Not another ICC Trail

Washcycle has an excellent post on Improving Railbanking that relates to the CCT and the Purple Line. In particular, Washcycle comments on testimony Marianne Fowler, RTC's senior vice president of federal relations, presented on 25 years of experience with Railbanking at the July 8, 2009 Surface Transportation Board hearing. From Washcycle:

"During her questioning, one interesting thing Ms. Fowler mentioned, that's pertinent to the Purple Line, is that if light rail is added to a railbanked corridor they have to keep the trail to keep the railbanking statute intact. So if Maryland adds the Purple Line to the Georgetown Branch they CAN'T pull an ICC-style bait and switch (building light rail, but cutting the trail) without negating the railbanking and reverting the land back to its underlining owners. That's nice to know."

Nice to know indeed! We have been burnt once by the bait and switch tactics we experienced with the ICC. I posted at Lessons from the ICC bike trail why the CCT would not suffer the same fate from a political perspective. But it's reassuring to know there are also powerful underlying legal reasons why the trail must remain in the Georgetown Branch Corridor when the Purple Line is built.

Who speaks for Trail Supporters?

Robert McCartney has an interesting column in today's Washington Post, Chop a Tree, Save the Environment. He opens with "Maryland's inner suburbs should bulldoze 17 acres of mature forest and spoil an enchanting walking and bike trail to protect the environment. Sounds crazy. But it's not" and goes on to explain why we should support the Purple Line as good for the environment overall because it supports smart growth.

I hate to call attention to a minor flaw in an otherwise very well written column, but....since when does Pam Browning of the Town of Chevy Chase speak for all trail supporters?

Pam Browning's view on what trail supporters want is presented: "'Nobody wants to walk and bike seven to 10 feet from the trains,' said Pam Browning of Chevy Chase, an organizer of the Save the Trail coalition. The group has gathered 18,000 signatures on a petition to O'Malley opposing the plan." But the column presents no balancing views from any other groups that represent trail users. There are people available at WABA, MoBike and CCCT who can speak for many trail users with authority. There are respected civic groups like the Woodside Civic Association that represent other neighborhoods that are still waiting for the trail to be finished after all of these years. Many trail supporters represented by these groups strongly disagree with "Save the Trail", yet we only hear from Pam Browning about what trail users want.

I hate to pick nits with Robert McCartney on this point, when he has written an otherwise excellent piece. In fairness I acknowledge he did balance the environmental issue well, presenting contrary views from the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Montgomery County Sierra Club to contrast against the call to save the trees. But McCartney gives Pam Browning a free pass here to speak on behalf of all trail users. And he gives her a free pass on "18,000 signatures on a petition to O'Malley". As I noted in my Save the Trail Petition series, over 10,000 of the signatures were presented over six years ago, not for Governer O'Malley, and the rest were gathered while presenting very misleading information.

Pam Browning does not speak for many, many of us. The Washington Post needs to place a few more calls than just to Pam Browning when it is looking for quotes on what trail supporters want.

Teen deaths on Baltimore light rail

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space observes "Oddly enough, two recent track deaths on the Baltimore light rail line haven't been reported in Washington media." One exception would be Save the Trail, if that website can be considered as "Washington media". Save the Trail links to a report of the accident, apparently as evidence that light rail is too dangerous.

It is a common tactic of light rail opponents to use anecdotal evidence to call attention away from the fact that systematic statistical studies of accidental fatalities and injuries nationwide show light rail transit is safer than other transportation modes, especially cars. The anecdotal evidence is often misused. For example Isaac Hantman suggested in a 2007 letter to the Gazette Long Distance Opinion that light rail accidents at BWI airport showed that light rail will be dangerous for adjacent trail users. In the two BWI station accidents the light rail vehicles crashed into the barrier at the end of the track because of operator inattention. Passengers were injured. But the vehicles did not leave the railbed and NO pedestrians where reported injured in either accident, even though the accidents happened at the station platform. One could more logically argue the BWI accidents demonstrate that a light rail vehicle can crash and NOT hurt adjacent trail users.

The most recent accident is much more tragic because it did result in the death of two teenagers who were apparently walking the tracks. But a close look at the accident shows this is also very weak as anecdotal evidence that light rail will be dangerous for trail users. The local ABC station website has more information at Complicated Investigation in Fatal Light Rail Incident. Their story includes interviews of several local residents. The residents say this section of light rail track is often used as a local pedestrian shortcut, reducing 15 or 20 minutes from a much longer walk to a 7 minute walk along the tracks. A dangerous attraction has been created here because the light rail tracks offer a strong pedestrian shortcut.

The Purple Line tracks will not offer any dangerous pedestrian shortcuts. The Capital Crescent Trail will be rebuilt alongside the Purple Line. No one will walk the tracks when there is a wide paved trail available alongside the tracks that will give an easier walk to the same destination.

