Bethesda Row after the Purple Line Opens?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I was looking at the Google Map someone made of the Purple Line route. It looks like it will really benefit Univ of Md with three stops and the connection to Metro. I think the Purple Line will raise the profile of the school among prospective applicants (especially those from out of state who would marvel at the novelty of the thing). That’s what happened when the Portland Streetcar famously built the line through the plaza of Portland State University 25 years ago.

Funny how UMD initially fought the Purple Line and tried to block it, like Duke University did with their proposed light rail.

UMD is definitely going to be boosted by the PL. The main immediate benefit will be a more regular connection from the metro station than the current shuttles. But also, UMD is expanding into the Discovery Disctrict, and there's two stops there. Students, faculty, and staff will have free rides in the 5 stops around UMD, so I expect those to be heavily used (that portion will also be the slowest part of the PL due to all the students crossing the tracks, hopefully they will be safe).

And I didn't even mention the increased ease to go to, or commute from, SS and Bethesday. I fully expect the PL will become a critical part of the regional infrastructure a few short years after opening.

Commuting from Bethesda will take one hour on the Purple Line, station to station. That will not be a favored option by anyone who cares about their time.

Bethesda to the middle of UMD campus will be 35 min station to station.

Correction, 35 min to the edge of campus on Adelphi Rd, 39 to the middle of campus.

And how much time to get to Bethesda station from home? From a lot of Bethesda you can do that same trip from your house in 30 minutes.

If your point is that someone will live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, anyone that can afford that rent values their time and no one that values their time would waste it pointlessly on the Purple Line.

The people who livei n apartments in downtown Bethesda are not the primary targeted demographics for the purple line. The purple line will be primarily for people who live in PG County, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, White Oak who have to travel to work over in the Bethesda area. People that can't afford to live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, but who have to work in Montgomery County. These are people who have spent hours on busses or on the Metro to go down into the city and back out the other way, or people who have to negotiate with a family member for use of a shared car. Going the other way, it is for people who live in Montgomery county, but are going to school at UMD. This will get a ton of cars off of the overly congested Beltway and East-West Highway and get those roads less crowded for those who will still commute by car.

What are these jobs you speak of? Bethesda has attracted one major employer in the past two decades and that employer is having trouble filling its office. More recently, landlords have torn down office buildings to put up housing for people who commute to DC. The number of commuters at UMCP has dropped by about half in the past two decades and a lot of those still come from north of campus, not east or west.

The Purple Line is solving problems from 20 or 30 years ago. How many years will it take to break even under even the most favorable benefit calculations? The money would have been better spent creating a better link with NoVa and getting Walter Reed and NIH commuters off of 355.

What are these jobs? The minimum wage workers at Giant, Safetway and Trader's Joes. The barristas who make your lattes at Starbucks. The janitorial staff for the various businesses and buildings in Bethesda. People who work at the desk or housekeeping at the Hyatt Regency and the Hilton. Those who work at the Dunkin Donuts and the clerks at the gas stations and convenience stores. Nannies for local families. There are thousands of low income staff at many of the businesses in the Bethesda and Chevy Chase area who can't really afford to live in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area. A significant number live in PG county or eastern Montgomery County and may commute via the green line down and the red line back out. Or take busses. But WMATA has been cutting many bus lines over recent years. My spouse now has full-time telework because my spouse cannot drive to work and the bus that spouse used to take to work was canceled by WMATA.

I have this feeling that you live in Montgomery County and are a NIMBY. I live in PG County and the Purple Line is very popular in PG County as one more way to make jobs in Montgomery County more accessible. I know a number of people who work in lower wage positions in Silver Spring or Bethesda areas who can't wait for the line to open up to solve some of their commuting issues. These people cannot afford to live in Bethesda and right now and looking forward to having a new mode of public transportation that goes around the beltway rather than as a spoke into town.

Do you think those jobs are going to generate 74,000 trips a day? That was the usage assumption when the Purple Line was approved.

And why do you focus on low wage workers? I’ll bet you’re a NIMBY who doesn’t want to live near poor people and you just expect them to commute from other places to make your latte and clean your bathrooms.

