The Silver Spring Penguin

ROCKVILLE — The full county council on Tuesday showed nothing but love for a light-rail Purple Line ride, but they’d like to check out one more thing: the possibility of running east- and westbound trains on a single track along some parts of the Capital Crescent Trail.

“One of the critical things about rapid transit is that it has to be reliable and predictable. You can’t have trains arriving late, and trains that stack up on one another,” council member Marc Elrich (D-At large) said to state reps. “But if [single tracking] saves money and doesn’t affect your ability to operate the line, then I hope you’ll look at it.”

Single tracking that Bethesda-to-New Carrollton ride could soften its impact through Chevy Chase, said council member Roger Berliner (D-District 1), who proposed the study. Most trees along the trail will meet the ax to make way for overhead electrical wires, admitted Mike Madden, who manages this project for the state.

But rolling two trains on one track has its drawbacks, Madden testified. Back in the day, Baltimore’s light-rail line ran on a single track through some routes, and that saved the state some money up front on construction, he said. But the system paid it back in “impacts and angst.”

“When you have only one track and have to do maintenance, you have to shut down that whole track,” he warned. Train operators also would need spot-on timing to prevent scheduling conflicts, he said.

Nonetheless, five of the council’s eight members said they wanted the state to look into it. Opposition came from Dem members George Leventhal, Duchy Trachtenberg and Valerie Ervin.

“In Chevy Chase, there may be a certain quality-of-life issues related to the trail, but in East Silver Spring, those quality-of-life issues are different,” Ervin, who reps the downtown area, told her colleagues. More than 60 percent of people living along Purple Line routes rent their cribs, and many are recent immigrants, she spelled out.

“A significant conversation has to take place on how to revitalize those neighborhoods on the [Purple Line's] eastern end,” Ervin read from a prepared statement. “Our developing communities deserve the same level of service as those developed communities.”

Leventhal worried that a single-track study would throw a red herring in the Purple Line’s path, and that placating concerns on one end of the system would only open cans of worms somewhere else. “We can’t micromanage this project,” he told his colleagues.

The one thing that all agreed on was further study of a tunnel beneath Wayne Avenue. According to Jonathan Jay, vice president of the Seven Oaks-Evanswood Citizens Association, a tunnel would allow the mass-transit project to bypass downtown ’s congested streets as it worms its way to Long Branch.

But project manager Madden warned that tunneling could create more havoc by widening the route’s 48-foot berth to 80 feet at Mansfield Road. A ball field and a smaller park near Sligo Creek also could be impacted, he told the council. Still, the state would explore the possibility of a Wayne Avenue tunnel, Madden said.

Photo of Sacramento’s light-rail system courtesy of Flickr user PaulKimo9.

ROCKVILLE — Montgomery County officials are close to making up their minds about how the Purple Line mass-transit project will roll.

During a meeting of the county council’s transportation committee last Thursday, council members Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal and Roger Berliner (all Dems) gave much love to the project’s light-rail mode. If the full council votes on Tuesday to back the light-rail ride, they would join MoCo exec Ike Leggett and the county planning board on that trip.

“I’m looking forward to great joy in riding mass transit from Takoma Park to Rockville,” Leventhal (at large) quipped with his colleagues.

The transit project, which would connect Bethesda with New Carrollton through downtown Silver Spring, could have swung with a bus-rapid transit ride. Chevy Chase residents dig that option because they believe fewer trees will be destroyed along the Capital Crescent hiker/biker trail, which has been proposed as a possible light-rail route.

If a light-rail system ultimately is built, trees along the trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring will fall to make way for overhead power lines, reps for the state transit administration said.

“There’s no constituency more adversely impacted by the Purple Line light-rail alignment than those who use the trail, who live near the trail,” Berliner told transportation planners Thursday. “It’s a refuge from the daily struggle in an urban environment. It’s essential that we make the trail experience the best it can be.”

Still, Berliner said he favored a light-rail ride on the trail, as long as the path was widened to 16 feet where possible. MoCo exec Leggett told The Washington Post he was cool if the trail went out to 12 feet in width.

Committee members also said they’d keep the cost of pimping out the trail off the Purple Line’s tab. Tapping other funds, they said, would keep the Purple Line’s bottom line looking pretty when it competes for federal funding.

“For the first time ever, we’ll have a complete loop around Washington, DC, via a hiker/biker trail,” Leventhal beamed. “Without the Purple Line, we’d never be able to do this.”

As for downtown Silver Spring, committee members leaned towards cruising that ride down Bonifant Street, through the new Silver Spring library site at Fenton Street and Wayne Avenue, then on (not beneath) Wayne to the Long Branch area.

Still, legislative analyst Glenn Orlin convinced the committee to ask for a legit study of a possible Wayne Avenue tunnel. Rolling that light-rail ride underground could shave three minutes off the ride, Orlin said. It could also tack on $335 million to the price tag, he admitted.

And residents near the intersection of Wayne and Dale Drive will have to hoof it to either Mansfield Road or Cedar Street. Committee members, Leggett and the planning board agreed that a station at Dale Drive wasn’t going to happen.

Photo of Phoenix’s light-rail line courtesy of Flickr user Simax105.