There is no practical transportation system available that can give an estimated 60,000+ uses daily that will not have accidents. The most dangerous Purple Line alternative is "no build", which would hold people at much higher risk using the existing road system in cars and buses. The recent anecdotal evidence from track deaths in Baltimore does not change this.

Crossing Colesville

July 6, 2009 update:

Excavation for the new Silver Spring Transit Center is well underway. Space is being set aside for the Purple Line and the Metropolitan Branch Trail alongside the CSX and Metro tracks.

July 5, 2009.

April 1, 2008 post:

The alignment the future CCT takes across Colesville Road to connect with the Metropolitan Branch Trail will determine whether the CCT will complete an urban trail network of regional importance.

Looking north toward Colesville Road from above the Silver Spring transit center. The Georgetown Branch Trail now ends at Second Avenue on the north side of Colesville Road (right center in the photo above).
Click here for a larger view.

Construction of the new Silver Spring Transit Center will begin in earnest this summer. A three level bus deck will be built in the center where the bus bays are now. Two high rise buildings will be built at the northeast and southeast corners. The northern terminus of the Metropolitan Branch Trail will be built with the transit center construction. The MetBranch Trail will enter the transit center from the south, alongside the CSX corridor.

The future CCT needs a direct alignment that gives a safe crossing of Colesville Road and an easy MetBranch Trail connection through all of the heavy vehicle and pedestrian activity at the new transit center. The Purple Line transit/trail concept will provide this connection. The concept calls for the CCT to be built across Colesville Road and straight through the transit center alongside the CSX/Metro tracks on an elevated structure. The CCT would be at the same elevation as the CSX/Metro tracks but separated from them by a 25'+ buffer space. The CCT would also be at the same level as the existing MARC platform and the new second level bus deck, and would have a pedestrian bridge connection across to the elevators and escalators from the second level bus deck down to the first level of the transit center. The CCT be at the high elevation needed for a level connection to the MetBranch Trail at the south side of the transit center.

The Purple Line transit would also go across Colesville Road and through the transit center on an elevated structure, between the CCT and the CSX/WMATA tracks and about 20' higher than the CCT. The structure holding the Purple Line high above the trail would be similar to that holding the Metro Red Line above the Beltway and Rockville Pike in North Bethesda.

It is unlikely the CCT will ever be built on this alignment without the Purple Line. The Metro Plaza Building proximity to the CSX tracks on the north side of Colesville Road creates a serious "choke point" for this alignment. The CCT can get through this choke point as a 10' wide trail IF an agreement can be reached with CSX and WMATA to build a retaining wall at the minimum required 25' safety standoff within their r.o.w., IF a several foot wide easement can be taken from the west side of the Metro Plaza building lot to allow the trail to be built to within 2' of the building at the south corner, and IF we can fund the high cost of the retaining wall and the elevated structure over Colesville Road and through the Transit Center. We need the Purple Line to leverage the CSX operating agreements and easements, and to share the cost of combined transit/trail structures.

If the CCT is not built on this alignment, then the best alternative alignment past the Metro Plaza Building will be on along Second Avenue. But that will force the CCT onto an at-grade trail crossing of Colesville Road, a six lane highway busy with bus traffic coming into the busiest bus station in Maryland. After crossing Colesville Road the CCT must either use a path through the transit center or go around the transit center on a sidepath trail along Wayne Avenue and Ramsey Avenue to connect to the MetBranch Trail. Any route through the center will conflict with the heavy bus and pedestrian activity in the center, and will require cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through most of the center. A sidepath trail going around the center must deal with the motor vehicle conflicts from crossing the entrances to the second level bus deck, the third level kiss-and-ride and taxi deck, and entrances to the high rise buildings.

You don't have to be a trail advocate to want the direct CCT connection into the new transit center. Anyone who lives or works north of Colesville Road and wants to use Metrobus, MARC, or the Purple Line will want the grade-separated trail crossing of Colesville Road.

Ervin asks: Where is the MetBranch?

June 30 update:

Councilmember Valerie Ervin will seek funding for building the MetBranch Trail in the coming budget planning cycle, according to the Gazette: Officials to seek funding for long-delayed bike route.

The Gazette article makes a total hash out of the Metropolitan Branch Trail, the Capital Crescent Trail, and the Georgetown Branch Trail. The article mentions the section of the future CCT that has been started by Woodside residents, see Making trail connections in woodside, as if it is part of the MetBranch. But the MetBranch will start at the new Sarbanes transit center at Colesville Road and continue south to D.C.

If this is all completed as planned, no one will care much where the CCT ends and the MetBranch begins. It will be one seamless regional trail loop. Let's get on with building it!