Think about all the trips you make that aren't (1) the trip from home to work or (2) the trip from work to home. Even after covid. If you want to know what's outdated, it's the assumption that the only trips that count are the work commute trips.

Errands aren’t going to drive ridership to the projected level. Only the presence of new major employers will do that. Instead of making up unrealistic claims about people doing their errands using the purple line, focus on improving business conditions so that Bethesda and Silver Spring attract more jobs. None of the things that the left YIMBYs want will happen without more jobs and yet at every turn you ignore the problem or support ideas that make it worse.

Exactly. And the Purple Line on its own will not attract new businesses. What will attract new businesses is better access to NOVA. Yet the left YIMBYs are NIMBY when it comes to that issue, which should be a priority for economic development.

There is literally new economic development going on at Chevy Chase lake where there will be a purple line stop. Amazon Fresh, apartments, ice cream, wine, etc...

You seem to have a lot of trouble understanding the scale of development and job growth necessary to justify the Purple Line. The Amazon Fresh doesn’t even employ cashiers and the ice cream store only has 2-3 people working in it at a time.

Are you looking for make work or for economic development? Like very few people work at an apartment building but those are good to develop right on top of a transit stop.

And where will the new jobs for the new residents be on the Purple Line? You seem to envision economic growth without jobs. It doesn’t work that way. You need new jobs. A lot of new jobs that pay high salaries.

Unless the left YIMBYs get behind repealing the energy tax and the local minimum wage (just to start) and some pro-business policies, there will be no jobs and the Purple Line will be a huge loser that underperforms even on the easy things like driving housing supply growth.

It's funny that you think the county needs jobs that pay well, but also the county should repeal the requirement that jobs pay well.

$17.15 an hour is not a job that pays well. In fact it makes you eligible for deeply affordable subsidized housing. We need jobs that actually pay well so that we have money for subsidies for people who have low-paying jobs. Thanks again for proving that left YIMBYs are innumerate and should stop weighing in on public investment and economics.

It's a job that pays a lot more than $7.25 an hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I was looking at the Google Map someone made of the Purple Line route. It looks like it will really benefit Univ of Md with three stops and the connection to Metro. I think the Purple Line will raise the profile of the school among prospective applicants (especially those from out of state who would marvel at the novelty of the thing). That’s what happened when the Portland Streetcar famously built the line through the plaza of Portland State University 25 years ago.

Funny how UMD initially fought the Purple Line and tried to block it, like Duke University did with their proposed light rail.

UMD is definitely going to be boosted by the PL. The main immediate benefit will be a more regular connection from the metro station than the current shuttles. But also, UMD is expanding into the Discovery Disctrict, and there's two stops there. Students, faculty, and staff will have free rides in the 5 stops around UMD, so I expect those to be heavily used (that portion will also be the slowest part of the PL due to all the students crossing the tracks, hopefully they will be safe).

And I didn't even mention the increased ease to go to, or commute from, SS and Bethesday. I fully expect the PL will become a critical part of the regional infrastructure a few short years after opening.

Commuting from Bethesda will take one hour on the Purple Line, station to station. That will not be a favored option by anyone who cares about their time.

Bethesda to the middle of UMD campus will be 35 min station to station.

Correction, 35 min to the edge of campus on Adelphi Rd, 39 to the middle of campus.

And how much time to get to Bethesda station from home? From a lot of Bethesda you can do that same trip from your house in 30 minutes.

If your point is that someone will live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, anyone that can afford that rent values their time and no one that values their time would waste it pointlessly on the Purple Line.

The people who livei n apartments in downtown Bethesda are not the primary targeted demographics for the purple line. The purple line will be primarily for people who live in PG County, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, White Oak who have to travel to work over in the Bethesda area. People that can't afford to live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, but who have to work in Montgomery County. These are people who have spent hours on busses or on the Metro to go down into the city and back out the other way, or people who have to negotiate with a family member for use of a shared car. Going the other way, it is for people who live in Montgomery county, but are going to school at UMD. This will get a ton of cars off of the overly congested Beltway and East-West Highway and get those roads less crowded for those who will still commute by car.

