Purple Line Boosters Host Twitter Chat With Leventhal

The Bethesda Metro station bus bay

On the occasion of Car Free Day, a group of the Purple Line’s most vocal supporters hoped to show the proposed light rail would make east-to-west commutes easier.

Action Committee for Transit member Sareana Kimia live-tweeted her commute from her home near the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station to her 9 a.m. class at the University of Maryland-College Park campus.

From 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday, Kimia will join Councilmember George Leventhal in a “Twitter chat” about the Purple Line co-sponsored by the Montgomery County Young Democrats (hashtag: #GoPurpleGoCarfree).

Kimia’s commute started with Ride On bus route 5 at 7:15 a.m. at Rockville Pike and Strathmore Avenue. Her next bus was the UMD Shuttle from the Silver Spring Metro station.

ACT was trying to make the point that the Purple Line — the 16-mile light rail that would run from Bethesda to New Carrollton with stops in Silver Spring and College Park — would make car-free commutes faster and easier for thousands of local commuters.

Kimia tweeted that despite the 7:15 a.m. start time, she was still on the UMD Shuttle bus at 9 a.m. ACT said a Metro Red Line ride from Grosvenor to Bethesda, then transfer to the Purple Line would’ve taken 55 minutes.

The live-tweeting got some participation from District 18 Del. Al Carr, who asked Kimia why she didn’t take the Metro Red Line to Bethesda, then transfer to the Metro J4 bus, which runs on a similar east-west route the Purple Line would. Kimia said the county’s $11 a month youth subsidy doesn’t apply to Metro buses or trains.

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