dan Reed. Read more!

purple line haze: trail on the wrong side of the tracks

The Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail fights for the popular path, but is split over its future. Check out the end of a series on the Purple Line.

Wayne Phyillaier on the unfinished Capital Crescent Trail near Brookville Road. Check out this slideshow of the CCT in Silver Spring.

Reggaeton blasts from a stereo just out of sight. The smell of old trash mixed with new rain fills the air. Dirty walls peek through the foilage, revealing layers of graffiti.

Welcome to Silver Spring's end of the Capital Crescent Trail, a popular hiker-biker path that swings around from Georgetown, through Bethesda, before ending abruptly in Lyttonsville, an industrial area a mile west of Downtown Silver Spring.

"Most people, when they talk about walking the trail, they see Pam Browning's version of the trail," says trail enthusiast Wayne Phyillaier, referring to his colleague in the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail. "She'll take you Connecticut Avenue and turn around. Maybe even the Rock Creek Trestle, and that's only half of the way to Silver Spring."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

The Capital Crescent Trail passes through an industrial area before ending a mile west of Downtown Silver Spring.

From Rock Creek Park east, the trail becomes weedy and overgrown, and the gravel surface is uneven. The path was draining so poorly that giant ruts had formed; last year, Montgomery County spent $100,000 last year to rebuild a portion of the trail. A Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail survey taken on the trail last year showed 23,000 weekly uses at Bethesda Row. A few blocks east in Chevy Chase, that number falls to 10,000. At Grubb Road in Silver Spring, only 2,586 uses were recorded.

"Just think of how many people would use this trail if it went all the way into Silver Spring," says Phyillaier. A Woodside resident, he's also editor of www.SilverSpringTrails.org, a website about biking in Silver Spring. "As popular as it is, it's only using so much of its potential."

According to the Action Committee for Transit, the Purple Line has been endorsed by several neighborhood associations along the trail in Silver Spring, including Woodside, North Woodside and Linden. Meanwhile, Bethesda and Chevy Chase residents continue to protest the Purple Line's construction due to the number of trees that could be lost on the trail. Save The Trail, the leading Purple Line opposition group, claims that "4,500 trees would be clear-cut," while the Save The Trail Petition says "all of the trees" would be removed.

Those numbers may be exaggerated. Two decades ago, when Montgomery County first bought the Georgetown Branch for transit and trail use, they tagged every tree in the right-of-way. 5,400 trees were tagged. But since the width of the right-of-way varies, more trees would be needed in some areas than others. And some of the tagged trees that sit in the path of the Purple Line have already died from other causes.

Nonetheless, Phyillaier is disturbed by the trade-offs. "It bothers me. I don't like the idea of cutting trees either," he says. "But they're looking at it from such a limited perspective . . . if they'd just step back and look at all the other neighborhoods, they'd understand why so many trail supporters refuse to join their parade."

Echoing concerns made by Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail head Peter Gray, Bethesda and Chevy Chase residents have focused on their own neighborhoods too long. Chevy Chase resident Amy Kostant's letter to the Gazette - made infamous by a Just Up The Pike post last winter - said the Purple Line would prevent her kids from running a lemonade stand on the trail.

"There are people who want the Capital Crescent Trail not to be a regional trail and to be kept as a neighborhood park," Phyillaier says. "It's a decision about what kind of trail we want to have - a local trail or a regional trail."

Phyillaier insists that the transitway may be the Capital Crescent Trail's only hope of being completed. "I think the Purple Line is our best chance of finishing the trail," he says. At Stewart Avenue in Lyttonsville, the off-road portion of the trail abruptly ends in an industrial district. A string of poorly-marked signs attempt to guide users to neighborhood streets in Rosemary Hills and Woodside, following a convoluted, mile-long route that ends at the Silver Spring Metro.

"You're stuck with these side path diversions," he says. "The local streets, they're narrow, they're old."

If the Purple Line were built, Phyillaier suggests, the trail and the rail could follow the rest of the unused Georgetown Branch right-of-way - currently owned by CSX and overgrown beyond recognition - behind the neighborhood and onto tracks that lead to the Silver Spring Metro. The trail would likely be elevated over the railway. "If [the Maryland Transit Administration] can negotiate with them, we have the access we need," says Phyillaier, but CSX will not grant the right-of-way for a trail alone.

While the idea of biking on top of trains may scare some, it's the only direct way into Silver Spring, Phyillaier says. "I know Isaac [Hantman, Bethesda resident and Purple Line opponent] rants about what a horrible corridor this is for a trail, but what's the alternative?"