What are these jobs you speak of? Bethesda has attracted one major employer in the past two decades and that employer is having trouble filling its office. More recently, landlords have torn down office buildings to put up housing for people who commute to DC. The number of commuters at UMCP has dropped by about half in the past two decades and a lot of those still come from north of campus, not east or west.

The Purple Line is solving problems from 20 or 30 years ago. How many years will it take to break even under even the most favorable benefit calculations? The money would have been better spent creating a better link with NoVa and getting Walter Reed and NIH commuters off of 355.

What are these jobs? The minimum wage workers at Giant, Safetway and Trader's Joes. The barristas who make your lattes at Starbucks. The janitorial staff for the various businesses and buildings in Bethesda. People who work at the desk or housekeeping at the Hyatt Regency and the Hilton. Those who work at the Dunkin Donuts and the clerks at the gas stations and convenience stores. Nannies for local families. There are thousands of low income staff at many of the businesses in the Bethesda and Chevy Chase area who can't really afford to live in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area. A significant number live in PG county or eastern Montgomery County and may commute via the green line down and the red line back out. Or take busses. But WMATA has been cutting many bus lines over recent years. My spouse now has full-time telework because my spouse cannot drive to work and the bus that spouse used to take to work was canceled by WMATA.

I have this feeling that you live in Montgomery County and are a NIMBY. I live in PG County and the Purple Line is very popular in PG County as one more way to make jobs in Montgomery County more accessible. I know a number of people who work in lower wage positions in Silver Spring or Bethesda areas who can't wait for the line to open up to solve some of their commuting issues. These people cannot afford to live in Bethesda and right now and looking forward to having a new mode of public transportation that goes around the beltway rather than as a spoke into town.

Do you think those jobs are going to generate 74,000 trips a day? That was the usage assumption when the Purple Line was approved.

And why do you focus on low wage workers? I’ll bet you’re a NIMBY who doesn’t want to live near poor people and you just expect them to commute from other places to make your latte and clean your bathrooms.

Think about all the trips you make that aren't (1) the trip from home to work or (2) the trip from work to home. Even after covid. If you want to know what's outdated, it's the assumption that the only trips that count are the work commute trips.

Errands aren’t going to drive ridership to the projected level. Only the presence of new major employers will do that. Instead of making up unrealistic claims about people doing their errands using the purple line, focus on improving business conditions so that Bethesda and Silver Spring attract more jobs. None of the things that the left YIMBYs want will happen without more jobs and yet at every turn you ignore the problem or support ideas that make it worse.

Exactly. And the Purple Line on its own will not attract new businesses. What will attract new businesses is better access to NOVA. Yet the left YIMBYs are NIMBY when it comes to that issue, which should be a priority for economic development.

There is literally new economic development going on at Chevy Chase lake where there will be a purple line stop. Amazon Fresh, apartments, ice cream, wine, etc...

You seem to have a lot of trouble understanding the scale of development and job growth necessary to justify the Purple Line. The Amazon Fresh doesn’t even employ cashiers and the ice cream store only has 2-3 people working in it at a time.

Are you looking for make work or for economic development? Like very few people work at an apartment building but those are good to develop right on top of a transit stop.

And where will the new jobs for the new residents be on the Purple Line? You seem to envision economic growth without jobs. It doesn’t work that way. You need new jobs. A lot of new jobs that pay high salaries.

Unless the left YIMBYs get behind repealing the energy tax and the local minimum wage (just to start) and some pro-business policies, there will be no jobs and the Purple Line will be a huge loser that underperforms even on the easy things like driving housing supply growth.

What's the problem with the jobs these residents already have? The unemployment rate in MOCO is like 2.7%.

Most of them leave the county to work in Fairfax or DC. It’s why housing production in MoCo is sluggish and the lack of a business base forces the county to keep raising property tax rates. It also causes horrendous traffic that’s bad for the environment.

And they pay income and property taxes in MOCo. I just said there will be apartments along transit....

