Revisiting yet again the Capital Crescent Trail underground tunnel debacle: Bethesda/Purple Line light rail

I haven't been writing so much lately because I am in a depressed phase where it seems to me that the capacity of government to be innovative is minimal.  

I was talking about my writing the other day and I said, half the pieces are about innovation, the other half are about poor decision making.

Last year I wrote about the ongoing cost issues wrt keeping the underground tunnel for the Capital Crescent Trail, which goes under Wisconsin Avenue in Downtown Bethesda.  

 -- "Revisiting the Purple Line light rail project in Suburban Maryland | the tunnel in Bethesda for the Capital Crescent Trail" (2022)

For various reasons, a tunnel is expensive and presents some serious negatives in terms of opportunity costs and reductions in the benefits and possibilities for the light rail connection at the Bethesda Metrorail Station (on the Red Line).

For those reasons, 10 years ago, I said it was better to shift to an at-grade crossing, done extranormally well such as how the Indianapolis Cultural Trail is configured but with a traffic signal, and put the money not spent into other bicycle support infrastructure.

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

After all, the point should be to create a stronger bikeways network overall, a system!

Bicycle Traffic as a system, diagram, German National Bicycle Plan, 2002-2012

It comes up again because according to the Washington Post ("New Capital Crescent Trail tunnel could be delayed as costs grow"), now the cost of a tunnel is over $80 million.  From the article:

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) proposed Tuesday to delay building a tunnel to continue carrying the Capital Crescent Trail beneath downtown Bethesda, saying its growing cost, now estimated at up to $82.5 million, is too expensive.

Under Elrich’s proposal, an expected 2½ years of tunnel construction would start sometime after mid-2028, beyond the county’s six-year capital spending plan. That would delay its opening until at least late 2030, four years after the adjacent light-rail Purple Line is scheduled to begin carrying passengers in late 2026.

Elrich’s timeline, trail advocates say, would violate the county’s long-held promise to reopen an underground trail crossing in tandem with the state’s Purple Line. Montgomery leaders publicly assured the trail would continue to carry cyclists and runners beneath busy Wisconsin Avenue after the state sought to use the original trail tunnel for the Purple Line’s Bethesda station.

It's pretty obvious why this stuff depresses me.  

It takes years and years to build infrastructure as it is.  And so much time in so many instances is further wasted, and costs escalate, because of poor consideration of options, lack of understanding about constraints and cost benefit analysis, and the resulting bad decision making.

Especially because in this case, an underground tunnel makes it even more difficult to extend the Purple Line west (over the American Legion Bridge), which should be a priority, which should be being planned for now, and it isn't ("As the American Legion Bridge turns 60, its traffic woes draw scrutiny," Post).

The American Legion Bridge, seen during an evening rush hour in early December, has some of the worst traffic congestion in the Washington region. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

This isn't difficult stuff.