Oh, to have Bethesda’s problems!
The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher writes up Pam Browning and Ben Ross, two generals in the near-Maryland civic-minded civil war over the fate of the Capital Crescent Trail. Or rather, the fate of the Purple Line — depending on how you see the issue. As Fisher writes:
To many outsiders, the clash over the trail looks like a civil war within the left — with hard-core greens pushing to save the quiet, the tree canopy and the carbon-neutral transportation model of the existing trail, and hard-core smart-growthers eager to pull commuters out of their cars and onto rail cars that zip past traffic lights and road congestion.
A squabble over routes has escalated into angry accusations of elitism, racism and NIMBYism.
From insiders’ perspectives, this is a fight over racism and classism, with the very fate of high suburbanism hanging in the balance.
To be sure, both sides make compelling arguments for their vision of the good life. The Capital Crescent Trail is one of the city’s most valuable park features. A ride along the Trail to the Black Salt Sea Market in Palisades, for example, is a fine way to spend a spring afternoon; factor in a kayak rental at Jack’s Boathouse in Georgetown and you’ve got yourself a day. Yet a transit corridor located along the segment of the trail under discussion — which is at present still a rather bucolic stretch of path — would do much to alleviate automobile traffic and spur development and density at the transit hubs.
Are these things mutually exclusive? Note that the trail is already located alongside a trains track, albeit an inactive one. Could light-rail development transform the trail so greatly as to render the current rail trail unrecognizable? The people at Rails With Trails say no: “Both the Capital Crescent Trail and the Purple Line will benefit with a good trail/rail integrated design.”
Of course, this will do little to settle the pressing issue of trail etiquette. Nor will it clear up the small matter of all the racist elitist fascists in Bethesda and Silver Spring.
