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The Diamondback covers PLCC Annual Meeting

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of people gathered on Zoom to discuss equitable development goals surrounding the long-awaited Purple Line at the Purple Line Corridor Coalition’s annual stakeholder meeting.

The Purple Line Corridor Coalition is a collaboration between communities and the public and private sectors. Led by the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth, the coalition works collectively toward prosperity in the communities and businesses around the Purple Line.

Tuesday’s meeting brought together corridor residents, nonprofits, businesses and other organizations to check in on local communities and businesses. Also present were planning department officials including Kip Reynolds from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and community activists such as organizers from advocacy organization CASA.

Sheila Somashekhar, the coalition’s director, spoke about how the community must adapt to the changes presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Nick FinioNov 20No Comments

Gerrit Knaap interviewed for Baltimore Sun story on the Purple Line

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Gerrit Knaap interviewed for Baltimore Sun story on the Purple Line

Ricardo Velis doesn’t have a car, so he spends an hour and a half commuting each way on two buses between his home in Montgomery County and work in Prince George’s County. It’s a less than 30-minute drive, but he said one of the Montgomery County buses stops 20 times.
Velis, a 31-year-old construction worker, is one of the many in Maryland’s Washington suburbs eagerly awaiting the Purple Line, a 16-mile, east-west light rail line between Bethesda and New Carrollton, connecting to two MARC and four Washington Metro lines.
“We need more connections,” he said. “The bus is very slow.”
Decades in the making, the 21-station rail line is about 40% built. A 100-foot hole has been dug for elevator shafts in Bethesda. Utility and steam line relocation is underway along University Boulevard and on the University of Maryland, College Park campus. Bridges for the elevated sections of the mostly street-level rail line have begun rising in Chevy Chase, Silver Spring and Riverdale Park.
The Purple Line Corridor Coalition laid out goals for affordable housing, economic development, small business preservation, workforce development and other initiatives along the route, including art and cultural preservation, in 2017.
“We’re trying to prepare the corridor, which at one time seemed really urgent,” said Gerrit Knaap, who established the coalition as director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland. “It seems a little less urgent now, but we still think it’s important.”
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Nick FinioNov 20No Comments

Sevgi Erdogan Interviewed on WYPR about Towson Circulator

It’s been a decade in the making, but a free circulator bus for Towson is en route and should arrive next fall. This will operate as a three year pilot to determine if it’s viable.

The idea survived years of powerful opposition.

The Towson Circulator will not link up with a major transportation hub, like Baltimore’s Charm City Circulator, which stops at Penn Station. Despite that, Sevgi Erdogan, a professor at the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, said the Towson Circulator potentially could have a lot of riders because it will be linking two colleges, three hospitals and multiple businesses.

“So as a local service, it seems like there is good enough demand to justify the service,” Erdogan said.

Read the full story here on WYPR. 

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Nick FinioNov 16No Comments