About Us
Rethinking the Purple Line coalition was established to coordinate a regional event dramatizing the impact of the proposed Purple Line light rail on the Capital Crescent Trail. Residents from 18 communities and organizations in Montgomery County, MD, co-sponsored the event on May 31, 2008. The coalition continues to promote alternative mass transit options that would better serve all communities, cost less, and preserve an important natural resource and link on the Trail.
More than 400 Maryland residents came together that day to oppose the state’s proposed plan and to learn more about the scale of construction and effects of the double-track light rail trains on this threatened green resource.
More than 300 participants signed cards with a message for Governor Martin O’Malley:
“Given your administration’s environmental emphasis, it doesn’t make sense to put this down-county green space, Maryland’s most popular Trail, in jeopardy. Transit and Trail side-by-side, often in extremely narrow right of ways, just won’t work. There are other alternatives that will.”
Many concerned citizens added personal notes: “Please pursue other alternatives!” wrote one from Bethesda. “We need to preserve valuable, diminishing green space,” another from Rockville pleaded. “Bikers like me save gas and the environment. The trail works for us,” a Silver Spring resident added, while a Chevy Chase resident lamented: “Only developers win!!!”
We are a growing coalition of community residents and community organizations. We invite you to join us and learn more about the real outcome of the proposed Purple Line.
Bethesda Civic Coalition
Chevy Chase West
Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights
Farmington
Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Coalition
Save the Trail Petition
Town of Chevy Chase
Town of Oakmont
Village of Chevy Chase Section 5
And Friends of the Trail in
Battery Park
Chevy Chase Hills
East Bethesda
Edgevale
Glen Cove
Hamlet Place
Martin’s Additions
Sacks Neighborhood Association
Village of Drummond