April 21, 2009:

Montgomery County Councilmember Valerie Ervin has sent a letter to Mo. Co. DOT asking for an update on the status of the Metropolitan Branch Trail in Silver Spring.

The DOT had recommended to the County Council last year that the Montgomery County MetBranch project be put on hold because of the high estimated project cost (as much as $25M) and the need to complete ongoing negotiations with CSX. The project limits extend from the Silver Spring Transit Center south to the Takoma Park campus of Montgomery College. The most expensive part of the Montgomery County section of the MetBranch, and also the part that requires the most cooperation from CSX, is near the southern end of the project where the MetBranch would pass under Burlington Avenue (a.k.a. East-West Highway) in a new tunnel.

Mont. Co. DOT MetBranch project in Silver Spring

Valerie Ervin is asking for an update on how negotiations with CSX have been going. She wants to put the MetBranch back into the Capital Budget when the budget comes up again next year. She says in the letter:

"I believe that the Metropolitan Branch Trail is critical to downtown Silver Spring and needs to be constructed in tandem with the Silver Spring Transit Center so that the Center's goal of being a multi-modal transit Center can be realized."

The Mont. Co. Planning Board had asked the DOT to consider phasing this project. Phasing might be able to address both the cost and the CSX problems. The MetBranch section from the transit center south to across Georgia Avenue (on a new trail bridge) should be built soon. An interim on-road bike route can be used on Philadelphia Avenue to complete a trail connection to the completed MetBranch section in Takoma Park. The more difficult MetBranch section under Burlington Ave. can be built later, when more money is available (and possibly when the aging Burlington Ave. Bridge comes due for replacement).

DOT appeared to evade the question of phasing when they last briefed the County Council on the project. A phased MetBranch project could complete the Trail through the Ripley District, give the Fenton Village area a direct and safe pedestrian crossing of Georgia Avenue to the new transit center, and give trail users a much improved route through downtown Silver Spring within a few years.

DOT needs to address phasing directly the next time it briefs the County Council. Councilmember Ervin is proving to be one of our best advocates on the Council for completing the trail. Her letter to DOT is welcome and needed. Let's hope she succeeds in getting a straight answer from DOT about phasing the MetBranch.

Save the Trail petition Part Six - locally owned

The first post of this “Save the Trail” petition series summarized the history of the petition. The next posts detailed some of the misinformation and gross exaggeration that many of the petition signatures are based upon. This concluding post of the series will look at who is behind the petition drive, and examine whether they are motivated to fairly represent all of the many and diverse trail users throughout the region.

I’ll go straight to it – I believe the “Save the Trail” petition organizers are interested in local neighborhood interests much more than in regional trail interests. I believe the petition organizers want to preserve the Interim CCT as a local neighborhood walking trail for the principal benefit of the adjacent neighborhoods, and are hostile to the goal of having the Interim CCT become a regional trail that can better support purposeful bicycling and other uses. The websites of the petition sponsor and of the petition organizer and comments they have made on the record make the case.

The sponsor of “Save the Trail” petition is the Greater Bethesda - Chevy Chase Coalition (GBCCC). They describe themselves at their www.savethetrail.org website. Twenty nine GBCCC “Save the Trail” organizational supporters are listed on their website under “Who we are”. All of those listed are local neighborhood associations or condominium associations except two – the Columbia Country Club and the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trial (CCCT). But the CCCT does NOT support the cornerstone "Save the Trail" goal of "... fighting to preserve the green space of the Capital Crescent Trail -- Georgetown Branch -- right-of-way as solely a hiker/biker trail". The CCCT position is that transit and trail can share the corridor, provided key design requirements are met. The CCCT testimony on the Purple Line AA/DEIS was reported in a previous post. The full CCCT Purple Line position statement is available on its website at the “Action” web page. GBCCC is dishonest to list CCCT as being with them in fighting to preserving the corridor for the exclusive use of the trail. When CCCT is removed from the supporter list, GBCCC does not have a single environmental or trail oriented group remaining as a member.

The petition organizer, Pam Browning, describes the “Save the Trail” mission in her www.savethetrailpetition.org website. Her website gives lip service about the importance of this essential trail link between Bethesda and Silver Spring in a few places, but the information presented on the website is focused solely on less than ½ of the trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring – the part in Chevy Chase neighborhoods. The website features many photos of the part of the trail to be “saved”, but the photos shown are almost exclusively within the less than two mile section of trail between East-West Highway and Jones Mill Road. The website does not have a single photo of the trail east of Rock Creek even though that makes up half of the Georgetown Branch Trail. There is not even an acknowledgement on the website that the trail remains largely unfinished in the Silver Spring neighborhoods.

