Free Republic

SILVER SPRING, Md. (ABC7) — MS-13 members held a Purple Line construction worker at gunpoint inside of a seemingly vacant building slated for demolition, police say. The two-story single-family house, which has since been torn down, was located at 807 University Boulevard East in Silver Spring - roughly a quarter-mile south of Piney Branch Road. The Maryland Transit Authority purchased the property to make way for the 16-mile light rail system that will link downtown Bethesda with the New Carrollton Metro station. According to Montgomery County Police, the Purple Line employee entered the abandoned structure around 8 a.m. on Tuesday,...

Is fighting sprawl still a goal for those who decide the fate of transportation funding at the federal, state and local levels?Transportation planning is deeply connected to economic development, but there in any agreement about transportation funding among government leaders often ends.Parag Khanna, a senior public policy analyst in Singapore and author of “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” summarized the political divide over transportation planning like this: “America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters.”But division that stymies transportation planning goes further. Government leaders have always been divided...

Guess what everyone? The MBTA transit system in Boston is going to close down most of its commuter lines this summer thanks to stupid government projects and leftist regulations stemming from Obama's last days that will close down vital transit lines to most of Massachusetts and its all happening during tourist season! The purple line is Boston's metro commuter rail that connects the Boston metro to surrounding areas of Eastern Massachusetts. Its our equivilent to Southern California's Metrolink in Los Angeles, the Sounder in Everett, Seattle and Tacoma, New York's Metrorail and Miami Tri-rail. Now I'm not here to argue...

Federal funding for Maryland’s Purple Line is in jeopardy, as are Metro’s hopes for a significant increase in money from the government under President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget released Thursday. Trump’s proposed spending plan, which slashes the federal transportation budget by 13 percent, also curbs long-distance Amtrak service out of Washington and cuts millions in federal grants that the region’s governments have relied on for new rapid bus lines, road work, bus stop improvements and bike paths. The cuts came as a shock to many, considering Trump’s campaign pledge to pump $1 trillion into the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. “I find...

A Maryland board approved a $5.6 billion contract Wednesday for a team of companies to build and operate a light-rail Purple Line that state officials say will rejuvenate older communities and transform a 16-mile swath of the Washington suburbs. The 876-page agreement — believed to be the most expensive government contract ever in Maryland — forms one of the largest public-private partnerships on a U.S. transportation project and will result in the first major light-rail line in the nation’s capital in years. […] Compared with Metro trains, Purple Line light-rail trains will be shorter, carry a maximum of 300 passengers...

ANNAPOLIS, MD – Following through on his campaign pledge to provide funding for highways and state-owned local roads, Governor Larry Hogan today announced $1.97 billion for highways and bridges from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore. The priority projects, which will get underway by 2018, include $1.35 billion in new projects going to construction and $625 million in preserved projects. The $1.35 billion in new projects includes $845 million for major projects and $500 million to fix bridges and improve roads. “Today, I’m delivering on my promise to provide nearly $2 billion in funding to our highways and bridges across...

Dashing Baltimore's hopes for an east-west light rail line, Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday that he will not build the $2.9 billion Red Line. "The current proposal makes no sense whatsoever," the governor told a State House news conference. But Hogan, making his first appearance since announcing Monday he has cancer, gave mass transit advocates a limited victory by giving the green light to construction of a slimmed-down version of the Purple Line light rail project in the Washington suburbs. During his campaign last year, Hogan had said the state could not afford either project. After he took office, however,...

Gov. Larry Hogan announced Thursday the state will move forward with the Purple Line. The Republican governor made his decision after months of speculation about whether he’ll kill the $2.45 billion light-rail project. Hogan said the state will fund the project with $168 million, “a fraction” of the cost of what could have been up to a $700 million state investment. The governor said he will ask Montgomery County and Prince George's County to increase the size of their investments. “The Purple Line is a long-term investment and will be an important economic driver for Maryland,” Hogan said. “It will...

Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan (R) announced eight more senior members of his administration Tuesday, including a new transportation secretary whom he introduced as “the best highway builder in the entire country.” Hogan’s nomination of Pete Rahn, who has held top transportation jobs in New Mexico and Missouri, comes amid great uncertainty over the future of the light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs and other proposed mass-transit projects. The governor-elect has strongly signaled that he will emphasize roads over rail after he takes office Jan. 21. Hogan, who made tax cuts a rallying cry of his campaign, also pledged to...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley may be more skilled at implementing President Obama’s agenda than the White House itself. The Democratic governor is bringing the same big-spending, high-tax and class-warfare policies to the Free State. It’s going to cost residents a bundle. Tough economic times have forced ordinary Americans to cut back in order to get by. Not so Mr. O’Malley, who spends $35.9 billion in the budget released last month. That’s up from $34.2 billion last year and $32 billion the year before that. As Maryland Business for Responsive Government points out, the general fund budget fattened 11.4 percent last...

Although a plan to close Campus Drive this summer has drawn sharp criticism from on- and off-campus groups, administrators have said changing the plan could conflict with the spirit of the trial. The experiment, which calls for Campus Drive to be closed to traffic except emergency vehicles and two internal bus routes from June 19 to Aug. 13, was formed to allow the university to test the goals of its Facilities Master Plan as it prepares an updated version, Vice President for Administrative Affairs Ann Wylie wrote in an e-mail. Although Associate Vice President for Facilities Management Frank Brewer said...

On its Web site, the Alliance for Smart Transportation bills itself as a "coalition of concerned citizens advocating for smart transportation solutions for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties." But read on. The new group criticizes Maryland's plan to build a 16-mile Purple Line transit link between Bethesda and New Carrollton but offers no ideas for how to relieve traffic...Nor does the site identify the "concerned citizens." The site's...founder is a board member at Columbia Country Club in Montgomery, whose 100-year-old golf course would be bisected by the transit line. Purple Line supporters say the Chevy Chase club is merely disguising...

Silver Spring, Md. (AP) - A study of an east-west transit route in Montgomery and Prince George's counties is moving ahead despite a perception that it is being muscled out by higher profile projects, Maryland transportation officials said Wednesday. State planners hope to complete a study of the environmental effects of the Bi-County Transitway next year, a necessary step to winning federal funding that will be needed to build the line. Work could begin as early as 2010, according to Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert Flanagan. But it is still unclear what form of transit would be used for the line...