(Future) Capital Crescent Trail
Silver Spring waits for the Capital Crescent Trail.
The Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) has been completed as a paved asphalt trail from Georgetown to Bethesda. The Trail follows an abandoned B&O railbed, and has gentle grades and only a few at-grade roadway crossings. It follows a tree lined corridor through a tunnel and over four bridges, and offers beautiful views of the Potomac River. The paved CCT between Georgetown and Bethesda is often crowded with cyclists, rollerbladers, joggers, and walkers. It is not unusual to see over 500 users/hr. on the CCT during evenings and weekends.
An Interim CCT has been built with a crushed stone surface from Bethesda to Lyttonsville. A restored railroad trestle gives an easy crossing of the Rock Creek Stream Valley. The Interim CCT now ends abruptly in an obscure industrial park, over one mile from downtown Silver Spring. The on-road Georgetown Branch Trail must be used to reach most Silver Spring neighborhoods and downtown Silver Spring.
Map source: www.cctrail.org
The Georgetown Branch Trail has many roadway crossings, two of them six-lane state highways with heavy turning traffic. This on-road bike route serves for cyclists comfortable riding in traffic, but few others will use it. A CCCT traffic survey found that traffic on the Interim CCT east of the Rock Creek Trestle is only a small fraction of that on the CCT between Bethesda and Georgetown.
Connecting the CCT to downtown Silver Spring is crucial for completing an off-road trail connection between the urban centers of Bethesda and Silver Spring, and for making the CCT available to Silver Spring neighborhoods. Completing the CCT is also crucial to link the off-road trails on the western side of the county with the off-road trails on the eastern side of the County (Rock Creek Trail, CCT, North Bethesda Trail to the west; Metropolitan Branch Trail, Silver Spring Green Trail, Sligo Creek Trail to the east).
Failure to complete the CCT into Silver Spring as a good off-road trail would be devastating to the planned trail network in lower Montgomery County.
The Future: Off-Road and safe into Silver Spring
Plans to complete the CCT are on hold until the future of the proposed Purple Line transit/trail project is determined. If the Purple Line project goes forward, then the CCT can be completed alongside transit as an off-road trail with grade separated crossings of major roadways in Silver Spring, connecting seamlessly in the transit center with the Metropolitan Branch Trail. If the Purple Line project is rejected, then only a badly compromised alternate route can be built.
The CCT “final mile” into Silver Spring must be along the CSX Corridor, and transit is needed to make it happen. Only a trail alignment along the CSX railroad corridor will support an off-road trail with grade-separated crossings of the busy streets in Silver Spring. No other off-road trail alignment can make a direct connection to the Metropolitan Branch Trail in the Silver Spring Transit Center.
CSX Railroad owns or controls right-of-way critical for a trail alignment along the railroad corridor. CSX has indicated in a letter to Montgomery County Park and Planning (M-NCPPC) that it will not allow a trail as a stand alone project in their right-of-way. In addition the trail “final mile” is prohibitively expensive to build on this corridor as a stand-alone project. If transit is built in the CSX corridor, then the transit project must acquire CSX right-of-way.
CSX has affirmed, in a letter to Maryland DOT Transportation Secretary Flanagan in early 2004, that CSX is willing to negotiate right-of-way issues with State transit planners. Transit funds can cover much of the cost of expensive structures like crash barriers and retaining walls that would otherwise have to be covered with scarce trail funds.
The MTA concept for the Purple Line places the Purple Line tracks on the west side of the CSX tracks. The CCT will be on the east side – and elevated higher than the CSX tracks to get by at the choke points at the Woodside Mews parking lot, under the 16th Street bridge, and at the approach to Colesville Road. Profile sketches of the transit/trail at key points in the CSX corridor are available at www.purplelinemd.com.
Transit and Trail can share the corridor.
Neighborhood groups centered in Chevy Chase have wrapped themselves with the “Save the Trail” banner. Their website www.savethetrail.org makes strong claims that rail will be incompatible with a trail. But the Purple Line design concept and the experience with many rails-with-trails around the country refute their claims.
The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy reports there are already more than 200 trails alongside or within the right-of-way of active rail lines nationwide. More trails with rails are being built every year. Their study of 61 of these trails showed that they are attractive and safe. Their safety study, and other information on trails with rails, is online at their “Trail Building Toobox”.
The Purple Line CCT design concept provides a full width Georgetown Branch corridor with good separation from transit. A wide planted buffer and a fence will be between the trail and transit. The CCT will be rebuilt on the north side of transit between Bethesda and Jones Mill Road so the trail will be higher than the transit track in most places. Modern light-rail cars like those of Portland will be used, and can run so quietly that bells are needed to warn pedestrians when they approach stations or crossings.
Trees will remain in the corridor in the many areas where the r.o.w. is greater than needed for transit, and can combine with the planted buffer between the trail and tracks to give a feeling of being in a green space. If “grass tracks” are used, as the Montgomery County Council and Executive are requesting, then ironically the only part of the corridor that will not be green will be the pavement of the trail itself.
The Georgetown Branch Corridor was purchased for over ten million dollars in large part for potential transit use, and shared transit-trail use would benefit the largest number of people. MTA ridership estimates predict that six times as many people will use the Purple Line in one day than now use the trail east of Bethesda in one week. Use of the trail will increase if rebuilt with the Purple Line because it will be paved, will be extended through more neighborhoods into downtown Silver Spring, and will be connected to the off-road trails east of Rock Creek.
Bruce Adams, wh
o supported purchasing the Georgetown Branch right-of-way and creating the trail while on the Montgomery County Council, observed: “The Capital Crescent Trail is a regional jewel, but it would not exist today had the council not voted in 1988 to purchase the right-of-way for the rail line”, and “For trail supporters to attempt to block the rail line by arguing that it will destroy the trail is just not playing fair.” (February 6, 2003 letter to Montgomery Gazette).
(Future) CCT and Purple Line project status:
The MTA Alternatives Analysis/Prelimary Environmental Impact Statement (AA/DEIS) was released in October, 2008. The Executives and County Councils of both Montgomery and Prince George’s County have recommended the light rail alternative be selected. Governor O’Malley selected the light rail as the “Locally Preferred Alternative” in August of 2009. A Preliminary Engineering and a Final Environmental Impact Statement (PE/FEIS) is now being prepared and will be submitted to the Federal Transit Administration for a Record of Decision. The earliest construction can begin is 2013.
The Purple Line AA/DEIS is at www.purplelinemd.com. See the website www.purplelinenow.org and the Sierra Club 2005 Newsletter for more on the transportation and environmental issues from a regional perspective.