The idea for the Purple Line in suburban Maryland is nearly as old as the Metro system itself. Like many of the Washington region’s major transportation projects, it has lived through multiple state governors, changing political tides and a handful of recessions.
The Intercounty Connector was studied and planned for 50 years before the first leg opened between Gaithersburg and Olney this year.
The project began as an outer Beltway in the 1950s, but in 1980 Maryland scrapped the plan except for the 18.8-mile connection between interstates 270 and 95. Still, lawsuits bogged down the groundbreaking until 2006 and by then it had become a toll road. The second leg connecting Olney to 95 has been delayed until the end of this year at the earliest.
The concept for Metro’s Dulles Rail line was born in the 1960s, the same era when Metro was conceived. The West Falls Church Station was designed to eventually connect to a line to the airport, and the Dulles Toll Road was constructed with a large median for a future transit line. The project was dropped until the 1990s, when officials flirted with bus rapid transit until selecting rail in 2004. By then, Tysons Corner had entered into the picture and a debate over tunneling through the retail center — as was done in Arlington in the ’70s — slowed progress. Construction began in 2009 for an aboveground line.
The Purple Line was first envisioned in the early ’70s as a transit way on the Georgetown Branch Trail connecting Silver Spring and Bethesda, or the two stems of the U-shaped Red Line on Metro. The concept was tabled in the ’90s and revived in the early 2000s when it was combined with a Silver Spring-New Carrollton line.
Montgomery County’s Corridor Cities Transitway is the youngest concept, but it is approaching middle age with no groundbreaking in sight. The concept for a transit link between the Beltway and Frederick was first added to master plans in the ’70s, but studies on the transit modes and routes didn’t begin until the 1990s. The county still has not decided between bus rapid transit and light rail.