It would be tragic for us if you were in a position to influence decisions, though I fear you might be because this sounds so much like the drivel we get from planning and the council. People are at best a break-even proposition on average. Some pay taxes but they all consume a lot of services, especially if they moved here for the schools. Businesses pay a lot of taxes but consume little in the way of services. It’s hard to make a local government budget work without growing commercial real estate taxes.

So now the complaint is we need commercial real estate (not jobs). So we go back to the pont already made: we have apartments and commercial real estate being built along purple line stops.

If the commercial real estate tax base is growing it necessarily means you also have declining office vacancies, more office construction, and more jobs. We have apartments (the worst kind of development for the tax base because they’re under-assessed and usually cash flow negative from the government’s perspective) but not much commercial office because the business environment is terrible in MoCo. The point you’re missing is that the Purple Line is very unlikely to result in job growth because of other factors suppressing job growth along the Purple Line, so we will never realize the value of the investment. The lack of job growth will also cause housing production to underperform and hurt government revenue, eventually resulting in a reduction in services.

It's going to be tough to sell growth to someone that doesn't want the county to grow.

The funny thing about left YIMBYs is that they only want housing growth, they only want it on the most expensive land, and they only want the most expensive types of construction. No one has done more damage to this county’s economy than the left YIMBY/Smart Growth movement and they’ve left a terrible budget mess that continues to get worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This may sounds bad, but I am not looking forward to the Purple Line opening. Bethesda Row is already congested with people and Purple line will make it exponentially worse.

I also worry we'll see a lot more crime and bad people. BR is, at present, a pretty safe, wealthy enclave where teens can roam freely without worry. Sure there's crime, but it's mostly not locals. We've all seen the Nike Store robbery videos. Purple line will be low cost transit for people in lower income areas and that isn't always a great combination.

It's also a giant waste of public money, but I guess that ship has sailed. Ugh. Just wish it wasn't happening.

Also, poor Tacombi with that hideous construction plaza blocking all foot traffic for years on end. I hope they are getting a rent concession.

Move to Great Falls, Falls Church, Rockville or Gaithersburg. You could also rent in Georgetown or Foxhall

Ha ha - obviously you've never been to Rockville, where the Red Line delivers "crime and bad people" to inflict their problems on neighborhoods. We also have all of the subsidized housing that does the same. I think it would be better to maybe try to solve that problem, rather than building "enclaves" where rich people can hide and everyone else suffers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

That's funny because every time I drive to Virginia, I get on a toll lane and suddenly can actually drive. The hold-ups in VA now are from construction and back-ups as people enter Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

Even the law of induced demand has its limitations. The Beltway is the one of the exceptions where traffic has actually lessened substantially on the Va side. Fewer people are driving on that road post widening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

Even the law of induced demand has its limitations. The Beltway is the one of the exceptions where traffic has actually lessened substantially on the Va side. Fewer people are driving on that road post widening.

Induced demand is not relevant with congestion pricing. It’s why the anticar activists have switched up messaging by calling HOT lanes “Lexus lanes” and saying they are inequitable. In other contexts however they are all about increasing usage fees and costs for driving.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I was looking at the Google Map someone made of the Purple Line route. It looks like it will really benefit Univ of Md with three stops and the connection to Metro. I think the Purple Line will raise the profile of the school among prospective applicants (especially those from out of state who would marvel at the novelty of the thing). That’s what happened when the Portland Streetcar famously built the line through the plaza of Portland State University 25 years ago.

Funny how UMD initially fought the Purple Line and tried to block it, like Duke University did with their proposed light rail.

UMD is definitely going to be boosted by the PL. The main immediate benefit will be a more regular connection from the metro station than the current shuttles. But also, UMD is expanding into the Discovery Disctrict, and there's two stops there. Students, faculty, and staff will have free rides in the 5 stops around UMD, so I expect those to be heavily used (that portion will also be the slowest part of the PL due to all the students crossing the tracks, hopefully they will be safe).

