Coming Up Next
Halloween Parade
Sunday, October 26th
Chase to Lynnbrook Parks
President’s
Notebook
By Ilaya Hopkins, President
Representing the 1200 households North of East-West Highway, South of Jones
Bridge Road, East of Wisconsin Avenue and West of Columbia Country Club.
Neighborhood News
OCTOBER 2008
WWW.EBCA.ORG
Purple Line: Waiting
for the Next Report
By David Saltzman, 1st Vice President
The Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) for the Purple
Line from the Maryland Transit
Administration (MTA) is currently
scheduled for release on October
17th. The DEIS will weigh all
possible routes for a proposed
transit system and the various
light rail and bus alternatives. It
will attempt to address all impacts
each alternative may have along
its entire route
including air
quality, water
quality, noise,
deforestation, and other issues
such as the cascading effects on
traffic on local roads.
At the September 17th EBCA
general membership meeting, I
delivered a presentation outlining
the system and the county’s efforts
to obtain public input on its design.
I noted the various alternatives
under consideration and their
prospective costs. I urged residents
to visit the MTA’s website, which
contains a tremendous amount of
useful information, including maps
and cross-section drawings for the
various alternatives online at
www.bi-countytransitway.com. You
will also be able to download the
DEIS from this site.
I expressed that the county and
MTA
appear
biased
toward
building a light rail system on the
Master Plan Alignment, which is
presently the trail that runs across
the back of our neighborhood. I
gave my opinion that I felt the
county and MTA appeared to be
devoting considerably less energy
to studying alternatives to this.
Additionally, I noted that almost
no study has been done regarding
the sufficiency of the proposed 10-
foot wide trail that would run
alongside the rail lines, which I
believe is an acute issue in light of
overcrowdi