Residents of Montgomery County, Maryland, are skeptical of a proposed light-rail line known as the “purple line” (to distinguish it from the DC area’s Red, Orange, Blue, Yellow, and Green heavy-rail lines). AAppropriately so: The Antiplanner has reviewed the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and found it to be biased and misleading.
Click on image to download entire, 37-MB DEIS. Click on the link in the above paragraph to go to the DEIS web page where you can download selected chapters.
The DEIS considers seven alternatives to doing nothing: one called “transportation system management” (TSM), which is basically improving bus service without significant new infrastructure; low-, medium-, and high-cost bus-rapid transit; and low-, medium-, and high-cost light rail. (Planners call these “low-, medium-, and high-investment alternatives, but it is only an investment if you get a return.) For a route of about 16 miles, the capital costs range from $5 million per mile for TSM to $92 million per mile for high-investment rail.
Congestion is a major issue in the DC area, so Purple Line proponents advertise it as a way to reduce congestion. “The Build alternatives have the potential to slightly reduce traffic congestion and slightly improve regional air quality,” says the DEIS, “by prompting a shift in the mode of travel from private automobiles to public transit, either with BRT or LRT” (page 3-8). However, the region sees about 26 million vehicle trips per day, and the 12,000 to 19,000 trips that the build alternatives promise to take off the road are insignificant, representing less than one-hundredth of a percent of traffic.
What is more significant is that the buses or light-rail vehicles will be given signal priority at more than sixty traffic intersections along the 16-mile route. According to a table on page 3-15, at least one of the build alternatives will increase delays to motorists at 20 different intersections, while the vehicles removed from the road will reduce delays (in at least one alternative) at just five intersections.
Here is one example of the bias in the DEIS. To aid readers, planners have highlighted all 17 instances of traffic improvements, including eight improvements from level of service C to B or B to A. However, they only highlighted 20 instances of traffic degradation when that degradation went to level of service D, E, or F, even though there were 18 more instances of degraded service from A to B or B to C. By leaving off nearly half the instances of degraded service, they made it appear to be a wash.
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The effect of giving transit signal priority turns out to be anything but a wash. Those who take the trouble to download and read the Traffic Analysis Technical Report will learn that average 2030 travel speeds in the corridor if nothing is built will be 24.5 miles per hour. However, under all but the “low-cost BRT” build alternatives, this will decline to 24.4 mph (pp. 4-1 and 4-2). A 0.1 mph decline may not sound like much, but with hundreds of thousands of daily vehicle trips in the corridor, that can add up to a lot of lost hours. Presumably, even the low-cost BRT alternative reduces average speeds but by less than 0.1 mph.
Not to worry. The DEIS measures the cost-effectiveness of the alternatives. Under FTA rules, this was supposed to be done by calculating the annualized cost of each alternative divided by the number of hours saved by transportation users, including both motorists and transit riders.
But that’s not how they did it. According to page 3-7 of the DEIS, the only users who were counted as receiving benefits from the project were transit riders. This means that the (presumably) tens of thousands of hours that motorists will be delayed weren’t counted. Since there are a lot more motorists than transit riders, even in the DC metro area, it is quite likely that delay to motorists under the various build alternatives outweighs the savings to transit riders.
The DEIS makes similar claims regarding air pollution and other environmental issues: since the project will take a relative handful of cars off the road, it must reduce air pollution, right? But slowing the remaining cars will lead them to burn more fuel and emit more pollution (cars emit less pollution per mile at higher speeds up to 45 to 55 mph), something the DEIS does not take into account. The DEIS also seems to ignore pollution generated by fossil-fuel-burning power plants needed to run light rail because that pollution happens outside the project area.
Interestingly, even without taking increased fuel use by slower cars into account, the DEIS concludes that light rail will use more energy than saved by the cars taken off the road. Only the bus alternatives save energy; constructing light rail also consumes more than three times as much energy as building the BRT lines. You wouldn’t know this from reading the executive summary, however, which merely says, “By increasing transit use and attracting trips from automobiles, the alternatives reduce emissions and energy,” which in the case of the light-rail alternatives is an outright lie.