And I didn't even mention the increased ease to go to, or commute from, SS and Bethesday. I fully expect the PL will become a critical part of the regional infrastructure a few short years after opening.

Commuting from Bethesda will take one hour on the Purple Line, station to station. That will not be a favored option by anyone who cares about their time.

Bethesda to the middle of UMD campus will be 35 min station to station.

Correction, 35 min to the edge of campus on Adelphi Rd, 39 to the middle of campus.

And how much time to get to Bethesda station from home? From a lot of Bethesda you can do that same trip from your house in 30 minutes.

If your point is that someone will live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, anyone that can afford that rent values their time and no one that values their time would waste it pointlessly on the Purple Line.

The people who livei n apartments in downtown Bethesda are not the primary targeted demographics for the purple line. The purple line will be primarily for people who live in PG County, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, White Oak who have to travel to work over in the Bethesda area. People that can't afford to live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, but who have to work in Montgomery County. These are people who have spent hours on busses or on the Metro to go down into the city and back out the other way, or people who have to negotiate with a family member for use of a shared car. Going the other way, it is for people who live in Montgomery county, but are going to school at UMD. This will get a ton of cars off of the overly congested Beltway and East-West Highway and get those roads less crowded for those who will still commute by car.

What are these jobs you speak of? Bethesda has attracted one major employer in the past two decades and that employer is having trouble filling its office. More recently, landlords have torn down office buildings to put up housing for people who commute to DC. The number of commuters at UMCP has dropped by about half in the past two decades and a lot of those still come from north of campus, not east or west.

The Purple Line is solving problems from 20 or 30 years ago. How many years will it take to break even under even the most favorable benefit calculations? The money would have been better spent creating a better link with NoVa and getting Walter Reed and NIH commuters off of 355.

What are these jobs? The minimum wage workers at Giant, Safetway and Trader's Joes. The barristas who make your lattes at Starbucks. The janitorial staff for the various businesses and buildings in Bethesda. People who work at the desk or housekeeping at the Hyatt Regency and the Hilton. Those who work at the Dunkin Donuts and the clerks at the gas stations and convenience stores. Nannies for local families. There are thousands of low income staff at many of the businesses in the Bethesda and Chevy Chase area who can't really afford to live in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area. A significant number live in PG county or eastern Montgomery County and may commute via the green line down and the red line back out. Or take busses. But WMATA has been cutting many bus lines over recent years. My spouse now has full-time telework because my spouse cannot drive to work and the bus that spouse used to take to work was canceled by WMATA.

I have this feeling that you live in Montgomery County and are a NIMBY. I live in PG County and the Purple Line is very popular in PG County as one more way to make jobs in Montgomery County more accessible. I know a number of people who work in lower wage positions in Silver Spring or Bethesda areas who can't wait for the line to open up to solve some of their commuting issues. These people cannot afford to live in Bethesda and right now and looking forward to having a new mode of public transportation that goes around the beltway rather than as a spoke into town.

Do you think those jobs are going to generate 74,000 trips a day? That was the usage assumption when the Purple Line was approved.

And why do you focus on low wage workers? I’ll bet you’re a NIMBY who doesn’t want to live near poor people and you just expect them to commute from other places to make your latte and clean your bathrooms.

Think about all the trips you make that aren't (1) the trip from home to work or (2) the trip from work to home. Even after covid. If you want to know what's outdated, it's the assumption that the only trips that count are the work commute trips.

Errands aren’t going to drive ridership to the projected level. Only the presence of new major employers will do that. Instead of making up unrealistic claims about people doing their errands using the purple line, focus on improving business conditions so that Bethesda and Silver Spring attract more jobs. None of the things that the left YIMBYs want will happen without more jobs and yet at every turn you ignore the problem or support ideas that make it worse.

Exactly. And the Purple Line on its own will not attract new businesses. What will attract new businesses is better access to NOVA. Yet the left YIMBYs are NIMBY when it comes to that issue, which should be a priority for economic development.

There is literally new economic development going on at Chevy Chase lake where there will be a purple line stop. Amazon Fresh, apartments, ice cream, wine, etc...

