Take Purple Line underground

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Take Purple Line underground

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A street level Purple Line by bus or light rail completely misses the point. There already are Metro and county buses to take you from College Park to Silver Spring and Bethesda. For almost no cost, you could create an express bus route and call it the ‘‘Purple Line.”

Buying a dedicated, super fancy bus or light rail will not be any improvement. It would still compete with rush hour traffic and get stuck at red lights.

The point of a Purple Line must be to reduce traffic on our roads and the Beltway. It must be faster, more convenient, and cheaper than driving. The only choices are for an underground or an elevated train or express bus route. An elevated route would be like those in Chicago, traveling high above the cars. The disadvantage is they are unsightly. An underground route is the best, but the most expensive.

However, much cheaper and faster than tunneling with a boring machine would be to excavate under the roads or breakdown lanes of the Beltway and then covering back up. Doing a small section at a time would reduce the time each road would be temporarily closed.

Larry Rosen, Silver Spring