Users of the trail would be ensured complete separation from other traffic, something than an on-road trail can't provide. "Compare that with if you're on a road," says Phyillaier. "How many cars will go by you when you're on Second Avenue? Is that better? I don't think so."

While Phyillaier stresses the significance of the Purple Line in completing the Capital Crescent Trail, he insists that the two projects are not fully intertwined. But it's hard to understand what he means when a business card advertising his website reads Finish The Trail - Build Light Rail at the bottom.

"I would never make the argument that we need the light rail to build the trail," he says. "We can't have the tail wag the dog . . . I think we should sell the Purple Line for its own reasons." Read more!

purple line haze: pam browning's trail

Class war butts heads with the environment as activist Pam Browning tries to keep her end of the Purple Line out of sight. Check out part THREE of a series on the Purple Line.

Activist Pam Browning on the Capital Crescent Trail. Browning's organized a petition to stop construction of the Purple Line on the popular path. Check out this slideshow of the Capital Crescent Trail/proposed Purple Line route in Chevy Chase.

I'm introduced to Pam Browning in her kitchen, spooning yogurt from a cup. Trees fill the view of a picture window behind her. A box of Trader Joe's dishwashing detergent prominently located on the kitchen counter.

"I'm a tree-hugger," she says. "You can write about that on here. It makes me want to cry."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Like most people, Pam Browning likes trees. Organizer of the Save the Trail Petition, Browning has spent the past several year fighting the Purple Line, a proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton. Its preferred route would follow the Capital Crescent Trail, a well-used and heavily-forested hiker-biker trial that runs through her back yard.

While some 11,000 trail users have signed her petition, but it appears considerably fewer actively support ther work.

A tree is chopped down in front of a house being rebuilt.

"We're going through a lot of mansionization right now."

On our way to the trail, Browning points out a construction crew working on a new house. "This used to be the 'other side of the tracks,'" Browning says, "and now we're having all this mansionization."

A man hacks away at a felled tree in the sidewalk. "And these guys are raping all the trees," she moans. "I'm having huge battles with the town about not stopping them."

I ask an elderly woman what she thinks of the Purple Line. "Purple Line? What Purple Line?" she spits. "The trains they want to put here," Browning responds. "I don't want it. Not a bit," she says.

"The observation is that the buses aren't full," Browning says as we enter the trail. "People come here to find what they can't elsewhere in this urban area."

"They're telling us it'll be a nice trail," says Browning, referring to the Maryland Transit Administration's plans to build the Purple Line alongside the trail. To do so would involve the removal of thousands of trees dating to the area's original development a century ago. "I say it's a fiction in the most generous terms."

The exclusive Columbia Country Club has been on of the Purple Line's biggest opponents since inception.

The trail's right-of-way ranges from sixty to ninety feet, the majority of which is completely forested. Many backyards infringe on it, making the area seem smaller than it really is. In the Columbia Country Club, which surrounds the trail on both sides, the trail is hemmed in on both sides by tall chain-link fences. Columbia, the most exclusive country club in the region, has historically been the Purple Line's largest opponent, suing the County for control of the railway in the 1980's when the project was first proposed.

A country club in one of the wealthiest communities in the nation is an easy target for proponents of a transit line that would serve some of Montgomery County's poorest neighborhoods. The Action Committee for Transit, who advocate building the Purple Line along the Capital Crescent Trail, blame Columbia Country Club for the project's twenty-year delay:

"Were it not for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Columbia Country Club has spent on political contributions, public relations, and lobbying, the segment from Bethesda to Silver Spring would already have been built."

But they aren't the only ones opposing the Purple Line, insists Browning. "The Ben Rosses [from Action Committee for Transit] . . . to them, it's all the country club. They don't see any of these houses," says Browning. "The people who use this trail don't go to the country club."

"They [MTA] don't have to look at the neighborhood or the trail. It's not their criteria."

A mother stands in the path, holding a bottle to her baby's mouth. A leashed dog stands guard. "What do you think of the Purple Line?" I ask. "I'm sort of still indifferent," she says. "As long as they make some kind of accomodation for pedestrians."

Take Columbia Country Club out of the equation, Browning explains, and class is no longer an issue. "These are not mansions [in Chevy Chase]," says Browning. "A lot of the people in this neighborhood are government workers or teachers."

For decades, she's been advocating for people in need, a fact she was quick to point out to me. "My senior thesis was on red-lining on the South Side of Chicago before Barack Obama was there," she notes.

