Save The Trail Coalition

Testimony -- December 10, 2009

before the Montgomery County Planning Board

Arlene Bruhn, Bethesda

The Purple Line Functional Plan asserts the Purple Line meets important project objectives, namely, connectivity, access, design standards and environmental benefits.

What the Plan fails to do is discuss the widespread ecological harm the preferred alignment will cause. Nor does the Plan provide specific mitigation for anticipated harm.

To be brief, the draft Purple Line Functional Plan has serious omissions.

On page 9, the Plan claims that the Purple Line addresses the environmental focus area identified in the County's Growth Policy, and yet the Plan fails so much as to even mention the environmental harm that the Purple Line will cause.  Accordingly, it is not surprising that the Plan fails to provide any specific mitigation for this anticipated harm.

We know from the State's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that the  proposed alignment and double tracking of the light rail require bulldozing three miles of an existing nature trail and 17 acres of  surrounding forest, and yet the only environmental response provided in this Plan is that the "grass tracks concept will reduce runoff where applied."  Note, that grass tracks -- a token response at best -- are not required. 

The Capital Crescent Trail is part of the Coquelin Run and Rock Creek watershed.  The alignment and proposed double tracking of the Purple Line  ignore the health of that watershed.  Forest protects water quality.  Yet, by destroying a local forest to put a double-tracked Purple Line on the trail, you ignore good environmental science and destroy irreplaceable trees and understory.

The alignment and double tracking of the Purple Line ignores the significant benefits of trees.   Trees produce oxygen and that by removing them, ambient air quality will worsen rather than improve.  Trees are essential to clean air.   Smart growth isn’t just about reducing emissions.  Real smart growth includes diverse ways of improving the oxygen content of our air.  Bethesda is, after all, a nonattainment area.  To be clear, our air quality is lousy.

Your recommendation to remove 17 acres of trail trees will contribute to exacerbating the heat islands associated with an increasingly urban Bethesda.  It will increase ambient temperatures in summer and thus increase AC consumption.  At a time when the County is struggling to find ways to reduce greenhouse gases, your decision will increase electric consumption by nearby homeowners.  Please understand -- tree removal can raise ambient temperatures as much as 20 degrees – sometimes more.   

Persons who believe that shade trees will be replanted along a double-tracked Purple Line on the Capital Crescent Trail are seriously deluded.  The States DEIS (p. ES 4) states clearly that these trees will not be replaced.  There is simply insufficient room to replant them locally.   Landscaping, often advocated as a cure, is not effective mitigation.  Grass and shrubs  will not replace a work-engine forest of  often 100-year-old specimen beech, sycamores, and tulip poplars.

The Purple Line is defended under a banner of green. But this defies common sense.   Ultimately, destroying an urban forest is not green.  You  don’t create green by destroying the irreplaceable forest that you have.  You don’t improve quality of life by paving over more and more green space.  You don't stop sprawl by forcing residents to move out of the city to find clean air and drive several miles so they can walk or ride on shaded nature trails.

What I find it especially disturbing is that the graphics of the Purple Line Functional Plan document green-wash the project.  Let there be no mistake: the medium IS the message, and the attractively green, photo-shopped images of the presentation promise citizens a lovely trail experience. You visually communicate the new transit corridor will be beautifully treed.  But you know and I know this is not possible. 

Let there be no misunderstanding.  The Capital Crescent Nature Trail  will be destroyed if the Purple Line is built in this right of way.   Instead of a multi-use nature trail enjoyed by walkers, joggers and bikers of all ages, there will be a paved, treeless, shade-less, high-speed biker lane.    It will be bordered by fast-moving rail cars, concrete sound walls, chain-link fencing and other man-made amenities necessary to protect pedestrians.  

Please remember, you CANNOT move three miles of continuous forest,  but you CAN move a light rail transit line.  Put it ON the street or under the street, but keep it off the Trail. 

Save the Trail for a walkable, sustainable community.

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