An 18-day silence since student leaders sent university officials a letter urging them to support plans to run a light rail line through the campus has local politicians fearing that the university’s unclear stance could stifle momentum on the MTA’s Purple Line project.
Aside from informal plans to meet with students this summer, university officials have yet to respond to students’ calls for the university to back the Maryland Transit Authority’s Purple Line. The proposed line – a lightrail transit way that would connect Maryland suburbs around the Beltway from Bethesda to New Carrollton – would run a scaled-down Metro-like train through Campus Drive and set up a station near the Stamp Student Union.
In a letter signed by leaders from six student organizations, they implored the university to “become an outright champion of the project just as the university community has come to expect.” The university sent a separate letter to the MTA this March, protesting this above-ground arrangement because of safety concerns.
The silence since the student complaints has obscured the university’s already ambiguous position on the issue.
“We’re getting mixed messages,” said state Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel), who campaigned on a pro-Purple Line platform this fall.
In public presentations, developers for the university’s 38-acre East Campus project, Richard Perlmutter and Bryant Foulger, have repeatedly touted an on-campus Purple Line stop as a key tool to spur urban growth and clear the city’s crowded roads.
Since Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) pledged to fund the Purple Line just after the election, the transit-way has gained momentum in local governments, and the project once thought doomed to nothing more than a new bus route appears ready to face the House of Delegates for funding next year, said Mark Madden, the MTA’s Purple Line project manager. The project had been stalled in planning stages since 2000.
But with a price tag that could exceed $1 billion, questions remain about whether it will receive the necessary federal funding.
Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) said the university’s uncertain stance could quash the Purple Line’s growing support.
While the university has no official veto on the transit-way, Peña-Melnyk said its clout has made its blessing essential to push similar projects through local bureaucracies. In the past, the university’s political pull has won millions of state dollars for conducting traffic studies and building new academic buildings.
“Perhaps we could go forward without them, but it’s better to act with honey than vinegar,” she said. “The university doesn’t have a vote, but any project needs consensus.”
If the school opposed the plan, “that will kill the project,” Peña-Melnyk said. “Dr. Mote needs to retract that letter.”
Associate Vice President for Facilities Management Frank Brewer said the university did not oppose the Purple Line, but rather any alignment that might run it at ground level through Campus Drive.
“It’s a safety concern,” he said. “If you’ve been at Campus Drive in the middle of the day, it’s just the most congested place in the world as it is. The Purple Line would just add conflict.”
Instead, Brewer proposed an underground track or routes that would skirt the campus periphery.
But Madden said cost constraints forced the MTA to rule out both options long ago. MTA traffic monitors have already scouted the road, and will release a traffic study to clarify the Purple Line’s potential impact this summer.
Vice President for Administrative Affairs Doug Duncan advocated in favor of the Purple Line for 12 years as Montgomery County executive.
Still, he said he stood by the university’s position against the proposed plans, though he added that university President Dan Mote requested a briefing on the subject this summer after the MTA releases its study.
