Even as most construction on Maryland’s Purple Line stalled for the past 16 months, a group of academics, housing advocates, companies and nonprofits has continued to try to prevent the rail line from pricing out the residents and businesses it is intended to serve.
Leaders of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition, which operates out of the University of Maryland, say the lull in major construction since the project’s prime contractor quit in September 2020 has granted more time to try to ward off the fast-rising rents that typically follow new transit stations. The concern is particularly acute for areas along the rail alignment that have remained relatively affordable in eastern Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
“The big hope is that the line is an effective transportation option for people,” said coalition member David Bowers, of Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing nonprofit. “The bigger hope is beyond the tracks — that the opportunities it brings are shared equitably among folks along the corridor. … We don’t want to look up one year after the Purple Line opens and see they’re gone.”
Coalition members say they want the Purple Line to help revitalize communities while avoiding the kind of gentrification-fueled displacements seen around Metro stations in the District’s U Street Corridor and Columbia Heights. Doing so, they say, requires addressing the potentially harmful effects of economic development that new transit lines are designed to attract — years before the line opens.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Kathrine Shaver over at The Washington Post
