I came to MoCo in 1990 from Philadelphia. I was looking forward to what I foolishly saw as a ‘cleaner’ place. I had never lived in the burbs. Doug Duncan was county exec or soon to be and just seemed great. County was growing - jobs were coming: it was a positive place to be. (Duncan would of course get caught in Abramoff scandal and end his pol career). I lived in SS…saw the transit center corrupt debacle and now the purple line corrupt debacle It just solidifies for me that people and pols are the same the world over. Moco has become Philly. One party rule corrupts absolutely. What a joke. Glad I left both places. Thanks for the rant.

It's how many billions over budget? They should just abandon it. Save those BILLIONS of dollars in tax money. Jesus.

Anonymous wrote:What's the alternative between to get between places like Bethesda, Silver Spring, and College Park?

We can't build or expand roads -- East-West Highway has houses on both sides, and it's backed up during rush hour and often outside of it too. Same with getting to CP.

The most efficient way to move people is mass transport. How else could it have been done?

As for the bike path, let's not forget this was built originally as a train track. We're now converting it to mixed use, and that takes time.

Not a real estate developer or connected to the project at all, I'm just surprised to see opposition to mass transit.

What’s the alternative? There were plenty of alternatives to rail on dedicated right of way. One of the claims in the litigation over the EIS was that the studies showed that hardly anyone would ride it. Elrich constructively proposed using electric buses instead for a BRT system, which would have been massively cheaper and faster to implement, and was shouted down as a NIMBY.

The whole episode is so tiresome and reveals a lot about how the real estate development crowd uses - knowingly or unknowingly - transit activists as dupes to promote their agenda. If you were pro-transit, I think the lesson here is that you should have been backing Elrich’s plan. But zero self-reflection going on.

In the end, having a Ritz Carlton residence at Chevy Chase Lake is a net positive for the county. However, it should not have come at the expense of untold billions of dollars to state taxpayers.

Anonymous wrote:What's the alternative between to get between places like Bethesda, Silver Spring, and College Park?

We can't build or expand roads -- East-West Highway has houses on both sides, and it's backed up during rush hour and often outside of it too. Same with getting to CP.

The most efficient way to move people is mass transport. How else could it have been done?

As for the bike path, let's not forget this was built originally as a train track. We're now converting it to mixed use, and that takes time.

Not a real estate developer or connected to the project at all, I'm just surprised to see opposition to mass transit.

We're about a decade past peak mass transit in America. There are a lot of folks on the winning side of the transit wars: from oil companies to the Koch Brothers to almost all of the GOP to NIMBYs and lawyers in Chevy Chase. Congratulations. Looks like you're turning your attention to the nation's public school systems.

The Purple Line was always going to be a tough sell because it would be bringing poorer/browner people into wealthier/whiter areas. Also, the project got going 20 years after the window of success for this project. By the time the state got around to committing to the project in the mid-2010s, they were holding a bad hand. And they played it very very badly.

Anonymous wrote:Racist Bethesda and Chevy Chase people don't want it.

It's pretty simple.

It has nothing to do with racism. They trashed so many good things to get this line that NO ONE WANTS. I hate what they did to the sleepy area along Brookeville Road, too. That area is going to be pricey. So is the other end of the purple line, that is now filled with immigrants and the working poor -- they are going to be punted out. Tell me about racism, PP.

The Purple Line is cursed. That's what happens when you shove a project down so many throats.

Racist Bethesda and Chevy Chase people don't want it.

It's pretty simple.

What's the alternative between to get between places like Bethesda, Silver Spring, and College Park?

We can't build or expand roads -- East-West Highway has houses on both sides, and it's backed up during rush hour and often outside of it too. Same with getting to CP.

The most efficient way to move people is mass transport. How else could it have been done?

As for the bike path, let's not forget this was built originally as a train track. We're now converting it to mixed use, and that takes time.

Not a real estate developer or connected to the project at all, I'm just surprised to see opposition to mass transit.