"I wanted to get a job with the NAACP in Chicago, but they didn't know who I was," Browning laments. Instead, she moved to Washington over twenty years ago and started working in non-profit groups. She runs through a list of the advocacy and lobbying work she's done: migrant workers. Civil Rights. The decline of Black farmers. After-school programs for low-income kids. A national campaign for sustainable agriculture.

"[The controversy] it's like pitting Black people against Hispanic people."

"All my life I've been campaigning in non-profits for justice," she says, brow furrowing. "And I hate seeing this [the Purple Line controversy] painted as a justice issue when it's an environmental issue. It's like pitting Black people against Hispanic people."

Browning admits, however, that she doesn't know much about the Purple Line's proposed route east of Silver Spring and through some of Montgomery County's poorest neighborhoods - not to mention struggling neighborhoods on the Prince George's side as well.

"I'm not in the discussion of Silver Spring to New Carrollton. I don't know those areas," she says. "I'm saying the best transit plan for this area is Metro, and if it's tunneled or along the Beltway . . . I don't know everything that's at stake, but I know what's at stake here."

Two mothers power-walking with their kids. "What do you think of the Purple Line?" I ask. "We love it!" one says. "We were just saying we live in such a great place."

"I don't think she heard what you were saying," Browning suggests.

"So the developers said . . . Let's do whatever we have to to get the goddamned development!"

We can hear the roar of traffic on Connecticut Avenue up ahead. Six lanes of traffic stream from the Beltway through Chevy Chase and into the heart of D.C. The Capital Crescent Trail stops at a metal guardrail, takes a sudden jerk to the left, and ends at a poorly marked crosswalk. On the other side, next to a tall office building, the trail starts again.

There, the land on both sides of the trail is owned by the Chevy Chase Land Company, responsible for the development of the umpteen villages that bear the Chevy Chase name. If the Purple Line is built, Browning says, the company would make a fortune from a proposed development called Lake East to be built adjacent to the trail and a proposed Connecticut Avenue stop.

"This was not a transportation plan, it was a development plan," she spits. "There was nothing about your New Carrollton."

The trolley first proposed in the 1980's "would never get approved," Browning says. "So the developers said, 'Let's make it go to University of Maryland! Let's make it useful! Let's do whatever we have to to get the goddamned development!'"

Browning points to a bike shop in the office building that faces the trail. "They're crass enough to put a bike store here because they know how popular the trail is," she snorts.

"If everyone who wanted transit got together and said 'we want underground Metro,' we would have it. But instead, we're battling each other."

Four teenagers and a mother on bikes near Jones Mill Road. "I think it's a good idea," one kid says. "I want to have my cake and eat it, too," the mother says. "I want the bike trail and I want the Purple Line."

"Bike trail on top!" another kid adds.

The Chevy Chase Land Company is not "viewed favorably," she says, nor are most developers here. "Our developers are greedy," she says. "They just want to build up every inch of Bethesda that they can. Why not give some of that development to Silver Spring?"

Browning stops. "Have you ever been to Mexico?" she asks. "In every village there's a zocalo, or town square. These are areas where people come together. Every evening, they talk, and they don't go shopping.

Public, non-commercialized spaces such as this - whether on the currently undisturbed Capital Crescent Trail, Downtown Bethesda, or even in the land company's proposed development - are what communities need the most, she say. Places where people come together, instead of polarizing issues that only force people apart.

Several times during our conversation, Pam Browning appears to be on the brink of tears. It's hard not to be moved by her devotion to the trail. "It's a beautiful resource, and I've spent a significant amount of my life trying to save it," she says. "If everyone who wanted transit got together and said 'we want underground Metro,' we would have it. But instead, we're battling each other."

"I would love to have a Purple Line. I'd just like to have it underground," laments Browning. "We shouldn't be pitting transit against the environment."

Most voices in the Purple Line debate have yet to experience the Capital Crescent Trail, Browning says, and few are interested in learning more about it. "I would organize people to tie themselves to trees," proclaims Browning, "but short of that I can't get anyone to even walk the trail with me." Read more!

purple line haze: a history lesson

The Purple Line won't be the first time some Downcounty neighborhoods see trains going through their backyards. Check out part ONE of a series on the Purple Line.

The Capital Crescent Trail in Chevy Chase was a former rail line. Check out this slideshow of the Purple Line route through Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

Twenty-five years ago, households in Bethesda and Chevy Chase already had trains running through their backyards. A few times a week, trains carrying coal would travel a single track, dubbed the Georgetown Branch, from Silver Spring to Georgetown. The coal was used to power over a hundred federal buildings.

"People would wave from their backyards" at passing trains, says activist Pam Browning. "They thought it was quaint."