Despite all of the negative effects, an upgraded version of the “medium-cost” light-rail alternative appears to be Maryland’s preferred alternative. At $1.5 billion, this line will cost (after adjusting for inflation) $175 million less than the “high-cost” alternative but $260 million more than the “medium-cost” alternative. (The DEIS used 2007 dollars; the preferred alternative document used 2009 dollars, while the FTA uses year-of-expenditure dollars, which amount to $1.925 billion.)
The Federal Transit Administration included the Purple Line in its list of recommended New Starts projects for 2013. But Maryland still has to find a billion dollars in local matching funds and Congress hasn’t necessarily approved federal funding either. So there are still at least a couple of chances to kill this humongous waste of money.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Congestion is a major issue in the DC area, so Purple Line proponents advertise it as a way to reduce congestion. “The Build alternatives have the potential to slightly reduce traffic congestion and slightly improve regional air quality,” says the DEIS, “by prompting a shift in the mode of travel from private automobiles to public transit, either with BRT or LRT” (page 3-8). However, the region sees about 26 million vehicle trips per day, and the 12,000 to 19,000 trips that the build alternatives promise to take off the road are insignificant, representing less than one-hundredth of a percent of traffic.
Building passenger rail projects to provide highway congestion relief (or to replace freeways never built, frequently due to neighborhood opposition) has been a recurring theme in the metropolitan Washington and Baltimore areas since the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.
Has not apparently done so much in terms of highway congestion relief, at least according to TTI’s metrics.
Don’t forget the “twin” of the Purple Line project is the Baltimore Red Line, a light rail line that is proposed to run east and west between the Social Security Administration’s headquarters complex at Woodlawn in Baltimore County and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital on the east side of Baltimore City.
Recent report from WAMU Radio: Purple Line A Tough Sell To Many Affected Maryland Residents
On colorful maps spread out over long tables, the planned path of the 16-mile, light rail system known as the Purple Line was shown to residents and business owners at a “neighborhood work group” meeting Wednesday night.
While the maps conjure images of what might be if the $2.2 billion rail system, supported by transit advocates and real estate developers, ever gets built, to some the plans are the harbinger of personal hardship.
“I’m not happy at all,” said Dario Orellana, the owner of a Tex-Mex restaurant in busy downtown Silver Spring. “We’ve been there for 14 years and moving is going to be really hard on us.”
Orellana’s is one of about a dozen businesses on 16th Street that would be displaced by the Purple Line’s proposed route through Silver Spring.
The Antiplanner also wrote:
The DEIS also seems to ignore pollution generated by fossil-fuel-burning power plants needed to run light rail because that pollution happens outside the project area.
According to the PJM Interconnection (the grid operator for much of the high-voltage electric transmission network in the East, including all of Maryland and D.C.), generation capacity for PEPCo (the electric utility that serves the Purple Line area) is overwhelmingly coal-fired. For example, see Table 11-7 on physical page 4 of this document (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 1.61 MB).
The Red line has seen it’s fair share of disappointment. It’s received far too many complaints from neighbors who don’t want the train routed through their neighborhood.
A leading opponent of the Purple Line is the Columbia Country Club, a golf course with land that occupies both sides of the planned route between Bethesda and Silver Spring; God forbid it ruin their country vibe. “Purple Line Now” is an non-profit specifically dedicated to advocating for the inside the beltway light rail Purple Line from Bethesda to New Carrollton integrated with a hiker/biker trail from Bethesda to Silver Spring. I’ve been to Silver Spring, it’s not really a city or a town, it’s an office park that depopulates at night. Maryland officials supported the Purple Line; which would run primarily above ground claiming it “would provide better east-west transit service, particularly for lower-income workers who can’t afford cars” I think we all know lower income workers are not gonna use, let alone afford to casually ride. The development firm Chevy Chase Land Co. is a strong proponent of the construction of the Purple Line. Of course they do, they’re in the business of development along potential rail stations. Of course if it’s anything like Portland’s rail development which never happened for years until the city intervened. And selecting choice businesses who perpetrate the cronyism. I’m sure McDonald’s would support the Purple Line, assuming they got incentive to build restaurants along rail stations. “Sorry, Burger King, we don’t see much of an advantage of you building restaurants here, you don’t seem to be as economically productive as we are”.
