Can we be a little more accurate please? The trail would be completed as part of the Purple Line, not destroyed. That is why the Washington Area Bicyclist Association endorses it.

WABA.org: The Purple Line is GOOD for the Trail
http://www.waba.org/blog/2011/04/the-purple-line-is-good-for-the-trail/

This annual run can continue once the Purple Line is built, and the course finally will be able to take the runners to Silver Spring!

Well, sure you can run on the purple line's proposed "trail", if you like running on a shadeless trip of asphalt adjacent to trains whizzing by every 6 minutes at 45 miles per hour. There are plenty of legitimate, less expensive and popular alternatives to the purple line. You can't replace a 20 acre park.

A 20 acre park, that is the arguement now?? Wow, yes, lets all jump on that bandwagon. Who needs more mass transit in one of the most congested metro areas...a 20 acre park is SO much better for the thousands of people that need to get from Bethesda to Silver Spring on a daily basis. This is ridiculous, I really hope the county/state is not pursueded by this vocal minority.

The Purple Line and the trail can and will co-exist. As someone who runs and bikes the trail, I welcome the Purple Line whose presence will make it possible to use the trail more safely later in the day.

That's why the Washington Area Bicyclist Association endorses the Purple Line, as do I.

With respect, the argument that the PL would be good for the trail is specious at best. It might be good for bicyclists who want to take their racing road-bikes on a smooth, paved surface (wait, isn't that what ROADS are for?) but the light rail line would be terrible for everyone else.

First, even PL proponents now concede that the line would take few if any cars off the road. Reason is: the PL will spur development, and more people = more cars. Also, few people will leave their cars for the rail; rather the rail will simply replace bus service, which is already inadequate to the task of moving people along the projected route of the PL.

Second, the "trail" that will exist alongside the light rail lines will not be anything like the trail as we see it today. The canopy of trees will be destroyed (the light rail is powered by electricity from overhead wires - trees threaten that infrastructure) and instead of a shady walkway, runners and the "parents pushing strollers," mentioned in the article above, will walk on a hard, paved surface in the blazing sun, contending with cyclists pedaling just as fast as they can (as they already do on Jones Mill Road every weekend). Hardly the relaxing trail everyone now enjoys.

In short, the PL will not fix the problems it seeks to address (congestion and a better way to get from Silver Spring to Bethesda) and it will create new problems in its wake. Is that how we want to spend 2 Billion dollars? I don't think so.

The argument by the cycling groups in favor of the Purple Line is so ridiculous that one has to suspect that they are just a front for the Chevy Chase Land Co. Basically, their argument is that the trail will never be completed (i.e., paved, so that they can zip around like a bunch of Lance Armstrong wannabes) unless it is done so in conjunction with the Purple Line. Therefore, we must spend $2 billion on a light rail of questionable value so that a few cyclists get the trail that they want. Here's an idea: skip the part where we spend $2 billion on a light rail and, instead, spend a few million bucks paving the trail and extending it to Silver Spring. Ever think of that?

It is revealing to see so many comments that are hostile to the idea of paving the trail and making other improvements that would bring more cyclists. It is also interesting that "going the distance" for the race organisers was to go no further east than Conncecticut Ave., with much of the race course set on local streets and not on the trail.
This event, and the "Ssve the Trail" group, is clearly about keeping this publicly owned transportation corridor restricted to being a local neighborhood walking trail for Chevy Chase. This railroad corridor was purchased to be shared, for transit and for trail. Sharing will bring the most benefit for the most people - lets not let a vocal neighborhood group lay claim to this county owned rail corridor as their own newly established local park.

Well said, Wayne.

Wayne - I think it's equally "revealing" and "interesting" to see how often you contribute or link to Washington Area cycling Web sites. It's like you don't care for walkers, hikers, bird watchers (with the Audubon Society so close), runners, or other slow-moving people on the trail.

Your own group, "Silver Spring Trails" would better be named "Silver Spring Speed Lanes," and you can dress up your activities by calling them "purposeful" (as you do in at least two posts), but I'd hate to be in the path of 50 or so "purposeful" riders on a Sunday morning.

You malign people with an opposing point of view - but to people who care about the trail and enjoy the serenity it affords, you yourself seem like a Silver Spring speed junkie, looking to turn everyone's trail into a raceway. The PL, to you, is just the pace-car.

Paving a bike trail is just for the purpose of "Lance Armstrong wannabes"? What a ridiculous statement.

So did paving the trail between Bethesda and Georgetown "destroy it?"

We are waiting for a multi use trail in Silver Spring. Trees grow quickly in this area and the trail should be shaded. Lets work together to ensure that it is attractively landscaped with native plants creating habitat for wildlife, with plenty of places to rest, connections to neighborhoods, etc.

The Purple Line will attract many more riders than most other comparable light rail projects in the country. There is not such thing as a non-stop bus on East West Highway during rush hours.

Are you suggesting we cut down the trees along the Trail between Bethesda and GEORGETOWN and run trains in both directions every three minutes, just 10 feet from the Trail? That would be a more meaningful comparison. And that is a transit alternative that is on a lot of maps.