You seem to have a lot of trouble understanding the scale of development and job growth necessary to justify the Purple Line. The Amazon Fresh doesn’t even employ cashiers and the ice cream store only has 2-3 people working in it at a time.

Are you looking for make work or for economic development? Like very few people work at an apartment building but those are good to develop right on top of a transit stop.

And where will the new jobs for the new residents be on the Purple Line? You seem to envision economic growth without jobs. It doesn’t work that way. You need new jobs. A lot of new jobs that pay high salaries.

Unless the left YIMBYs get behind repealing the energy tax and the local minimum wage (just to start) and some pro-business policies, there will be no jobs and the Purple Line will be a huge loser that underperforms even on the easy things like driving housing supply growth.

What's the problem with the jobs these residents already have? The unemployment rate in MOCO is like 2.7%.

Most of them leave the county to work in Fairfax or DC. It’s why housing production in MoCo is sluggish and the lack of a business base forces the county to keep raising property tax rates. It also causes horrendous traffic that’s bad for the environment.

And they pay income and property taxes in MOCo. I just said there will be apartments along transit....

It would be tragic for us if you were in a position to influence decisions, though I fear you might be because this sounds so much like the drivel we get from planning and the council. People are at best a break-even proposition on average. Some pay taxes but they all consume a lot of services, especially if they moved here for the schools. Businesses pay a lot of taxes but consume little in the way of services. It’s hard to make a local government budget work without growing commercial real estate taxes.

So now the complaint is we need commercial real estate (not jobs). So we go back to the pont already made: we have apartments and commercial real estate being built along purple line stops.

If the commercial real estate tax base is growing it necessarily means you also have declining office vacancies, more office construction, and more jobs. We have apartments (the worst kind of development for the tax base because they’re under-assessed and usually cash flow negative from the government’s perspective) but not much commercial office because the business environment is terrible in MoCo. The point you’re missing is that the Purple Line is very unlikely to result in job growth because of other factors suppressing job growth along the Purple Line, so we will never realize the value of the investment. The lack of job growth will also cause housing production to underperform and hurt government revenue, eventually resulting in a reduction in services.

It's going to be tough to sell growth to someone that doesn't want the county to grow.

The funny thing about left YIMBYs is that they only want housing growth, they only want it on the most expensive land, and they only want the most expensive types of construction. No one has done more damage to this county’s economy than the left YIMBY/Smart Growth movement and they’ve left a terrible budget mess that continues to get worse.

Imagine that. Putting housing where there is a lot of demand for it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

But it has made more sites viable for housing construction, and we need more housing. If we hadn’t developed the 270 corridor then housing would be even more expensive.

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Anonymous wrote:I was looking at the Google Map someone made of the Purple Line route. It looks like it will really benefit Univ of Md with three stops and the connection to Metro. I think the Purple Line will raise the profile of the school among prospective applicants (especially those from out of state who would marvel at the novelty of the thing). That’s what happened when the Portland Streetcar famously built the line through the plaza of Portland State University 25 years ago.

Funny how UMD initially fought the Purple Line and tried to block it, like Duke University did with their proposed light rail.

UMD is definitely going to be boosted by the PL. The main immediate benefit will be a more regular connection from the metro station than the current shuttles. But also, UMD is expanding into the Discovery Disctrict, and there's two stops there. Students, faculty, and staff will have free rides in the 5 stops around UMD, so I expect those to be heavily used (that portion will also be the slowest part of the PL due to all the students crossing the tracks, hopefully they will be safe).

And I didn't even mention the increased ease to go to, or commute from, SS and Bethesday. I fully expect the PL will become a critical part of the regional infrastructure a few short years after opening.

Commuting from Bethesda will take one hour on the Purple Line, station to station. That will not be a favored option by anyone who cares about their time.

Bethesda to the middle of UMD campus will be 35 min station to station.

Correction, 35 min to the edge of campus on Adelphi Rd, 39 to the middle of campus.

And how much time to get to Bethesda station from home? From a lot of Bethesda you can do that same trip from your house in 30 minutes.

