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A Maryland Transit Authority study recommended against building a tunnel beneath Wayne Avenue between the Silver Spring Transit Center and Mansfield Road in Silver Spring as part of the Purple Line, claiming the tunnel is not cost-effective.
The MTA and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) are considering three options for a 16-mile mass transit route that would connect downtown Bethesda to New Carrollton via Silver Spring.
All three options would include a tunnel east of Manchester Road under Plymouth Street, emerging on Arliss Street. The high-investment option also would include a tunnel from the Silver Spring Transit Center that would emerge at Wayne Avenue east of Cedar Street.
The MTA studied a tunnel option that would extend the tunnel beneath Wayne and downtown Silver Spring to Mansfield Road. A short, street-level rail line on Wayne would then connect to the tunnel near Manchester.
For the Silver Spring portion of the Purple Line, the medium-investment option would cost $179 million, the high-investment option would cost $296 million and the tunnel option would cost $352 million, according to the study.
A tunnel beneath Wayne would decrease travel times, but it would not include stations on Dale Drive or the future site of the Silver Spring Library at Wayne Avenue and Fenton Street, leaving about a 1.5-mile stretch without access to the Purple Line, according to the MTA study.
The study estimates the tunnel option would draw about 15,000 passengers in Silver Spring, slightly fewer than the medium- and high-investment options, which include more stations. The tunnel option would place stations at the transit center and Manchester Place only.
The tunnel would also require the displacement of residents at three or four properties on Wayne.
Residents in the Seven Oaks and Evanswood and Park Hills neighborhoods of Silver Spring asked the MTA to study a tunnel as early as 2006 because they were concerned a street-level line would have adverse effects on the neighborhood. The County Council asked the MTA to study a tunnel earlier this year.
Mark Gabriele, president of SOECA, called the tunnel analysis a "failure." He said SOECA wanted a study of the tunnel as a design option for the medium-investment light-rail alternative. Medium-investment light-rail has been endorsed by County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) and the Planning Board.
Instead it is unclear whether the study examined a tunnel by itself or a tunnel with high-investment light-rail, Gabriele said.
"Everywhere that they could make an assumption that would clear up things against the tunnel, they made that assumption," Gabriele said.
The tunnel analysis will be presented at a community meeting 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at Oak View Elementary School, 400 East Wayne Ave. in Silver Spring.