Credit where credit is due: a circle line for the subway

Belongs to Mark Jenkins. Mark writes about arts and urban issues, most frequently for the Washington City Paper, including the City Paper's City Desk blog.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s he wrote a regular column called "Cityscape." (I think he did that with Bill Rice, who has run for City Council a couple times, and who currently works in public affairs for the DC Office of Property Management.)

In 1990 or 1991, Mark wrote a cover story for the City Paper proposing a circumferential subway line connecting the ends of the spokes. He suggested coloring it and calling it a purple line--more like the graphic produced by the Sierra Club Metro DC Healthy Communities project, rather than the piece of the broad idea currently being pursued by the State of Maryland from Bethesda to New Carrollton.

Sierra Club graphic


State of Maryland Purple Line routing proposals. Washington Post graphic by Nathaniel Kelso.

The City Paper doesn't have its archives available back that far, but I think that they should put that article online, and make it permanently available for free...

I mention this because yesterday's Dr. Gridlock column in the Post includes a letter from Robert Wilensky from DC suggesting this, and Dr. Gridlock asked Mr. Wilensky "to expand on his idea."

Credit goes to Mark Jenkins long before, and for the multiyear effort by the Sierra Club, which has done more than result in the above graphic. Sierra Club has contributed to the organizing around the Purple Line in Montgomery. They have advocated against the Inter-County Connector toll road highway, which will consume most of the State of Maryland's federal transportation funding for at least the next decade, leaving precious little for transit projects in either the Baltimore or Washington regions.

Meanwhile, the Post has editorialized for the Inter County Connector...

Back when I read Mark Jenkins' column avidly, I read the very first Dr. Gridlock column--it was actually a pre-Dr. Gridlock piece, because it was the response to the piece that engendered the column. I was motivated to write a long long letter (never published) to Ron Shaffer and the Post making the point that for the most part, he was advocating an automobile lobby, not a campaign for better and balanced transportation and mobility.

Not crediting Mark Jenkins and the Purple Line Campaign by the Sierra Club is another failure by the Post.

Chris Carney, a staff member of the Sierra Club, protests the proposed route for the Inter-County Connector. (Baltimore Sun photo by Elizabeth Malby). Jul 11, 2005.

Also see the Baltimore Sun's in-depth collection of stories on The Intercounty Connector. And this blog entry, "Interesting difference of opinion between the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post on the Inter County Connector," from June 2006.