Purple Line Now Takes on Al Carr

Just when you thought it was hot enough, the politics of the Purple Line are boiling over. What will everyone argue about once it is built?

One of the biggest disputes about the Purple Line is whether it should use the county-owned right-of-way along the Capital Crescent Trail (which was originally purchased for both trail and transit use) or be a Bus Rapid Transit line on Jones Bridge Road routed through the National Medical Center. Delegate Al Carr (D-18) has sided with the Jones Bridge BRT option, both in his testimony on the Purple Line and in his piece praising BRT in Cleveland (posted on both the District 18 Blog and Just Up the Pike).

Delegate Carr's viewpoint has provoked a strongly-worded counter-attack from Purple Line Now. Following is an open letter from Purple Line Now Chairman and Woodside Civic Association President Webb Smedley. We have asked Delegate Carr for his response and will post it once we receive it.

*****

Delegate Al Carr, District 18
Maryland House of Delegates

Dear Delegate Carr (Al):

I have been doing some digging since your Bethesda-Chevy Chase testimony against rail on the Master Plan alignment for the Purple Line. Your recent blog post prompts me to send you some feedback.

While I still do not understand your point that light rail divides communities (contrary to all my direct experience in Europe and the U.S.), I do take exception to the suggestion that BRT might be better for the Purple Line OR for the Capital Crescent Trail. Additionally, as far as the Purple Line goes, it is clear that it joins communities by crossing the great regional divided, the topic of a recent Washington Post article, as I am sure you noted.

For some detailed insight into the Cleveland situation, I have attached some input from Edson Tennyson, P.E, a Transportation planner and former official of the Pennsylvania State DOT, familiar with the various transit projects in Cleveland.

While I am obviously partisan as Chair of Purple Line NOW!, I am also President of the Woodside Civic Association which has a long-standing position in support of Light Rail. I am copying other Presidents of civic associations in District 18 that are supportive of the joint-use project that will include a light rail line on grass tracks adjacent to the completed Capital Crescent Trail.

First, I want to point out that your concern for saving the trail extends to only about 40% of the extent of the trail between Silver Spring and Bethesda - that between the Air Rights Building and Jones Bridge Rd. Only 6.8% of the trail is along the 60 ft right of way segment between the air rights building and East West Highway in the Town of Chevy Chase which has been doing a tremendous job of holding the Purple line hostage.

Much of the 60% of the trail in the Silver Spring part of the alignment will be running alongside the transitway or alongside the CSX main line and residents have made clear their preference for the trail running alongside quiet, modern light rail trains in grass tracks as opposed to buses on pavement.

The lion's share of the completed Capital Crescent Trail - 26% of the overall length of the trail (6,100 of 23,500 Linear Feet +/-) will be along the edge of Lyttonsville which, in addition to getting a transit stop will have the trail and transitway forming a recreational/transit edge between the residential neighborhood and the Brookville industrial district - a significant improvement for residents of this neighborhood which supports rail over bus rapid transit.

North Woodside and Woodside will account for about 19% of the trail or almost 3 times that of the Town of Chevy Chase segment. We also view this to be a major improvement by allowing easier and safer access to downtown Silver Spring, Rock Creek Park and downtown Bethesda.

As you know from joining our trail walk last Spring, completion of the trail will include removal and replacement of many trees for the entire alignment. This, we believe, is worth it in order to complete this major piece of the regional trail network. In this, it is clear: we take the regional view, the misguided government of the Town of Chevy Chase takes the most myopic and selfish localized view. Fortunately, dissent is growing, even in the town, as is shown by today's letter to the Post from Ruth Forte and Ted Rowse, residents of the town.

The $500k town expense to fight the Purple Line and the untold amounts added to that by the Country Club is stimulating an outrage in Prince George's County and I suggest you touch base with your colleagues in District 21, 22 and 47 before promoting the view that the Corridor Cities Transitway should go forward before the Purple Line because there is "no opposition to it" OR that the Purple Line should be a busway. I should note that we in Silver Spring suffered through the same type of debate when the downtown was in decline and demographically and in terms of Progressive politics there is much in common between Silver Spring and the communities of Northwestern Prince George's County that will benefit from the Purple Line.

Attached is the edited message from Mr. Tennyson regarding the Cleveland (and some other) busways. I hope you will consider spending some time with the pro-Purple Line leadership of the eastern end of your district and reconsider your position as this important project moves towards preliminary engineering.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Edson Tennyson

edited for length


BUS RAPID TRANSIT IN CLEVELAND

That report was largely fictional, or imaginary. The Red Rapid Transit Line that the author condemned as out-of-the-way and poorly located did carry 60,000 weekday riders before incompetent Cleveland management messed it up. I used to be Transit Commissioner in Youngstown Ohio, 65 miles from Cleveland and watched them build the Red Rapid Rail line.

Bus Rapid Transit is NOT less costly than Light Rail Transit, no way. The records are clear. If you use existing street pavement, that saves investment but it forever condemns the service to slow and costly to operate, with low ridership.

