Developers begin to move secret plan to extend Purple Line to Westbard, Sumner Place into open

I've been writing for many years about the secret plan to extend the Purple Line from Bethesda Avenue to Westbard and the Shops at Sumner Place. The developer-driven discussion is now moving to into public view on the developer-funded Greater Greater Washington website. While the proposals there are far from fully-developed, and this attempt - like the original Purple Line - is going to move forward regardless of public opposition, some fact-checking is still in order.

First, don't believe any discussion of a "Purple Line to Tysons" not involving stations at Westbard and Sumner Place. Developers who have had big plans for each location for decades, and hair-on-fire radicals who want to "destroy the suburbs" by any means necessary, have both wealthy communities squarely in their crosshairs. Along with Councilmember Hans Riemer's plan to flip those and other single-family home neighborhoods countywide into mixed-use zones with multifamily housing, it is part of a concerted effort to radically remake the American landscape. Riemer and his corrupt cronies on the Council and Planning Board have no intention of improving neglected neighborhoods and failing schools in the County. Instead, they intend to bring the successful ones down to the lowest common denominator, at the behest of their developer sugar daddies.

So ignore the distraction of a "Beltway Purple Line" or "American Legion Bridge Purple Line." The River Road station will not only upzone building heights and densities to urban levels, but will also be used to rezone properties like the Fourth Presbyterian Church, the Maryland State Highway Administration's River Road depot, and Kenwood Golf and Country Club for urban density. Hints at that even-grander scheme can be seen in the failed attempt to remove Kenwood's property tax exemption to try to bankrupt the club, and in real estate developer Gov. Larry Hogan's eagerness to covertly lower the River Road speed limit to 35 MPH over one recent night.

Second, the folks whom the developers employ are often carpetbaggers who aren't familiar with the landscapes and communities they are writing about. Let's not even get into the fact that they have no clue as to the political blowback they will get trying to run two tracks and a trail through Kenwood. But now that the Montgomery County cartel has done the impossible - defeating the once-invulnerable Columbia Country Club - they feel no one can stand in their way.

But just the topography alone of the proposed route through Westbard and Sumner is a mystery to many of the Purple Line extension advocates. For example, the Georgetown Branch railroad route the Capital Crescent Trail is based on is quite narrow west of the River Road industrial area. As bad as the clearcutting and landscape destruction has been on the Purple Line east of downtown Bethesda, a Purple Line west of River Road would wreak catastrophic environmental devastation. Through Sumner, to fit two tracks, a trail, a median, and fencing, would require something akin to mining companies blowing up West Virginia mountaintops.

Simiilarly, the article linked to above proposes a deep bore tunnel under the Potomac River that would begin on the Capital Crescent Trail near the Washington Aqueduct on MacArthur Boulevard. Did anyone stop to think about the massive drop between those two points? The cost of making such a radical grade transition via a subterranean tunnel?

Grade issues also raise the question of whether light rail is even the most sensible mode for such a rail route. How would light rail trains navigate such steep inclines? And the transit connection Purple Line extension advocates are trying to make is to...the Silver Line, which is a heavy rail subway line, not light rail. Wouldn't you want the trains to be compatible and run all the way to Dulles Airport, just as we are trying to extend MARC and VRE across state lines where applicable?

If one was really serious about creating viable transit, and not just about a cheap facilitation of stack-and-pack urban development, or destroying exclusive suburban neighborhoods, it's clear that a Metrorail route running mostly underground on the Maryland side would be the most sensible mode of transportation. Good luck getting developers and their puppets on the Council to pay for that; developers who have realized Bus Rapid Transit gets them the same profits are leading the nationwide trends of BRT and light rail, best interests of commuters and the environment be damned.

Third, we actually already know that the demand for transit between Bethesda and Tysons is virtually nonexistent. Unlike new arrivals examining the issue for the first time in 2019, longtime residents will remember we had an express Metrobus that ran regularly between the Bethesda Metro station and Tysons. It was canceled for lack of ridership. According to Metro, the express bus to Tysons required a subsidy of $10.84 per passenger, compared to a Metrobus average of $1.99 per passenger. Ridership dropped over 50% between 2000 and 2003. That was because the bus ceased to be free to ride. Oops.

The final nail in the coffin of common sense? Purple Line extension boosters are promising a 30-40 minute trip between Bethesda and Tysons. Like most subsidized public transit - such as the 50 minute proposed BRT line between Clarksburg and Shady Grove Metro, this is not a competitive time advantage over driving. Fuel costs for most modern cars would be less than the train fare. Again, only MARC commuter rail or a true heavy rail subway could provide the speed necessary to make rail an attractive alternative to driving.

Does anyone really want to spend an hour or two - factoring in bus connections to the Purple Line - traveling between Bethesda and Tysons? No. In fact, they did not want to ride the express Metrobus in 1998 between the two towns, and its travel time was as fast or faster than the proposed Purple Line extension. Instead of proposing solutions in search of problems at the behest of the developers and their hidden agenda, we should be solving the problems we know are hurting our economic development.

What we should really be spending money on are reducing highway congestion, and completing our unfinished master plan highway system. Want to fix the American Legion Bridge and speed car travel between the moribund bedroom community of Montgomery County and the booming job center of Tysons? Add the proposed Express Lanes to the Beltway on the Maryland side, linking up to the just-proposed extension to the bridge on the Virginia side.

Second, build the new Potomac River crossing to Dulles. A full 25% of cars on the American Legion Bridge are traveling to, or from, the Dulles area in both the morning and evening rush hours. Much of that traffic can be diverted to the new bridge. Combined with the Express Lanes, we would have much faster travel between Bethesda and Tysons, attract more jobs to Montgomery, and avoid damaging our successful residential neighborhoods around Westbard and Sumner Place. With our moribund economy and structural budget deficit, we need more offices, not more bedrooms.

By all indications, though, the County Council opposes every master plan highway that previous Councils refused to build. County elected officials in Rockville and Annapolis are frantically trying to stop Maryland's Express Lanes plan for I-270 and the Beltway, even as Virginia is approving the final leg of theirs between D.C. and Fredericksburg, where the office market is "on fire," according to one businessman there. In just the last few years, Virginia has also made the big boy investments in heavy rail like the Silver Line, VRE, and Amtrak, while low-energy developer tools like Riemer have spent those same years delivering empty talk about expanding MARC service and refusing to finish our road network.

Therefore, you can expect this Purple Line extension to be put forward. The County has acquired one piece of land for it at Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues, which will be needed to extend the tracks west from the downtown Bethesda Purple Line station. It is in the process of acquiring land next to the CCT right-of-way where a future River Road station would be. At both locations, it is claiming the acquisitions are for "parks."

We know better.