If your point is that someone will live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, anyone that can afford that rent values their time and no one that values their time would waste it pointlessly on the Purple Line.

The people who livei n apartments in downtown Bethesda are not the primary targeted demographics for the purple line. The purple line will be primarily for people who live in PG County, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, White Oak who have to travel to work over in the Bethesda area. People that can't afford to live in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, but who have to work in Montgomery County. These are people who have spent hours on busses or on the Metro to go down into the city and back out the other way, or people who have to negotiate with a family member for use of a shared car. Going the other way, it is for people who live in Montgomery county, but are going to school at UMD. This will get a ton of cars off of the overly congested Beltway and East-West Highway and get those roads less crowded for those who will still commute by car.

What are these jobs you speak of? Bethesda has attracted one major employer in the past two decades and that employer is having trouble filling its office. More recently, landlords have torn down office buildings to put up housing for people who commute to DC. The number of commuters at UMCP has dropped by about half in the past two decades and a lot of those still come from north of campus, not east or west.

The Purple Line is solving problems from 20 or 30 years ago. How many years will it take to break even under even the most favorable benefit calculations? The money would have been better spent creating a better link with NoVa and getting Walter Reed and NIH commuters off of 355.

What are these jobs? The minimum wage workers at Giant, Safetway and Trader's Joes. The barristas who make your lattes at Starbucks. The janitorial staff for the various businesses and buildings in Bethesda. People who work at the desk or housekeeping at the Hyatt Regency and the Hilton. Those who work at the Dunkin Donuts and the clerks at the gas stations and convenience stores. Nannies for local families. There are thousands of low income staff at many of the businesses in the Bethesda and Chevy Chase area who can't really afford to live in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area. A significant number live in PG county or eastern Montgomery County and may commute via the green line down and the red line back out. Or take busses. But WMATA has been cutting many bus lines over recent years. My spouse now has full-time telework because my spouse cannot drive to work and the bus that spouse used to take to work was canceled by WMATA.

I have this feeling that you live in Montgomery County and are a NIMBY. I live in PG County and the Purple Line is very popular in PG County as one more way to make jobs in Montgomery County more accessible. I know a number of people who work in lower wage positions in Silver Spring or Bethesda areas who can't wait for the line to open up to solve some of their commuting issues. These people cannot afford to live in Bethesda and right now and looking forward to having a new mode of public transportation that goes around the beltway rather than as a spoke into town.

Do you think those jobs are going to generate 74,000 trips a day? That was the usage assumption when the Purple Line was approved.

And why do you focus on low wage workers? I’ll bet you’re a NIMBY who doesn’t want to live near poor people and you just expect them to commute from other places to make your latte and clean your bathrooms.

Think about all the trips you make that aren't (1) the trip from home to work or (2) the trip from work to home. Even after covid. If you want to know what's outdated, it's the assumption that the only trips that count are the work commute trips.

Errands aren’t going to drive ridership to the projected level. Only the presence of new major employers will do that. Instead of making up unrealistic claims about people doing their errands using the purple line, focus on improving business conditions so that Bethesda and Silver Spring attract more jobs. None of the things that the left YIMBYs want will happen without more jobs and yet at every turn you ignore the problem or support ideas that make it worse.

Exactly. And the Purple Line on its own will not attract new businesses. What will attract new businesses is better access to NOVA. Yet the left YIMBYs are NIMBY when it comes to that issue, which should be a priority for economic development.

There is literally new economic development going on at Chevy Chase lake where there will be a purple line stop. Amazon Fresh, apartments, ice cream, wine, etc...

You seem to have a lot of trouble understanding the scale of development and job growth necessary to justify the Purple Line. The Amazon Fresh doesn’t even employ cashiers and the ice cream store only has 2-3 people working in it at a time.

Are you looking for make work or for economic development? Like very few people work at an apartment building but those are good to develop right on top of a transit stop.

And where will the new jobs for the new residents be on the Purple Line? You seem to envision economic growth without jobs. It doesn’t work that way. You need new jobs. A lot of new jobs that pay high salaries.

