Save The Trail Coalition

Testimony -- December 10, 2009

before the Montgomery County Planning Board

Pam Browning

Save the Trail Coalition

Mr. Chairman and Board Members,

Thank you for this opportunity to comment of the Draft Purple Line Functional Master Plan.

I am the founder of the Save the Trail Coalition and the organizer of the Petition Drive that has gathered more than 18,000 signatures opposing the Purple Line along the Capital Crescent Trail.  This Planning Board has received more than 2,000 emails opposing the Trail alignment for the Purple Line. 

This Purple Line Functional Master Plan -- with it’s cursory information and cherry picking of the history and facts related to the impact of the Purple Line – is so superficial that, in effect, it is dishonest.  It fails to acknowledge any of the environmental degradation to the Trail and adverse impacts to the neighboring communities that the Purple Line will create.

Moreover, nowhere in this entire document is there any mention that the double tracking in the State’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement would require an amendment of the 1990 Georgetown Branch Master Plan Amendment.  The 1990 Master Plan calls for single tracking -- not double tracking -- for the majority of the Purple Line between Bethesda and Silver Spring.  (See attachment, Georgetown Branch Master Plan Amendment, page 10.)

The original Master Plan called for single tracking because the right of way is so narrow that shoe-horning a double tracked rail system and a Trail into an area that currently has a single 12’-wide berm would be too destructive to the environment and the neighborhoods through which it would pass.

According to the original Master Plan, “The predominantly single –track trolley line was selected as the best alternative because of its low noise and lack of noxious emissions, and the minimal grading and environmental disturbances to the existing right-of way”.

The 1990 Master Plan recommended:

• --“minimization of the potential impact of such facility upon abutting neighborhoods” (p. 1);
• --“that every effort possible be made to ensure that existing trees along the trolley/trail route are preserved wherever possible and that replacement of trees is of a sufficient quantity and quality to preserve and enhance the environment” (p.3);
• --“The Trolley/Trail will not alter the cohesion, integrity or stability of the neighborhoods”.  (p.15)

While many of us would find these statements to be debatably inconsistent with single tracking, what is not debatable is that by expanding to double tracking, the recommendations of the original Master Plan cannot be fulfilled.  They are Alice and Wonderland absurd with trains passing in both directions every three minutes, less than 10’ from the Trail and less than 20’ from some homes.

Double tracking is not the “trolley/trail” described in the 1990 Master Plan.

According to the DEIS, the trees in the right of way will be clear cut, and they will not be replaced.  (p. 4-22).  While the DEIS failed to quantify the loss of forest, an analysis by American Forests found that at least 17 acres of forest along the three miles of Trail will be destroyed (based on a swath of 66’ wide clear cutting, but where the right of way is wider, more trees may be destroyed).

Also, with no explanation, the Functional Master Plan omits the County Council’s’recommendation in January 2009 that single tracking be studied in certain places.  All of the Councils recommendations are listed on Page 7, except this one.

These major omissions give the appearance that the Planning Board is trying to down play the significance of changing the Master Plan from single to double tracking. 

On p. 10 of the Functional Plan, the 1990 Master Plan is cited as a major reason for building the Purple Line along the Trail.  And yet, the Planning Board does not hesitate to amend the Master Plan when it is expedient to do so -- to the detriment of the Trail, hikers and bikers, and homeowners.

Many of us of us feel that this is just one more example of how Master Plans in Montgomery County are used for the protection of developers and not for the protection of the environment, parks, recreation needs, or neighborhoods. 

We know that MTA does not recommend single tracking.  But MTA is a transit agency – it is not the Park and Planning Commission or the Planning Board, which are responsible for looking at the totality of impacts on the community and the environment, not just transit, for generations to come.

If we are to have the Purple Line built along the Trail, I urge you to recommend that it be single tracked alongside the Trail to limit the damage to the Trail, the environment, and neighborhoods, as much as possible. 

Attached are some photos of the trees that will be destroyed by the Purple Line along the Trail

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