A safer Capital Crescent Trail

Who We Are

What We Want

Why Light Rail?

Rails & Trails
    A proven idea
    A safer CCT
    Pedestrian friendly
    Green tracks

News & Events

Project Background

How You Can Help

The Purple Line will make the CCT safer.

The CCT will be a far safer recreational trail alongside the Purple Line than is the existing Interim CCT and Georgetown Branch Trail. Any risk to future CCT users from transit vehicles is small compared to the risk trail users face today of being run over by motor vehicles while using the existing Interim CCT and Georgetown Branch Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring.

Georgetown Branch Trail crossing at 16th St.

The Georgetown Branch Trail at 16th Street

Every year nearly 700 cyclists and 5,000 pedestrians are struck and killed by motor vehicles. Contrast those numbers with the approximately 20 pedestrian or passenger fatalities caused by light-rail each year. (Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Fatalities by Mode.) The Interim CCT has dangerous at-grade crossings of Connecticut Avenue and Jones Bridge Road. The Georgetown Branch Trail is on roadways for two miles in Silver Spring and has six street crossings at traffic lights including at-grade crossings of 16th Street and of Colesville Road. Trail users must cross three (3) six lane state highways at-grade between Bethesda and Silver Spring. Purple Line opponents want us to ignore this risk.

Plans for the Purple Line call for the CCT to be rebuilt as an uninterrupted off-road trail from downtown Bethesda to downtown Silver Spring, with grade-separated crossings on bridges or underpasses of all major roadways. The Trail will be paved and will be at least 10 feet wide over its entire length. Trail users will be separated from light-rail tracks by fences, retaining walls or plantings.

An MTA profile of the CCT alongside the Purple Line.

Purple Line opponents from the Town of Chevy Chase are asserting that the Purple Line tracks will be dangerous for their children because they will take shortcuts across the tracks to reach the trail. But fences and retaining walls along both sides of the tracks will discourage children from crossing at unapproved crossing points. There will only be one at-grade pedestrian crossing of the Purple Line tracks along the entire corridor between Bethesda and Silver Spring - at the Lynn Drive local path at the Town of Chevy Chase.

Rails-to-Trails has studied trail at-grade rail crossings and has found these crossings have an excellent safety record. Their 2005 study is available online, A Preliminary Assessment of Safety and Grade Crossings (pdf). The Rails-to-Trails report examines the many tools available to designers to make these crossings safe, including warning systems with either automatic or manually operated gates.

MTA project engineers have indicated they will work closely with the Town to design a safe crossing on the Lynn Drive path. A combination of a physical barrier to prevent pedestrians from entering the crossing without slowing and turning, and pedestrian signal lights and signs that warn of approaching transit vehicles, have been suggested. With good design, this crossing will be far safer than is the gauntlet of crosswalks the children now use to cross East-West Highway on the Lynn Drive path route to school, see Keeping the children safe at SilverSpringTrails.

A bike hanger on Minneapolis light rail.

Purple Line opponents try to convince people that the trail not be safe with the Purple Line. But organizations with a proven commitment to expanding walking and bicycling opportunities, like the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and the Montgomery County Bicycle Action Group, reject these uninformed fears. These organizations recognize the Purple Line will by enable the completion of the trail into downtown Silver Spring, will provide safer grade separated crossings of busy roadways, and will give trail users easy access to quality transit at each of the Purple Line platforms along the trail.

Shorter Commutes - Less Pollution - Better Trails - More Jobs - Higher Property Values - Stronger Communities