The Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail, on their website, is advocating for Montgomery County to study the possibility of single tracking the Purple Line light rail in the Bethesda Tunnel
The CCCT Board is very engaged in advocating for keeping the Trail in the tunnel. Greg Drury, the Chair of our Purple Line Committee, gave testimony to the Montgomery County Planning Board on Nov. 17 urging the Trail be kept in the tunnel. He presented the CCCT position that single-track for the Purple Line in the tunnel should be seriously evaluated. If only one track is in the tunnel, then the Purple Line and CCT can easily share the tunnel without any expensive modifications to the tunnel structures. The Trail would be a much better trail than the trail that is proposed to be in an overhead above the Purple line. See the CCCT single-track statement for the full CCCT position.
Unfortunately the Planning Board did not support the CCCT request for a careful evaluation of a single-track option.
CCCT believes the Planning Board decision to not even evaluate single-track was misguided. The MTA gave opinions without supporting evidence in their testimony to the Planning Board against single-track. For example, Purple Line Project Manager Mike Madden asserted that single-track had already been studied. But the study he referenced was for a single-track section three times as long as the one CCCT proposes, and that section was on the line between stations. Many findings from that study will not apply for this very different proposal. MTA consultant Harriet Levine asserted that if there were only one platform in the tunnel, then it would have to be much bigger than either of the two platforms that are planned. But MTA's own sketch of the Purple Line concept at the platforms in the tunnel, in the M-NCPPC staff report, show that the tunnel is wider in the area of the platforms than elsewhere. The sketch shows that both platforms shown in their sketch can remain, along with a full width trail.
The CCCT Board does not assert that it understands transit operations well enough to assess whether single-track can work in the tunnel with an acceptable impact on speed and reliability of transit operations. But we do know that MTA failed to substantiate its assertion that single-track would have an unacceptable impact at the Planning Board hearing. The single-track option would be far easier and less costly to build than either of the two options the Board did recommend for study. If a careful analysis shows that the Purple Line operational impacts caused by single-track in the tunnel are modest, then single-track is the compromise we badly need so that transit and trail can successfully share the tunnel at reasonable cost and risk.
It is not over. The Planning Board is only advisory to the Montgomery County Council. The Council T&E Committee will take this issue up on Dec. 5. Members of the CCCT and other stakeholders will be meeting with Councilmember Berliner the prior week to advocate for all reasonable options to be considered to keep the Trail in the tunnel. This should include single-track.
Meanwhile Wayne Phyillaier isn't so sure the tunnel is worth saving (at least not in the $40M form).
If going east from Woodmont Avenue, cyclists would have to pass through the conflicts in a very pedestrian active Woodmont Plaza to get to the tunnel entrance. Then they would be required to dismount, and walk up a tortuous switchback ramp built into the back side of a new JBG building to get to the overhead. The trail in the overhead will be at least as wide as the trail is in the tunnel today, but will have a vertical clearance as little as 8′. This will make it feel much more confining than it does today.
The proposed surface route will be less than 400′ longer than the tunnel route. You will only need to stop riding if you have to wait for the light at Wisconsin Avenue. A 10-12′ wide shared use trail on the north side of Bethesda Avenue and a shared use trail or cycletracks on Willow can separate cyclists from traffic.
A Jack Cochrane suggests a more direct route between the CCT and the Rock Creek Park Trail. It would be even cheaper to go with just a rope, and if you only wanted to go from the CCT to the RCPT, you could just invest in a mattress.
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