Unless the left YIMBYs get behind repealing the energy tax and the local minimum wage (just to start) and some pro-business policies, there will be no jobs and the Purple Line will be a huge loser that underperforms even on the easy things like driving housing supply growth.

What's the problem with the jobs these residents already have? The unemployment rate in MOCO is like 2.7%.

Most of them leave the county to work in Fairfax or DC. It’s why housing production in MoCo is sluggish and the lack of a business base forces the county to keep raising property tax rates. It also causes horrendous traffic that’s bad for the environment.

And they pay income and property taxes in MOCo. I just said there will be apartments along transit....

It would be tragic for us if you were in a position to influence decisions, though I fear you might be because this sounds so much like the drivel we get from planning and the council. People are at best a break-even proposition on average. Some pay taxes but they all consume a lot of services, especially if they moved here for the schools. Businesses pay a lot of taxes but consume little in the way of services. It’s hard to make a local government budget work without growing commercial real estate taxes.

So now the complaint is we need commercial real estate (not jobs). So we go back to the pont already made: we have apartments and commercial real estate being built along purple line stops.

If the commercial real estate tax base is growing it necessarily means you also have declining office vacancies, more office construction, and more jobs. We have apartments (the worst kind of development for the tax base because they’re under-assessed and usually cash flow negative from the government’s perspective) but not much commercial office because the business environment is terrible in MoCo. The point you’re missing is that the Purple Line is very unlikely to result in job growth because of other factors suppressing job growth along the Purple Line, so we will never realize the value of the investment. The lack of job growth will also cause housing production to underperform and hurt government revenue, eventually resulting in a reduction in services.

It's going to be tough to sell growth to someone that doesn't want the county to grow.

The funny thing about left YIMBYs is that they only want housing growth, they only want it on the most expensive land, and they only want the most expensive types of construction. No one has done more damage to this county’s economy than the left YIMBY/Smart Growth movement and they’ve left a terrible budget mess that continues to get worse.

Imagine that. Putting housing where there is a lot of demand for it.

There’s a lot of demand for housing in a lot of places, not only the places you approve of it. We underperform on housing production because developers view MoCo as higher risk and prefer to build in places with job growth. Your approach to growth has created a hot mess and a housing crisis. That’s great for big corporate landlords because they’ve secured enough market power to fix prices but it’s terrible for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

But it has made more sites viable for housing construction, and we need more housing. If we hadn’t developed the 270 corridor then housing would be even more expensive.

Nonsense. It's not car-dependent sprawl vs. nothing, it's car-dependent sprawl vs walkable/transitable compact development.

Unless you're saying that highways encourage sprawl? Because yes, that's true, highways encourage car-dependent sprawl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The purple line is the worst and dumbest tax taxpayer funded project in MD history. Such a colossal waste of our money.

And yes, Bethesda Row will have much, much more crime and overcrowding.

The parking lot at silver spring metro would like a word. And so would Hogan’s 495 expansion 😒

The parking lot at the Silver Spring metro station cost $11 billion?

I also don’t think that you realized that Virginia is extending the HOT lanes to the American Legion Bridge. If Maryland does not do something, traffic will be backed up on 495 for miles and miles and miles all of the time, every single day.

You anti-highway folks are such NIMBYs that you have no clue about the negative consequences and related economic effects. You probably have some idiotic rationale for why stifling congestion is actually good.

I actually think most people supported the 495 widening in Maryland to match Virginia’s project to ease traffic. And when the bridge is rebuilt, in addition to the road widening, space should be left over for some future high capacity rapid transit. That’s how the Wilson Bridge was rebuilt. Only a very small minority of disgruntled people were truly against the beltway widening; many of these fights are to score political points.

Most people, by now, know that highway widening "to ease traffic" has never, ever, ever, not once, actually eased traffic.

Even the law of induced demand has its limitations. The Beltway is the one of the exceptions where traffic has actually lessened substantially on the Va side. Fewer people are driving on that road post widening.

Widening highways to reduce the number of people driving is even more bonkers than widening highways to "ease traffic".