Revisiting the Purple Line light rail project in Suburban Maryland | the tunnel in Bethesda for the Capital Crescent Trail

The Purple Line is getting a lot of coverage lately because of the delays in construction for various reasons ("Sometimes you have to wonder if transit/transit projects are being deliberately screwed up to make transit expansion almost impossible").

I've written tons about the Purple Line project over the years.

1.  A major conclusion was that to realize equity, revitalization, and urban design goals, the two counties, Montgomery and Prince George's, should have created a tax increment financing district I called a "Transportation Renewal District" and a companion community development corporation to buy, hold, and develop properties, make loans, etc.

-- Purple line planning in suburban Maryland as an opportunity to integrate place and people focused initiatives into delivery of new transit systems (2014)
-- Quick follow up to the Purple Line piece about creating a Transportation Renewal District and selling bonds to fund equitable development (2014)
-- To build the Purple Line, perhaps Montgomery and Prince George's Counties will have to create a "Transportation Renewal District" and Development Authority (2015)

-- Part 6 |  Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line

It turns out I first suggested this in 2007:

-- It's time to create the "Port Authority" of Montgomery and Prince George's Counties

2.  In 2017 (with later follow ups) I wrote a series of entries about how we should use new transit infrastructure projects as a way to drive complementary improvements across the transit network, with the aim of improving the success of the new infrastructure while increasing ridership on the network overall.

-- Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 1 | simultaneously introduce improvements to other elements of the transit network
-- Part 2 |   the program (macro changes)
-- Part 3 |   influences
-- Part 4 |   Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown"
-- PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"
-- Part 6 |  Creating a transportation development authority in Montgomery and Prince George's County to effectuate placemaking, retail development, and housing programs in association with the Purple Line
-- Part 7 | Using the Purple Line to rebrand Montgomery and Prince George's Counties as Design Forward
-- Revisiting the Purple Line article series after one year: Part 1 | a couple of baby steps (2018)
-- Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network (2019)

There are upwards of 50 recommendations when you include those for using the Purple Line as the way to reposition Silver Spring as an innovation and sustainable mobility district.

-- PL #5: Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"
- Part 1: Setting the stage
- Part 2: Program items 1- 9
- Part 3: Program items 10-18
- Part 4: Conclusion
- Map for the Silver Spring Sustainable Mobility District
- (Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans
- Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center

3.  In the 2017 series I didn't specifically mention the complex issue of maintaining an underground tunnel for the Capital Crescent Trail's crossing of Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda's Downtown.  

Flickr photo by Daniel Lobo.

The Post has a story about the "tunnel controversy," "Trail tunnel planned for downtown Bethesda faces another funding battle," stating that the current MoCo administration supports the tunnel, but is putting construction off until the future, so that it would not open 2030, four years after the light rail opens.  From the article:

Montgomery leaders have pledged for years to continue routing the Capital Crescent Trail beneath busy Wisconsin Avenue by replacing a previous trail tunnel that will become a light-rail station for the Purple Line. Trail advocates say a tunnel must be returned to protect runners, walkers and cyclists on the critical east-west link in the region’s trail network. 

The tunnel and trail between downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring have been closed since Purple Line construction started in 2017. The timing of the new trail tunnel’s construction — and whether it will open along with the Purple Line, as long promised — became the subject of budget fights two years ago after the project’s estimated cost more than doubled, to $55 million. .... 

Montgomery County Council member Andrew Friedson (D-District 1), who represents Bethesda, said the trail tunnel is critical to make cycling and walking safer and to encourage people to forgo driving. “This was a major piece of transportation infrastructure that was taken away from the community and was promised to be returned to them better,” Friedson said. “This idea of taking something out of service and then not returning it is totally inconceivable to me.”

I did write about it in 2012, suggesting the creation of a high quality crossing at grade, with a traffic signal, would be an acceptable tradeoff because squeezing the trail in the tunnel for the light rail would be super costly, and could make it harder to extend the Purple Line westward, which was the intent of the original context.

-- Purple line and the bicycle trail conflict (2012)

I know that the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, when they met with MoCo officials around that time shared photos I'd taken of crossings in Downtown Indianapolis for the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

In any case, if a tunnel won't be open til 2030, in the interim there would have to be an at grade crossing. Anyway.

So why not just make a super great at grade crossing, with a regular traffic signal (one phase for the traffic on Wisconsin Avenue, one phase for the trail), and call it a day?

Recommendation.  What I'd recommend is: 

(1) cancelling the tunnel -- spending $55 million or more (prices are likely to rise in the next 8 years) seems like "too much" money in terms of the costs and benefits, competing needs, and acceptable alternatives 

(2) in its place, construct a high quality at-grade crossing comparable to crossings on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail or other best practice trail/road crossings.

(3) as mitigation, and in sharing the "cost saving" for agreeing to "lesser quality replacement infrastructure," an agreement to use some of the money, how about $20 - $30 million, to accelerate the construction of other high quality bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements elsewhere in Montgomery County.

You could also spend some of that avoided cost of $55 million on planning for extending the Purple Line to Tysons in Northern Virginia.