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Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Mass Transit Magazine June 2026 Cover Story, Maryland Purple Line light rail

"The MDOT MTA Purple Line: Nearly Two Decades in the Making" is the cover story of the June issue of Mass Transit Magazine.

Although they have the timeline way wrong.  I sent them a letter with a bunch of points about three different articles, including that one, but they never responded.

The Purple Line cover is cool because 21 years ago at a conference in Portland at a used bookstore I picked up a 1976 copy of Railway Age featuring the opening of the DC Metrorail system. 

I'll save this copy, and the one that comes out when it goes into revenue service for sure. 

But I have comments: 1. Press release from UTA about BRT in Park City.  NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would call that rural. So it's not the first rural BRT.

It's an odd stretch of land with development restrictions between two intensely developed areas. It's urbanized in the context of Census area determinations. 

Your magazine doesn't cover resort (or college) transportation systems very much, it should because there are always things the rest of us can learn. High Valley Transit was developed because "Park City" didn't want to keep providing transit service for all of Summit County. 

HVT when UTA discontinued a key route between Park City and Salt Lake, picked that route up, and like all the other HVT (and Park City) routes, it's free. (Poorly marketed in Salt Lake County though, something I've been meaning to write to HVT and UTA about).

Frankly, that's a story right there. Big agency wimps out, little agency steps in. That being said, where UTA operates, I think they do a good job, and that's based on my experience of 32 years of DC and Baltimore transit. 

The Railway Age cover I mentioned.

2. The HDR article ("Understanding Development around Rail Transit Stations") does us a disservice by not stating what city they worked in because how am I, an intelligent reader, supposed to find the planning documents that resulted. 

Plus, you missed that they mentioned they created a station typology,, BUT THEY DIDN"T LIST IT. Since I have created a station typology of my own based on DC and Baltimore,  I want to see if I missed anything. 

I can't without reference to the city or a link to the planning documents. I understand why you want user submitted content, but still you need to edit it, ask questions for elucidation, and provide contact information for interested readers. Gaps become very evident for the careful reader. 


3. Purple Line. I first read about the concept in a cover story in the Washington City Paper in December 1987. So it's been a 40 year project, not a 20 year one. 

The article didn't discuss how the first 3P consortium dropped out and a new one was selected. 

It left out all the political stuff, which is important. For example, in 2005 at a conference I got a tour of the Tri Met MAX Yellow Line. Even there they didn't disclose the funding to us, but I asked. It turned out it took three tries. 

MAX Yellow Line, Portland.

First, because it was to go to Vancouver, Washington state residents had to approve in a vote, they didn't. 

Second, just within Oregon they had to vote, and the suburban areas of the region voted no and it failed. 

So Three, not unlike how after failed county wide votes Seattle realized that they should just tax themselves for bus improvements since King County voted no while they voted yes, the third iteration was the creation of an urban renewal district just for Portland, used TIF and other monies to fund the line--Vancouver's loss. 

Anyway, work had started more than 20 years ago on the PL under Governor Glendening. It was stopped cold under Governor Ehrlich, revived by Governor O'Malley and then fucked up by Governor Hogan, who delayed it by a few years. (every year of delay costs money) but the political and economic elites in Suburban Washington made it happen while Hogan had to be satisfied by cutting the not well thought out Red Line for Baltimore and mostly focusing on toll road expansion, not transit. Although he got enamored with maglev. 

Also the citizen group in Montgomery County, Action Committee for Transit, was key in keeping the concept alive during the down years.  (Like how streetcars in both Tucson and Dallas came about initially because of strong citizen advocacy.) 

The article didn't discuss if there is going to be fare integration with Metrorail (way back State Secretary of Transportation Porcari said it would) or that WMATA refused to take the project on, so Maryland did it (around 2002 WMATA devolved expansion planning to the three jurisdictions). 

Same with the Takoma Langley Crossroads bus station at a future PL stop, WMATA wouldn't take it on, so MTA manages it, even though their primary focus for infrastructure operation is Baltimore. 

Only now is WMATA warming up to other modes. 

You also didn't discuss the absolute failure to continue to plan for further expansion. The original concept was a fully circumferential line. 

If it's taken 40 years to get one segment built, it'll take 120 more years for the rest of it to come to fruition. In any case from the New Carrolton terminus to Alexandria and from Bethesda to Tysons, planning should be underway and isn't. 

FWIW, when I briefly worked for Baltimore County in 2009-10, a memo I wrote on bicycling influenced State Highway Administration to build a complementary bike way, leveraging the Purple Line and connecting to the previously off road Capital Crescent Trail, which used the old ROW from the power plant that Montgomery County bought which led to the Purple Line.  

(plus more links)


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