But, I don't think you'll find too many folks who want to do that. If you can put trains along the Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring, there won't be a Trail safe from a transit proposal anywhere in the country. Rails to Trails will take on a new meaning.

We need transit, but if we don't insist on putting it along roads, and preserving our nature trails and parks, we won't have any nature trails left.

"The Georgetown Branch Corridor would never have been purchased by Mont. Co. except for consideration for both transit and trail shared use. The CCT would not exist today except for the possibility that transit would share the corridor with the trail. "

Worth repeating, again and again.

NIMBYs, you don't own this stretch of land, any more than you own East-West Highway.

There is no Rail to Trail in the US that has reverted back to rail that runs as close to the trail, while ALSO running as fast and as frequently as this proposed light rail. Trail lovers have much to fear if this light rail is built here. No trail will be safe from the threat of trains.

This can and should be a park -- for everyone to use. This is much more than a neighborhood trail. As of 2006, it had more than 10,000 uses weekly. Trail users come from all over the region.

Wayne, if I understand your argument, you're saying that if we want more communities to be able to grow trees, we need to cut down our trees, so that in the end, they'll feel that they can cut down their own trees that they planted so they could cut them down eventually. Right? Do you see why that argument is not really persuasive?

Everyone who uses the trail now is very happy to share the trail. I walk it almost daily, and bike on it nearly every weekend. I'm the crazy one with a toddler seat on my bike and twins riding in a trailer behind it. I have to travel at a leisurely pace. And I take the trail from Jones Mill Road all the way to Bethesda. Nice and slow. Neighborly, you might say. I treat it like a local path - not a transit conduit so I could speed between Silver Spring and Bethesda (or Georgetown) in as little time as possible.

Gadi -

You nailed it. While there are probably many reasonable people within WABA that don't think spending $2 billion in order to complete a high-speed bike trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring is a sound use of public money, the leadership of the organization and a core of members has been bought off by the pro-Purple Line backers. At the most recent public meeting on details of the proposed bike trail, one WABA member was disappointed that there'd be no showers or lockers provided on the bike trail. That's an indication of how out of touch some are. They don't care about a dozen 10 and 20 story buildings lining the trail where it's a shaded canopy of trees in a residential neighborhood today, as the Chevy Chase Land Company has proposed at Connecticut Avenue. Their aim is to be able to bike unimpeded from downtown Silver Spring to Bethesda in 20 minutes, even if doing so costs billions and wrecks acres / miles of park land and open space. I continue to hope that not just residents along the trail but that people from all over the northern suburbs begin to see the Purple Line as currently planned as an recklessly expensive and environmentally damaging project that will lead to more urbanization and congestion of residential communities. Let's preserve, protect and expand open space and park land that eases congestion, not hem ourselves in with more urbanization.

Gadi (7:10 p.m. Tuesday) -

A good rail transit system is just a little bit more than "a way to enrich developers". I'm sorry that you can't see the big picture.

mpd (11:19 am) - I do not support the Purple Line simply because I think that a fringe benefit of the project will be a paved trail. I support it, and a paved trail, because they are necessary transportation alternatives.

mpd (11:14 am) - "Greedy developers" are those who build OTHER people's houses, apparently.

Only in America do homeowners believe that they have the right to prevent their neighbors from developing their own property as they see fit, so that a neighborhood that is only 8 miles from the center of the city will remain in single-family detached housing on quarter-acre lots for all eternity. So what if other people have to commute from Clarksburg, Frederick or even Pennsylvania to find a decent, affordable place to live.

Frank: there are plenty of decent, affordable places to live within the beltway: might I recommend high-density Silver Spring, for example? But is this really the point? You want to discuss zoning laws? I thought it was about "removing cars from the road" or "saving the trail"? But now you're giving up on those lines of reasoning - why?

Instead you're now arguing that Chevy Chase needs to look more like Tyson's or Silver Spring, and that current residents shouldn't have any say in the matter? Only in America, I might argue, would a person try to say that communities should have no say about the housing codes in their own neighborhoods.

Gadi - Mpd was the one who raised the issue of "developers", not me.

Mpd - what exactly is "enough"? When you get yours and pull up the ladder behind you?

The two instances of "park land" you cite are an abandoned railroad right of way that has been preserved for rail transit for the past quarter century, and the former site of a junior high school.

Changing the subject a bit: how about the health benefits of walking on a nature trail or enjoying a natural space? The irreplaceable Georgetown Branch is so close to so many people that it is used for handy exercise;the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study "State Indicator Report on Physical Activity 2010" (available on line at CDC website) surveys many indicators, including "access to places and opportunities for physical activity." A metric for access is 1/2 mile--how many people do you guess live within 1/2 mile of the Georgetown Branch? About 90,000 live in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Business district (20 % are children), and that does not count the Silver Spring end of the trail. Focusing on children, the study cites research showing that children and youth with access for physical activity, are more active and 'less likely to be overweight or obese"'(p3). If the Purple Line is built, perhaps a new trail will follow but the funding is different so that is not clear. What is clear is that a very good place for lots of people to be physically active and enjoy the tranquility of nature will be destroyed.