Bi-County Transitway

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The Bi-County Transitway (BCT), nicknamed the "Purple Line" by residents of the Washington D.C. metro area, is a proposed 14-mile (23 km) transit line to link the Red, Green and Orange lines of the Washington Metro train system.

1 Will it be a train or a bus?
2 History
3 Route and station locations
4 Community support and opposition
5 Other mass transit linking lines
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Will it be a train or a bus?

Robert Flanagan, the Maryland State Secretary of Transportation under outgoing governor Robert Ehrlich, has been advocating the introduction of a rapid bus line along the Bethesda-New Carrollton route, instead of the light rail Purple Line that was planned earlier (see "History" below). Currently, the state government is performing studies to weigh the pros and cons of bus and rail.

The official government name for the project ("Bi-County Transitway") reflects the potential displacement of the Purple Line by the new bus proposal. However, the Washington Post (which advocates the rail option) and most residents who would use the new rail line continue to use the older name.

The case for a rapid bus line

Because the Federal Transit Administration under President Bush advocates bus rapid transit and discourages the construction of new rail infrastructure, it may be easier to secure federal funds for buses than for trains.
Although high labor costs for driving and maintaining fleets of buses means that the expenses of maintaining bus rapid transit and light rail systems are similar, bus routes are cheaper than train lines to install initially.
Buses make it possible to operate routes that utilize the transitway for a portion of their route, but deviate into neighborhoods or continue in other directions beyond the transitway's terminus, thus making the transitway a trunk line for several bus routes. Rail service would be totally confined to the transitway.

The case for a train line

Regardless of how many features separate rapid from ordinary buses, there is a feeling that current drivers will not stop using their cars to ride a bus, because buses suffer from an "image" problem that trains do not. One source of the image problem may be that drivers consider their own cars faster and more dependable than buses.
For communities interested in smart growth, rail has been shown to have a much greater impact on surrounding development than buses. For example, downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring are large, urban activity centers due in no small part to their Metro stations. If the Red Line were a bus route instead of a subway, it is not likely that Bethesda and Silver Spring would be as successful as they are.
Rail can accommodate higher capacity ridership than buses, since buses cannot be coupled together to form sets.
Rail offers a smoother, more comfortable ride compared to the often bumpy and jerky motion of buses.

[edit] History

The BCT government project is a result of the merging of two projects known as the Georgetown Branch Light Rail Transit (GBLRT) and the Purple Line. The GBLRT was proposed to be a light rail transit line from Silver Spring westward, following the former Georgetown Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (now a short CSX siding and the Capital Crescent Trail) to Bethesda. The Purple Line was originally conceived as a rail line from New Carrollton to Silver Spring. The merging of these projects was initiated by Maryland Secretary of Transportation Robert Flanagan in order to lower costs and allow trips across both corridors.

Previously (in 1996), the Glendenning administration removed the heavy rail option from discussion because it was felt that the cost was greater than the need. The Ehrlich administration did not put the heavy line option back on the table. However, since 1996 both counties along the proposed route of the BCT grew substantially in population and number of jobs. As a result, congestion in the region's roadways has become much worse in the intervening ten years.

[edit] Route and station locations

The planned rail or rapid bus line will connect the existing Metro stations at:

New stations are planned at:

Chevy Chase Lake
West Silver Spring
The Woodside community in Silver Spring
The Long Branch section of Takoma Park and Silver Spring
The border between Takoma Park and Langley Park (New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard)
The main commercial zone in Langley Park (Riggs Road and University Boulevard)
College Park / University of Maryland (possibly additional stations to existing)
Riverdale

[edit] Community support and opposition

[edit] Support for rail

The Washington Post advocates construction of the Purple Line light rail option.
Subsequent to the 2006 midterm election, the members-elect of the Montgomery County Council and Prince George's County are unanimously in favor of the Purple Line light rail option.
Other officials recently elected by the community (in particular, Governor-Elect O'Malley) are also strong Purple Line advocates.
The Sierra Club advocates a larger-scale rail system to parallel the Capital Beltway and link all existing Metro lines at their peripheries. This environmental group advocates rail transit over car use because carbon emissions are a major risk factor for global warming.

[edit] Support for bus

Support for the rapid bus option seems weak among residents of Montgomery and Prince George's Counties.

[edit] Opposition

The leading opponent of both options is the Columbia Country Club, whose golf course occupies both sides of the planned route (the Georgetown Branch rail right-of-way).^[1]
Some Bethesda and Chevy Chase residents also object, because the new line would be less beautiful than the current space and could impact the value of properties adjoining the rail right-of-way. The group representing this viewpoint is called the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Coalition; their mission statement is "To foster the creation of green space in the urban environment."
The environmental argument against the BCT/Purple Line is that thousands of trees of various sizes would have to be removed to make room for the mass transit line.

[edit] Other mass transit linking lines

If the BCT is built, the transit system of the capital of the United States will join the list of international transit systems with linking lines.

In the Shanghai Metro, Line 4 (colored purple on the official map) is called the Circle Line. The Shanghai "Purple Line" links the red, green and yellow lines of the Shanghai subway system.
In the Moscow Metro, the ring line (colored brown on the official map) is Koltsevaya. The Moscow ring line links all eleven of the other metro lines.
The London Underground is so extensive that many lines link the lines that go downtown.