The bias of "Save the Trail" was displayed recently in the comment left by Pam Browning on the Post article by Dr. Gridlock, Purple Line passes important test:

“Mr. Thompson, your reporting on the Purple Line is always shamelessly biased. This was not an even handed report of the COG Transportation Planning Board Meeting."

"For example, why not for once mention that the Purple Line Draft Environmental Impact Statement clearly states that the Trail can be extended into the Silver Spring Transit Center with all of the Bus Rapid Transit alternatives, including the Jones Bridge Road alternative?"

"Light rail along the trail is not necessary to extend the Trail."

"The only reason I can see for a biking organization like WABA to support the closing of the Trail for years of Purple Line construction, and the needless destruction of all the trees and shade along the Trail, is that perhaps WABA cares only about high speed biking and is happy to create a Trail that will in effect remove walkers, families and children, nature lovers, dog walkers, and anyone who might slow them down.”

Posted by: PamBrowning | June 17, 2009 10:28 PM

The hostility Pam Browning has for purposeful cyclists and to organizations like WABA that represent them is evident. But also consider the disregard Pam Browning shows for the trail outside of her own Chevy Chase neighborhood. Pam Browning is advancing the Bus Rapid Transit on Jones Mill Road (BRT on JBR) alternative here. The deficiencies of BRT and of the JBR route as a good transit alternative were discussed in a previous post series and need not be repeated here. But BRT on JBR is also a bad alternative as it relates to the trail. BRT on JBR would place transit directly alongside the trail for over ½ of the length of the trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring. That includes across the only true park in the corridor, Rock Creek Park. That also includes through sections where the trail now has a full tree canopy that is as strong as any in Chevy Chase.

Source:www.actfortransit.org

The BRT transit mode Pam Browning supports for Silver Spring neighborhoods would have buses that emit exhaust directly along the trail, while running on a solid asphalt or concrete two lane roadway. Pam Browning asserts that running emission free light rail transit vehicles on grass tracks will devastate the trail in her own Chevy Chase neighborhood, while at the same time she advances buses running alongside more than 2 miles of the CCT as acceptable for Silver Spring neighborhoods.

The Greater Bethesda - Chevy Chase Coalition has every right to make its voice heard on behalf of its member neighborhood associations. But when the GBCCC tries to mask its local neighborhood interests by wrapping the “Save the Trail” banner around itself to appear as an environmental or trail user organization, and then Pam Browning speaks for them as though she knows what “overwhelmingly, trail users believe…”, then GBCCC deserves to be called out. Waving boxes of “Save the Trail” petition signatures that contain many very outdated signatures, gathered while presenting gross misinformation about the Purple Line plans, does not give GBCCC standing to speak for all of the many diverse trail users throughout the region. If politicians, decision makers, and reporters want to know what trail users want, then they need to do the hard work of listening to the many diverse organizations that represent them, including not only “Save the Trail” but also WABA, CCCT, MoBike, the Sierra Club and others.

Save the Trail petition Part Five - grass is green too

We look at the green space issue in this post of this Save the Trail petition series.

The Save the Trail petitioners have a good point to make when they protest that the Purple Line will result in removing all trees within the Georgetown Branch Corridor. That is the one point they make that cannot be reasonably disputed. But, like so much else they present, they then go on to present a very extreme, unbalanced version of the impact transit will have on the trail.

Save the Trail petitioners assert that transit will transform the corridor into a barren wasteland that will make the trail so uninviting that no one will use it. They present this sketch to illustrate their vision:

A brown trail at the Town of Chevy Chase

Let’s do a reality check on their sketch of a brown, barren wasteland. First, let’s get grounded by taking a look at what is there now:

At the Town of Chevy Chase this spring.

Of course there are several sections on the Georgetown Branch Corridor that are now under a full tree canopy. But much of the section shown in the Save the Trail sketch as at risk of being deforested by the Purple Line is like the photo above. Other sections are also largely without trees, including at much of the Country Club and at the Connecticut Ave. crossing. Save the Trail claims that the entire Georgetown Branch Corridor is in a full forest are exaggerated.

Now let’s take into account the fact that the Purple Line that is being endorsed by the County Council and County Executive will have grass tracks in the Georgetown Branch Corridor. A two track light rail transit with grass tracks looks like this:

Transit on grass tracks in Freiburg.
More examples are shown at www.purplelinenow.com

Grass tracks will be green. The grass can absorb storm water runoff, and also can absorb the summer sun so there will be no heating effect from large areas of pavement. The only part of the corridor that will not be green where grass tracks are used will be – the trail!

In fairness we must yield the point to “Save the Trail” that many trees will be cut for the Purple Line. But it does not follow that the corridor will be barren, hot, and brown. The trail will still be very inviting and heavily used.

The next post will be the last of the series, about how very local neighborhood interests drive the "Save the Trail" petition effort.