Don’t bottleneck the Purple Line
March 3, 2021
Dear Resident:
The Purple Line will be an economic development engine for Montgomery County.
Connecting Maryland’s biggest university, UMD, with Montgomery County’s downtowns and Metro corridors, it is the kind of infrastructure change that will foster smart growth and prosperity.
I got my start in the County pushing for the Purple Line — in fact I pledged 15 years ago to “Build the Purple Line or Die Trying.”
So you’ll understand that I am concerned that the County Executive has renewed his 2009 proposal to weaken the Purple Line.
Specifically, Mr. Elrich has proposed that rather than having a two way tunnel with tracks in each direction, we’ll have a one way train tunnel into downtown Bethesda. Trains would have to wait on either end for the tunnel to clear before entering.
In other words, we would build a bottleneck into Bethesda.