Plan 2035 policies and strategies are also shaped by our desire to create a transportation network that provides convenient and equitable multimodal access to jobs and services. The proposed Purple Line, and several planning efforts and legislative initiatives, are critical to moving us in that direction. The Purple Line is a proposed 16-mile, twenty-one station east-west light rail transit line extending inside the Capital Beltway from New Carrollton to Bethesda in Montgomery County. The Purple Line will: • Connect the major central business districts and activity centers of Takoma/ Langley Park, College Park/University of Maryland, New Carrollton, Bethesda, and Silver Spring. • Provide direct connections to Metrorail at New Carrollton, College Park, Bethesda, and Silver Spring, which will link the Orange, Green, and Red lines. • Connect to both MARC lines, Amtrak, and local bus routes. The 2012 Prince George’s County Transitway Systems Planning Study provides an initial framework for the development of a fixed-guideway transit system beyond Metrorail and the Purple Line. It recommends several corridors for concept-level studies (see Map 13): • Bladensburg-Takoma-Langley Park (via Kenilworth Avenue, East West Highway, and Riggs Road) • National Harbor (connection to the Washington, D.C. streetcar system) • Purple Line Extension (from New Carrollton to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge) • Greenbelt/Konterra (via CSX corridor, US 1, and Virginia Manor Road) Given the rapid growth in Charles County and southern Prince George’s County and the resulting congestion along US 301 and MD 5, transit along the MD 5 corridor has been the subject of a series of studies. In 2010, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) completed the Southern Maryland Transit Corridor Preservation Study to evaluate a number of potential alignments along the corridor. It selected a preferred alignment from White Plains to the Branch Avenue Metro Station (to be preserved through local land use plans), along with nine proposed and two future station locations (see Map 13). Using 2009 dollars, it estimated that construction costs would range from $1.0 billion (for bus rapid transit ) to $1.4 billion (for light rail). In 2013, the Southern Maryland Rapid Transit Study was initiated for the purpose of determining a Locally Preferred
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