{"id":4738,"date":"2015-02-12T12:27:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T17:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4738"},"modified":"2015-02-12T17:04:55","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T22:04:55","slug":"greater-greater-replies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4738","title":{"rendered":"Greater Greater Replies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Between the ad hominem snarks at me and Chevy Chase, Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert has a cogent response<\/a> to my critique. Read it to check out their point of view on my recent series.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the demonization of Chevy Chase just demonstrates vividly what I wrote about earlier today<\/a> in terms of GGW’s negative view toward existing communities. Rather than assuming that reasonable people can and do disagree, this is the standard approach taken by GGW to dissenters.<\/p>\n

My objections to the Purple Line are hardly a secret as I’ve written about it many times on this blog. You’d never know from reading GGW, but I don’t belong to a country club, my home won’t be affected by the Purple Line, and I very much favor smarter smart growth–the final upcoming portion of the series.<\/p>\n

So why do I object to it? It’s far too expensive. The costs keep rising<\/a> suspiciously<\/a> fast, it places the State’s credit rating at risk<\/a>, and the ridership numbers calculation remain a secret. The BRT alternative<\/a> would capture almost all of the benefit at much less cost. This leaves more money for other projects–liking fixing Metro–which sounds like a good deal to me. Most of the planned development will occur even if no version of the line is every built. And this transit line will do nothing for traffic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s more environmentally harmful<\/a> than the alternatives. The trains will actually generate more greenhouse gases than the cars they replace. It will destroy the Capital Crescent Trail east of Bethesda by turning it into a narrow treeless bike path between sound walls and and the Purple Line.<\/p>\n

But hey, it’s a free country. GGW is entitled to their view. Even if sometimes unpleasant, debate is healthy because it informs people and improves the decision-making process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the ad hominem snarks at me and Chevy Chase, Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert has a cogent response to my critique. Read it to check out their point of view on my recent series. Ironically, the demonization of Chevy Chase just demonstrates vividly what I wrote about earlier today in terms of GGW’s negative … Continue reading Greater Greater Replies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1226,349],"class_list":["post-4738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transportation","tag-greater-greater-washington","tag-purple-line-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1eq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4738"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4747,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4738\/revisions\/4747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}