'Metro Woman' Enlisted to Help Purple Line

Mitchell Miller, WTOP Radio

WASHINGTON - Traffic keeps getting worse in the Washington suburbs. And there's a new push for an old plan that some view as an alternative to the Intercounty Connector.

It's the Purple Line, also known as the Bi-County Transitway, which would provide mass transit between Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Supporters of the proposal went directly to taxpayers this week, enlisting the help of a colorful character: "Metro Woman." Dressed in purple, and wearing a skirt covered with Metrocards, she joined members of the Sierra Club at the Bethesda Metro Station.

"The way we look at it, this is really an opportunity," said Chris Carney, a conservation organizer with the Sierra Club.

"This is a chance to shorten trips and to give residents convenient and safe transportation choices. We just need to make sure that our politicians and our public officials hear this, and get to work on making it a priority."

Advocates of the plan are concerned that all the discussion about the ICC is causing people forget the Purple Line.

Former Gov. Parris Glendening supported creation of the line, which as originally proposed, would have become another Metro line. More recently, there has been discussion that it could be a rapid-bus line.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert Flanagan denies that Gov. Bob Ehrlich's support for the ICC has come at the expense of the transit-way.

"There was a lot talk and a lot of rhetoric in the (Glendening) administration," Flanagan said. "But this is the administration that's delivered by going to Congress, seeking federal funds and aggressively pursuing the necessary planning ... to get those federal funds and move forward with the Bi-County Transit-way."

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