When the freight trains stopped running, Montgomery County started looking at ways to use the land for transit. What we have today is the "future" Capital Crescent Trail, named as such because its completion hinges partially on the construction of the Purple Line.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Guest blogger Adam Pagnucco explains:

In 1986, CSX decided to file for abandonment of its tracks. The county then passed the Georgetown Branch Master Plan Amendment in 11/86 designating the tracks as "a public right-of-way intended to be used for public purposes such as conservation, recreation, transportation and utilities." The amendment stated that "a transit facility could be an important element of the County's long-term transportation system."

This trestle bridge over Rock Creek was once used for freight trains.

In 1988, the county purchased the right-of-way from CSX for $10.5 million. Two years later, the county passed the Georgetown Branch Master Plan Amendment of 1990, which "designates the Silver Spring & Bethesda Trolley and the Capital Crescent Trail as suitable uses for the 4.4-mile portion of the Georgetown Branch right-of-way between Bethesda and Silver Spring."

The Bethesda-Chevy Chase Master Plan, also adopted in 1990, reinforces the intended right-of-way use for both trail and transit. It states, "Use of the route for transit would provide an alternative to driving on East-West Highway and Jones Bridge Road. It would assist those people who rely primarily on local public transit. The key to attractive, successful transit service is providing reliable, speedy service. The Georgetown Branch provides an existing travel corridor that could readily be adapted for transit use."

See the sector plan for further details - pages 103 and 104.

Newspaper articles from that time show that the county government intended transit use at the time they bought the CSX land. Chevy Chase residents reacted by first opposing possible residential development on the land and later by opposing rail service.

In 1989 the county council voted to accept state money to pay for most of the cost of what was then known as the trolley by a 6-1 vote. [Then-councilman] Ike Leggett was the sole dissenter. Two years later, the trolley line died because of rising cost estimates and state budget problems.

County Executive Ike Leggett explained his reasoning behind opposing the Georgetown Branch Trolley in this JUTP interview last February. The trolley would have used the same single track as the freight line, meaning that trains could only go one direction at a time.

"It would have taken forty-three minutes with single-track [there] and back," he says. "If you're on the platform in Silver Spring and the train just left, that's forty-three minutes you have to wait."

And while groups such as the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Coalition already opposed that project, Leggett's push to make it more efficient - by having two tracks instead of one and extending the line east to New Carrollton - have only increased their opposition. The current trail is exactly as wide as the original rail. In order to fit two tracks, a trail, and the necessary separation of the two, most of the trees in the right-of-way would have to be taken down.

"We don't think you could feasibly put a train and a trail here and not have it ruin the experience of the trail," says Mier Wolf, a Chevy Chase town councilman who proposed a town-led study of the Purple Line. "You don't get a [tree] canopy like this overnight."

Photos taken on the Capital Crescent Trail in Chevy Chase. Research by Adam Pagnucco; analysis by Dan Reed. Read more!

purple line haze: paralysis by analysis

Chevy Chase wants to do its own study of the Purple Line, but will it stall discussion? Check out part ONE of a series on the Purple Line. On FRIDAY, we'll continue our adventure in Chevy Chase with a visit to local activist Pam Browning.

Chevy Chase councilman/former mayor Mier Wolf on the Capital Crescent Trail. Wolf has proposed a $250,000 study on the Purple Line, which may run along the trail. Check out this slideshow of the Purple Line route through Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

I am walking through Chevy Chase with Mier Wolf, a man who for the past quarter-century has alternated between being a town councilman and being town mayor. Every block, it seems, someone stops to say "hello" to him. A Latino garbageman is throwing refuse into the back of a truck. "Thank you," Wolf says.

"This is a friendly town," says Wolf. "The strength of this town is there's a lot of community - but there's a lot of privacy."

Chevy Chase likes to keep to itself. All but one side street leading into the town from Connecticut Avenue is marked with a forbidding "DO NOT ENTER" sign, while the entrances of the town's two very exclusive country clubs - Columbia and Chevy Chase - have no signs at all.

In June, Chevy Chase residents even voted to take regional transportation matters into their own hands by approving a $250,000 study of the Purple Line, commissioned by Wolf himself. The town's got concerns about the proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton, which would skirt the town's northern edge for a few blocks - and even if the state of Maryland's already doing a multi-million-dollar study, Chevy Chase needs to look out for its own.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

the Capital Crescent Trail directly east of Bethesda in Chevy Chase.

"We want what's good for the County," Wolf says, but "the town is almost entirely in favor of undergrounding the Purple Line." The study will look at the line's impacts on Chevy Chase. "If they are what we think they are," he adds, the town will press the State to change its plans.