PP is totally accurate

It was always about upzoning. Developers knew the play on the RE by the theoretical stations and artery intersections. They Payed for Hogan re-election and he flips his script. Campaign money pressures him into supporting the PL after 2014.

The amphibious amoeba was just a stall tactic. The real mystery was the blatant refusal to properly perform an environmental impact assessment. State thought it could hustle it through. So the townsfolk rallied around a few residents with environmental law backgrounds. For the record there were plenty of CC residents who detested their efforts to slow construction.

The real wild card was metro ridership - numbers started falling from 2012 onwards and then out of nowhere something called Uber and rideshares took mass transit riders quietly off the platforms. Nobody had the wherewithal to recalibrate ridership off of future uber use and WFH possibilities.

Doesn’t matter much anymore. Those with the money and foresight left town before or during Covid and stuck y’all with the tax bills. The developers got the 40+ story zoning with incredibly limited parking space dedication so they won too.

All of you waiting to ride a train to nowhere can enjoy the $7B++ price tag. How bout them amoebas?

Purple Line 2027?
I'll take the OVER.
We live a block from the right of way and my kids lost their bike trail with safe access to Rock Creek and Bethesda back in 2017. It's September 14, 2022, and there is zero construction activity today, which has been the case for two years.

The utter failure of the state to manage the project is stunning.

To be fair, the project has accomplished two things:
1. It killed the bike trail. My kids were 10 and 13 when the bike trail was shut down in 2017. The fact that they will be long graduated from high school and out of the house when the trail re-opens pisses me off.
2. Money. The actual transit line doesn't matter to the developers. The PLAN to build the Purple Line was enough to upzone Chevy Chase Lake. Construction is almost complete on a development worth hundreds of millions. The developers have already made their money. It really doesn't matter whether the Purple Line ever gets completed; the money is already in the bank.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry NIMBYs. The PL is coming. Hopefully it runs over your backyards for karma.

You would think that the pro-transit folks would care that the projects they champion are completed on time and on budget and operate successfully. It seems that the only thing they care about is making other people mad, which obviously is a terrible way to set public policy and make major decisions on the use of scarce public resources.

We do very much care that they are on time and on budget, hence our discontent with Hogan and Chevy Chase snowflakes using every procedural trick in the book to try to run out the clock. All they accomplished was ensuring that it wouldn't be completed on time and on budget.

I'm not the PP, and I certainly don't wish ill on anyone, but I also am definitely not shedding any tears for residents grousing about a transit project that will benefit hundreds of thousands of people and has been in the works since the 1970s.

You keep proving my point for me. If you were actually interested to know what’s going on instead of bashing other people, you would learn that the state has not acquired land fast enough to meet their obligations under the PPP agreement.

Anonymous wrote:Ya, I don't think the Columbia Country Club is filled with flaming libs.

Yeah, it's filled entirely with hardcore conservatives like ... Barack Obama?

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/10/06/obama-will-join-columbia-country-club-in-chevy-chase/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry NIMBYs. The PL is coming. Hopefully it runs over your backyards for karma.

You would think that the pro-transit folks would care that the projects they champion are completed on time and on budget and operate successfully. It seems that the only thing they care about is making other people mad, which obviously is a terrible way to set public policy and make major decisions on the use of scarce public resources.

We do very much care that they are on time and on budget, hence our discontent with Hogan and Chevy Chase snowflakes using every procedural trick in the book to try to run out the clock. All they accomplished was ensuring that it wouldn't be completed on time and on budget.

I'm not the PP, and I certainly don't wish ill on anyone, but I also am definitely not shedding any tears for residents grousing about a transit project that will benefit hundreds of thousands of people and has been in the works since the 1970s.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry NIMBYs. The PL is coming. Hopefully it runs over your backyards for karma.

You would think that the pro-transit folks would care that the projects they champion are completed on time and on budget and operate successfully. It seems that the only thing they care about is making other people mad, which obviously is a terrible way to set public policy and make major decisions on the use of scarce public resources.