Antiplanner: “To aid readers, planners have highlighted all 17 instances of traffic improvements, including eight improvements from level of service C to B or B to A. However, they only highlighted 20 instances of traffic degradation when that degradation went to level of service D, E, or F, even though there were 18 more instances of degraded service from A to B or B to C. By leaving off nearly half the instances of degraded service, they made it appear to be a wash.”
Sneaky, but technically correct. LOS ‘A’ to ‘C’ are all okay. So an increase to these LOS values are all equivalent.
Antiplanner: “. However, the region sees about 26 million vehicle trips per day, and the 12,000 to 19,000 trips that the build alternatives promise to take off the road are insignificant, representing less than one-hundredth of a percent of traffic.”
In the corridor of interest, most of the 26 million trips don’t happen. So this is a slightly unfair comparison.
Antiplanner: “According to page 3-7 of the DEIS, the only users who were counted as receiving benefits from the project were transit riders. This means that the (presumably) tens of thousands of hours that motorists will be delayed weren’t counted. Since there are a lot more motorists than transit riders, even in the DC metro area, it is quite likely that delay to motorists under the various build alternatives outweighs the savings to transit riders.”
The likely delays are not going to be important – people spend time at work chatting, around the water cooler, etc. For meetings, consistency of travel time is more important. Taking delays and then multiplying them by the number of trips and the cost of time always leads to nonsensical results.
“Congestion is a major issue in the DC area, so Purple Line proponents advertise it as a way to reduce congestion.”
My fellow transit proponents have to knock this crap off. Of course this was also the argument of toll road proponents here in Austin, and the toll roads haven’t done jack squat to reduce congestion. We should be honest about what these projects are about, and let them stand or fail on their merits. I’ve noticed that these toll road and rail transit projects are more often about real estate development, and giving a city a warm and fuzzy feeling that they are a first class city than mobility or congestion reduction.
FrancisKing:
“Sneaky, but technically correct. LOS ‘A’ to ‘C’ are all okay”
It would be okay if they also didn’t mark LOS B to A or C to B. Since they did, they should have marked the other way.
“In the corridor of interest, most of the 26 million trips don’t happen. So this is a slightly unfair comparison.”
I agree, but the DEIS does not present any corridor traffic data for 2030, just regional data.
“The likely delays are not going to be important – people spend time at work chatting, around the water cooler, etc.”
Time spent around the proverbial water cooler feels good. Time sitting in traffic doesn’t.
Is it just me, or does the idea of giving buses the ability to change traffic signals seem very unfair and anti-democratic?
The city does that where I live (and it actually helps my commute, but it really pisses me off). That signal priority was installed for emergency vehicles, which is understandable. But the city gave the god power to city buses just to save money by not adding additional buses. But it strikes me hard as if the city making a moral pronouncement that bus riders are akin to firefighters and cops reacting to an emergency. That is despite the buses being mostly empty.
I do support basic bus service and gladly drive to let buses maneuver in and out of traffic, but giving them god privileges in traffic just builds resentment. Thank you for listening to my rant.
Sandy Teal: “I do support basic bus service and gladly drive to let buses maneuver in and out of traffic, but giving them god privileges in traffic just builds resentment. Thank you for listening to my rant.”
Sorry to hear that you feel that way. But the fact is that buses are very slow, so that unless you help buses out – buses lanes, emergency calls to signal controllers, tolls on cars – buses cannot compete.