We're walking through a playground and into the Capital Crescent Trail now. Chevy Chase's chunk of the Purple Line falls in this "wildly popular" and heavily forested hiker-biker trail that swings around from Silver Spring to Georgetown. Until not long ago, it was a freight line, running slow trains a few times a week on a single track. ("People used to wave at it from their backyards," Wolf says.) But the Purple Line, however, would involve faster light-rail trains passing through every six minutes, posing a danger to users of the trail and neighboring houses.

"We don't think you could feasibly put a train and a trail here and not have it ruin the experience of the trail," says Wolf, gesturing to the majestic trees that blot out the sun and sounds of urban life. "You don't get a [tree] canopy like this overnight."

"Because this trail has existed, it's easier for [Purple Line] proponents to say 'let's just put the tracks here,'" says Wolf.

There are 11,000 people who use the trail each day, Wolf points out. That's half a million each year. The Purple Line can't claim that kind of ridership, he suggests.

The Maryland Transit Administration "couldn't find ridership justification for the route," he snorts. "There is not sufficient demand - especially from Bethesda to New Carrollton. There isn't enough to say people would go from Bethesda to New Carrollton."

I point out that, since Bethesda is a large job center, the majority of commuters would be headed from New Carrollton to Bethesda, and ask if Wolf has ever driven or used transit along congested East-West Highway before.

"No, I haven't driven it because that's not the route I take," says Wolf, adding, "I think the people on that transit should have a better understanding of the history of the trail."

Soon enough, we reach the East-West Highway underpass - the end of the Purple Line in Chevy Chase. Mier Wolf suggests that I speak to Pam Browning, a local activist and head of the Save the Trail Petition, which claims over ten thousand signatures of trail users who want it kept just the way it is.

We walk back to the Chevy Chase Town Hall and Community Center, a sprawling complex at the rough center of town, to make a phone call. In the lobby, Chuck Norris appears on a TV hanging from the ceiling. There's a heavy-set black woman at the front desk; like everyone else in Chevy Chase, she says "hi" to Wolf and they briefly chat about how hot it is.

"How do you get to work?" I ask the woman at the desk. "Do you live in Chevy Chase?"

"Oh, no!" she says, explaining how she takes the Metro from Naylor Road in Temple Hills across D.C. to work. "It was congested. It's horrible. On several of the trains it was no air."

"And they barely run any trains after eight or nine," Wolf commiserates.

I'm reminded of every night coming home from the 9:30 Club, waiting twenty minutes for a train to arrive. Could the Purple Line be the same? Trains wouldn't come every six minutes the whole day, right? Surely, Chevy Chase could live with that.

I propose this to Wolf. He frowns. "You know, when you talk about ridership estimates on a train that would only run during the rush hour, I have problems with that cost-wise," he says. "But if it's undergrounded, I don't have a problem with that."

Mier Wolf walks me the block-and-a-half to Pam Browning's house, one of a few dozen that actually backs to the trail. On the way, he explains how he'd ridden the Metro "since it was built" to his job at the department of Housing and Urban Development, better known as HUD.

"I'm a big Metro advocate," Wolf says. Read more!

purple line haze: twenty years of debate

An MTA light rail train arrives at the BWI Business Station outside of Baltimore. Light rail is one option for the proposed Purple Line.

Nearly twenty years after Montgomery County first proposed an east-west transit line between Bethesda and Silver Spring, the debate rages on. Once former Governor Glendening's top transportation priority, the Purple Line has become mired in debate and utter confusion. Most people aren't even familiar with the technologies - bus rapid transit or light rail - that it'll use if built.

Last year, we explored the Purple Line route in East Silver Spring and on the buses that currently run along it. But what do people on the other side of Rock Creek Park think about the Purple Line? And has anyone actually ridden a light-rail train before?

Over the next two weeks, Just Up The Pike takes a further look into the once and future Purple Line debate:

WEDNESDAY: Chevy Chase wants to do a quarter-million-dollar study on the impact of the proposed line on their town. Why do the extra legwork? JUTP interviews Mier Wolf, the town councilman who conceived the study.

THURSDAY: The Purple Line won't be the first time trains are running through some Bethesda and Silver Spring neighborhoods. Guest blogger Adam Pagnucco looks at the history of the Georgetown Branch.

FRIDAY: Activist Pam Browning says the Purple Line would be an "ecological disaster" on a popular trail, but do its users necessarily agree? JUTP takes a long walk down the Capital Crescent Trail.

FRIDAY: Check out this slideshow of the Purple Line route through Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

MONDAY: While most feel strongly about the need