A Greener Purple Line
November 3rd, 2006 | by Eric Fidler | Published in Purple Line | 7 Comments
Some of the debate surrounding the Purple Line involves the amount of greenery it will remove along the existing Georgetown Branch Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring. When most people think of rail, they think of wooden ties and rails atop unsightly rivers of oil-stained gravel. It needn’t be that way.
Be it beside the biker trail in Chevy Chase, in the median of University Boulevard, or cutting across a field on campus, we suggest setting the rails into a concrete base, then covering the base with grass where possible. Not only will this eliminate unnecessary pavement, but will allow the soil to absorb rainwater.
Of course this will be impossible where the light rail is expected to share the street with cars (in downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park for instance), but several miles of the Purple Line are planned as exclusive light rail corridors. A greener Purple Line is not only environmentally superior, but aesthetically superior, too.
Although we at Rethink College Park like to think of ourselves as innovative, the oldest continuously operated streetcar in the world glides gracefully along the grassy median of St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. Likewise, the four-year-old EuskoTran (above) quietly and swiftly transports Spaniards in Bilbao.
November 3rd, 2006 at 6:37 pm (#)
Great picture and important point. Green tracks like those you show from Spain are used almost exclusively in France outside of the city centers and a good part of the Purple Line can be in grassy tracks. This is one of the reasons the Purple Line should be light rail instead of bus rapid transit.
November 5th, 2006 at 2:41 pm (#)
I didn’t think that a train could look appealing, I was wrong.
November 5th, 2006 at 5:03 pm (#)
Wow, I’m a supporter of the purple line but I never thought it could look so good. Great work!
November 7th, 2006 at 9:57 am (#)
How often does the grass need to be mowed?
November 7th, 2006 at 11:06 am (#)
Very cool post! I wonder how much a train like that would cost.
January 28th, 2007 at 2:16 pm (#)
Grass tracks alongside a bike trail through campus will make it work!
May 7th, 2007 at 8:26 am (#)
Has Webb sued WMATA for train noise lately? Why are you so hot to put a train next to people’s homes when you yourself actually sued the transit authority because of train noise?
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=dc&navby=case&no=937243a