OPERATING

PURPLE LINE, CCT

AS MARC ROUTES

COULD SAVE

TRANSPORTATION

FUNDS FOR

OTHER PROJECTS

Another www.RobertDyer.net Exclusive!!!

One of the biggest challenges Montgomery County and Maryland face is that we have decades worth of highway and transit projects to complete, but a lack of funds to pay for them. The bungled ICC has ravaged transportation budgets at the expense of everything else. And leaders such as Ike Leggett and Nancy Floreen (who say they'll spend billions to save millions) and Martin O'Malley (who has put the state's AAA bond rating on the line with a big-spending, no cutting, smoke and mirrors budget proposal - literally, because Wall Street has said so!) are intent to keep on spending transportation money on their special interest friends who got them elected.

This means that new, fiscally responsible citizens who win elections this November will have to save every penny, to spread funds across more projects.

One example would be to scrap the idea of light rail for the Purple Line and Corridor Cities Transitway, and run the routes as MARC commuter rail instead. It's hard to even fathom the CCT right now, as the route is poorly planned, and lacks the bicounty strategy, ample parking, and bus links it needs to have even a small benefit.

But both eventual projects could save money by using MARC diesel locomotives and passenger cars. Reliable, refurbished locomotives can be acquired at a lower cost, and combined with a larger MARC order to save even more.

Diesel trains do run on urban streets in other U.S. cities, and unlike Metro, they don't shut down when it snows!

What about the louder engine sound, you ask? Well, those same locomotives rode the rails of the Purple Line route two decades ago, so the precedent is set.

It's a sensible, responsible plan to provide more transit in the horrible fiscal situation this 8 year county council has left behind in its path of economic destruction.