Purple Line planners move on to details
By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post
Friday, January 7, 2011; 9:27 PM
"Ed Dabolt hopes any Purple Line station near his Hyattsville neighborhood will be modern and inviting. Chevy Chase residents want a bridge to allow children, joggers and cyclists to safely cross a Purple Line's tracks, and the University of Maryland is pushing for a train tunnel beneath its College Park campus.
As the Maryland Transit Administration analyzes a Purple Line light rail line between Bethesda and New Carrollton, the focus is narrowing from the larger vision to the nitty-gritty details: where, exactly, stations should be, what kind of landscaping and sound walls should buffer nearby residents, and how pedestrians and vehicles should cross train tracks.
Negotiations are well underway on the project's two most controversial details: how trains would travel through the University of Maryland campus and along the Georgetown Branch Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring. This month, the MTA also will begin holding work sessions with residents along the 16-mile route to examine the trains' impacts and how they might be reduced..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2011010706433