They’re already replacing a section of tracks near Flower Ave in TP - which have NEVER had a single train on them - because road traffic has worn the rails out already.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way that current metro system is viable after covid and the rise of work from home. All planned expansions need to be halted.

Ummm Metrorail currently moves an average of 500,000 people per weekday. Sadly that is a big drop from what it used to carry but it is still a massive number of people (and ridership has been steadily growing for the last 2 years) and traffic in this region would grind to a halt without Metro.

The metro has a budget of 5 billion dollars and they had only 200M trips (total) in FY 2023. That is $25 per trip, which is an absurd number. It would be much cheaper per trip just have buses. This whole metro system is an insane waste of money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? Bethesda to UMD? We want it. Thousands of college students, university profs and employees are eagerly waiting for it.

Don't be stupid.

oh yes, all those UMD students commuting from downtown Bethesda..

Driving, even with traffic, will be faster

No it won't be - the Purple Line which will have it's own right of way for most of the route will take 9 minutes to go from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

There is no way even at 2AM to cover that distance today in 9 minutes.

Also left out of this discussion is that the project will extend the Capital Crescent Trail (the most used multi-use trail in the country) from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

.

All of which will bring more crime to Bethesda.

You meant to write diversity. It's a common mistake.

Hahaha. What a stupid post. It's happening. Deal with it

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? Bethesda to UMD? We want it. Thousands of college students, university profs and employees are eagerly waiting for it.

Don't be stupid.

oh yes, all those UMD students commuting from downtown Bethesda..

Driving, even with traffic, will be faster

No it won't be - the Purple Line which will have it's own right of way for most of the route will take 9 minutes to go from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

There is no way even at 2AM to cover that distance today in 9 minutes.

Also left out of this discussion is that the project will extend the Capital Crescent Trail (the most used multi-use trail in the country) from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

You won't be taking metro at 2AM either. And while it might take 9 minutes, the trains don't run every minute.

Does metro run at 2am?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? Bethesda to UMD? We want it. Thousands of college students, university profs and employees are eagerly waiting for it.

Don't be stupid.

oh yes, all those UMD students commuting from downtown Bethesda..

Driving, even with traffic, will be faster

No it won't be - the Purple Line which will have it's own right of way for most of the route will take 9 minutes to go from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

There is no way even at 2AM to cover that distance today in 9 minutes.

Also left out of this discussion is that the project will extend the Capital Crescent Trail (the most used multi-use trail in the country) from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

.

All of which will bring more crime to Bethesda.

Anonymous wrote:Public services are not businesses, they are not meant to make a profit

Exactly. They are jobs programs used to employ those that would be unable to find work in the corporate world due to their incompetence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? Bethesda to UMD? We want it. Thousands of college students, university profs and employees are eagerly waiting for it.

Don't be stupid.

oh yes, all those UMD students commuting from downtown Bethesda..

Driving, even with traffic, will be faster

No it won't be - the Purple Line which will have it's own right of way for most of the route will take 9 minutes to go from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

There is no way even at 2AM to cover that distance today in 9 minutes.

Also left out of this discussion is that the project will extend the Capital Crescent Trail (the most used multi-use trail in the country) from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

You won't be taking metro at 2AM either. And while it might take 9 minutes, the trains don't run every minute.

Anonymous wrote:They should have just built the purple line from Bethesda to silver spring, use the existing right of way called it a day. Building the rest of it eastward added tons to the cost and time, was the major engineering feat, and the train will be slow as molasses as it winds its way through PG.

Actually it is the west end of the project that is costing the most by far - the Bethesda and Silver Spring stations are both incredibly complex with the tie ins to Metro and there is also a bunch of tunneling in Silver Spring that was very expensive.

Most of the eastern end of the project is for basic surface level stations with minimal excavation and land use costs.

Anonymous wrote:The is a complete waste of money and it will bankrupt MD. Virginia is not not stupid enough to subsidize this mistake. We will not contribute extra to cover the fiscal shortfall from Marylands irresponsible financial decisions. There is no political will to bail out MD here, so good luck everyone else.

Ummm Virginia just spent even more more money extending Metrorail out to Dulles and Alexandria just spent another $450 million on an infill Metro station.

Anonymous wrote:Purple line is merely a tool to line the pockets of developers and Chevy Chase Land Company. Simple transfer of 10 billion from the public to private.

So the Purple Line enabled dense development which happens to be good for the planet and Montgomery County - why is that a bad thing?

Anonymous wrote:There is no way that current metro system is viable after covid and the rise of work from home. All planned expansions need to be halted.

Ummm Metrorail currently moves an average of 500,000 people per weekday. Sadly that is a big drop from what it used to carry but it is still a massive number of people (and ridership has been steadily growing for the last 2 years) and traffic in this region would grind to a halt without Metro.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you kidding? Bethesda to UMD? We want it. Thousands of college students, university profs and employees are eagerly waiting for it.

Don't be stupid.

oh yes, all those UMD students commuting from downtown Bethesda..

Driving, even with traffic, will be faster

No it won't be - the Purple Line which will have it's own right of way for most of the route will take 9 minutes to go from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

There is no way even at 2AM to cover that distance today in 9 minutes.

Also left out of this discussion is that the project will extend the Capital Crescent Trail (the most used multi-use trail in the country) from Bethesda to Silver Spring.

Public services are not businesses, they are not meant to make a profit

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give up already! You bought a house that backs up to the abandoned trolly line and you thought that it was your personal private land despite the reality of the situation. You need to accept that it is happening and stop fighting.

If you actually cared about public money then you would realize that a huge part of the purple line cost has been the litigation and delays resulting from the litigation with NIMBY folks. Stop!

DP. It wasn't an abandoned trolley line - it was a freight rail line, which the county bought in 1986 specifically for the purpose of running light rail on.

One major source of delay and cost increase was lobbying and litigation from Town of Chevy Chase folks. The other major source was Larry Hogan. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022/06/20/larry-hogan-purple-line-fiasco/

Hogan’s administration also negotiated a contract with a group of private construction firms that contained an unusual provision: In the case of delays lasting more than a year, the companies could abandon the work, no questions asked. When the inevitable delays ensued and the contractors threatened to walk, Hogan’s hand-picked transportation secretary negotiated a new arrangement in which the companies agreed to stay and finish the project for less than $175 million. Then, on the eve of signing the deal, the administration backed away.

Had it gone through with the transportation secretary’s deal, the contractors, not Maryland taxpayers, would have had to absorb the pandemic-related cost increases. And the Purple Line, according to MDOT projections in the spring of 2020, with COVID-19 already raging, would have been up and running, partially by 2022 and fully by the early summer of 2023—giving commuters, hit by high gas prices, more mass transit options.

The lawsuits were predictable and in fact predicted. The PPP and the contract terms were known before funding was voted on. What wasn’t known were the lengthy metrorail and street closures (at least the extent) or the massive cost overruns or delays. This project barely penciled before all of the unknowns and yet you’re on here complaining about the knowns.

No, I'm complaining because Larry Hogan delayed the start of the Purple Line by two years because he insisted on cutting costs so he could spend that money on highways instead (and many of those highways were near his real estate holdings). And then Larry Hogan further delayed and increased the costs of the Purple Line by walking away from a deal negotiated by his own secretary of transportation; another year and a half of delay, and an additional $1.4 billion in costs.

As for the ridiculous lawsuits brought by those residents of the Town of Chevy Chase - yes, the lawsuits were predictable. I hope those residents are happy now, but I doubt it. All they did was make the Purple Line cost more and have fewer nice things.