We have lots of official data on Bus Rapid Transit. I funded the state share of the first Pittsburgh BusWay. It was not cheap. They promised me 32,000 weekday passengers, up from 18,750 with no added buses, just improved efficiency. Well, in 1981, we had the Second Energy Crisis, and the South BusWay peaked at 20,750 weekday passengers. No efficiencies. It has been all down hill from there, down to 10,000 weekday passengers now.

Pittsburgh has suffered economically like Cleveland but not as bad. Nevertheless, the Light Rail Lines parallel to the South BusWay gained 50% in ridership when it was converted to include a short subway downtown. When one branch of the Light Rail line was shut down in 1993 to avoids bridge repair, the 8,000 displaced riders showed up with only 1.600 on the replacement BusWay bus. After 11 years, they put the Light Rail Line back and ridership on the Light Rail system gained 10%.

Pittsburgh then built an East BusWay.. I refused to fund it, so my new boss, the Secretary of Tranaportation funded it over my objection. This one planned for 90,000 weekday passengers but they thought better of it and cut the estimate to 80,000. It peaked at 30,000 and is at 28,000 now but bus ridership in Pittsburgh declined 26% at the same time. The East BusWay disrupted existing routes and split up travel with fewer buses on each line with longer waits.

Finally, Pittsburgh built the West BusWay using an abandoned railroad bed like the Georgetown branch except it had a short tunnel. It was to be eight miles long and was to cost $325 million in 1998. It was to carry 50,000 peop[e. The bids hit $ 525 million. Crooked Congressmen got an earmark to disregard the Full Funding Agreement that required the County to pay the cost overrun. They cut it back to only 5 miles to stay within the $ 325 million, but lost access to downtown, other than by the old way on the congested streets. Only 18 % of the 50,000 passengers have shown up so far. It coat more to build than Light Rail but attracts far fewer passengers.

Los Angeles built the Harbor Freeway BusWay about a decade ago. It cost half a billion dollars for ten miles. I have ridden on it. They looked at the Blue Light Rail Line to Long Beach parallel about five miles to the east which had 55,000 weekday passengers and predicted 63,000 for the BusWay as it would not require as many people to transfer as buses could get off the BusWay and use suburban streets as well as city streets. Well, it peaked at 3,300 weekday passengers as the Light Rail Lies grew to 80,000, NOT 33,000 by BusWay, but only 3,300.

Because of Chevy Chase-type dishonest politics, when they tried to build the Orange Light Rail line in San Fernando Valley, a crooked elected official got law passed forbidding Light Rail in San Fernando Valley and a subway extension. The Orange Line was built as a Busway but opponents did not want that either, They wanted no transit improvements that might bring "strangers" to "their" neighborhood. They estimated 7,500 weekday pasengers for the Orange LA BusWay but that did not match the population or the investment that required $350 million. It was obviously a dishonest estimate to avoid the embarassment they had on the Harbor Freeway Busway. It opened with 18,000 and grew to 23,000 as people found out it was faster BUT it is much slower than Light Rail, 21 miles per hour by busway, 27 miles per hour by LRT on that line. Also, it takes about 40 bus drivers in the peak where LightRail would need only nine operators.

Los Angeles has three Light Rail Lines and several BRT projects but Light Rail is the low cost operation. 48 cents per passenger-mile vs. 55 cents by bus BUT the accounting is distorted. They assign General Administration cost by passenger, so empty buses get no such cost, but busy Light Rail lines carry the bus overhead costs. Politicians do things like that. The ex-Treasurer that set up the accounting, Tom Rubin, travels all over the country damning rail transit and promoting bus but no one trusts him.

Ottawa has the most extensive BusWay system but lost ridership every year as it expanded. Ridership started to grow again when they added a rail line.

As for The Health Line in Cleveland, with a 5-minute headway, that is 1,000 peak hour passengers one way suggesting about 12,000 all day total. The "misplaced" rail line parallel carries almost, not quite twice that. A problem not mentioned is that Light Rail costs include Proof-of-Payment fare collection because that is how it is done, except in Pittsburgh. Bus costs do not include that, but it does cost. Add 15% to bus cost. Articulated buses also fishtail in snow and on ice or wet pavement. Several cities have to restrict them in bad weather. Boston drivers refused to operate them in snow two years ago. Pittsburgh has killed at least seven people in vehicles on their Busways that I know of. Six were killed for lack of signals to "save" money and one was killed in a head on collision in snow.

The 25 minutes from Public Square to University Circle in Cleveland is only 15 miles per hour. It will take 38 minutes to Windermere but Red Rail makes it in 20 minutes. Few, indeed, will take a 38 minute trip in preference to a 20-minute trip. I repeat, investment is not a cost, It is an asset. Operations are what costs and depreciation added to operating cost recovers the investment over time. BRT is not low cost, no way, but Light Rail is.

Ed Tennyson