Reply to Bethesda Row after the Purple Line Opens?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]According to the U.S. Dept of Transportation the Purple Line will travel times by 40% and eliminate 17,000 auto trips daily. Those are the benefits. So even the auto-dependent should benefit from less road congestion.

Crime uptick would be minimal in my opinion, since it is relatively slow transit, not conducive to successful getaways.

Overall the pros outweigh the cons, otherwise why would a republican governor publically support it? [/quote]

It will never break even. The annual cost of the purple line for MD (net of fares collected) will be around $194.7 million. This means that the average cost per car trip avoided is $31.2. That is a very poor use of funds and it will not save the taxpayers money in comparison to driving or expanded bus routes. [/quote]

Which is beside the point.  Right now we have a problem with congestion on roads.  You need to increase public transit use along the route of the PL in order to relieve congestion.  It gets 17K cars off the roads between New Carrollton and Bethesda.  It also means that it decreases commuting costs for locals along or near the route.  Southern MoCo currently has a problem  with not enough affordable housing.  You have a lot of people that you need for support level employment (retail clerks, supermarket employees, cleaning staff, nannies, etc) who cannot afford to live in the area.  You either have to authorize more reserved affordable housing (which Bethesda and southern MoCo is also against) or provide lower income employees alternatives to live in more affordable areas and get to work.  Right now, forcing them to try to commute along the Beltway or E/W Highway or other routes, is a huge issue as the congestions has made it unsustainable to keep their employment as commute times get longer and longer due to congestion.

It will also make UMD much more accessible to people from Montgomery County, who do not have reliable forms of transportation.  Right now, people have to take the red line all the way downtown, transfer to green and come back out.  And the red line in-bound is the most congested Metro line in the entire metro area.  So you will also relieve some of the load on people who commute from MoCo to UMD.  They take the red line down to Bethesda and instead of going all the way downtown to transfer to the green line, they can go to Bethesda and transfer to the Purple line.

There are lots of public interest benefits beyond just the dollar value.[/quote]

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