Chevy Chase and Columbia Country Club team up against Purple line
By Silver Springer • Jul 21st, 2008 • Category: Government and Politics, MORE NEWS
Action Committee for Transit (ACT) President, Ben Ross released an e-mail stating that the Town of Chevy Chase is gearing up efforts to obstruct the purple line.
According to Ross, this is the third time this year that the Town of Chevy Chase has made a stance against the trail. This time the town declined to sign a joint letter with ACT that would push back fences 16’ feet apart, straddling the Capital Crescent Trail.
The public right of way that includes the trail is 100’feet wide but as mentioned only 16’feet is for the trail. The rest of the public right of way is currently occupied by the Columbia Country Club “rent free” as stated in the e-mail.
In January the Town of Chevy Chase launched a campaign to run diesel buses on the Silver Spring side of the trail and last week they contested the completion of a master-planned section in downtown Bethesda.
“Purple Line opponents are not trail advocates,” commented ACT president Ben Ross. “The truth is distorted when this self-serving characterization is repeated as fact. The media ought to be more careful in their reporting.”
Image taken from sierraclub.org
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As Ben Ross said in his email, “Purple Line opponents are not trail advocates.” I could not agree more. This is pure NIMBY-ism combined with free-loading - the country club is using public land, for goodness sake! If I were a member of the leadership of the Town of Chevy Chase, I would be embarrassed to publicly champion a country club, of all things, on public land over a public good like mass transit. Shame on them for hiding behind “trail advocacy” instead of owning up to their elitist agenda.
Montgomery County should not be pushed around by Columbia Country Club. Working class citizens never had a chance when they paved highways through their communities in the 60’s and 70’s to get the richer suburbanites to their downtown jobs, and now a bunch of lawyers get to decide roller blading is more important than getting people out of their cars???
This is a fairness issue with long term economic and enviromental implications for all of us.
It would be a shame to see us (all) lose because our elected representatives didn’t have the guts to stand up to the elites. Spread the love
Why don’t we just take the land back? I’ve got some fence cutters. Don’t know why so much land in Silver Spring/Bethesda has been set aside for elitist (and yes, rampantly racist) country clubs. Not to mention the fact that golf courses are notoriously bad for the environment and watershed. At the very least we should start protesting at the corner of East-West and Georgia.