Be Careful What You Wish For
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Regarding Roger K. Lewis's Dec. 23 Real Estate column, "My 2007 Wish List: An Intercounty Connector, a Purple Line . . .":
Perhaps Mr. Lewis failed to notice that in the primary contests in Montgomery County, the candidate for county executive who made the vote a referendum on the Purple Line lost by a wide margin. The voters are not as foolish as some might wish.
The Purple Line, as envisioned by its advocates, would cut wide swaths of destruction through residential areas of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Silver Spring. It would also result in the destruction of the Georgetown Branch of the Capital Crescent Trail. The certainty of this calamity is why we who oppose the Purple Line have argued for years that its original and strongest transit justification -- linking the two arms of the Red Line -- would be far better served by a deep tunnel that would permit regular Metro trains to make the connection.
Mr. Lewis hopes that tunneling will be used to spare Virginia a comparable disaster when Metro is extended to Tysons Corner and beyond. But he seems to see no drawback to using light rail for a Purple Line, which is designed to help create a "new Friendship Heights" at Chevy Chase Lake and which figures in plans for development in College Park.
The most likely consequence of a light-rail Purple Line would be an increase in traffic congestion affecting, among other things, Washington's emergency evacuation route, Connecticut Avenue.
JOHN A. WARNOCK
Chevy Chase
The writer is on the board of the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Coalition, which has fought to preserve the Georgetown Branch of the Capital Crescent Trail.
ยท
Roger K. Lewis's wishes for 2007 included wishful thinking about the intercounty connector, namely that "it should significantly reduce east-west Beltway traffic volume."
That's a big part of how the highway was sold to the public in the 2002 elections. However, Maryland's official ICC study, released in 2004, stated that the ICC is not intended to relieve traffic on the Beltway. The study, by the State Highway Administration, further concluded that the ICC wouldn't relieve traffic on the Beltway, Interstate 270 or I-95. Moreover, it found that traffic volumes on the Beltway in Montgomery County would be slightly higher if the ICC were built than if it were not.
The Post reported this finding in 2004 after several elected officials, including myself, publicized it at a news conference. The Post, a stalwart supporter of the ICC, has since acknowledged in editorials that the toll highway wouldn't relieve Beltway traffic.
PHIL ANDREWS
Member (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville)
Montgomery County Council
Rockville
