Who made the terrible decision to put the present College Park station a half mile from campus? Why didn't they put it smack dab in the middle of campus to begin with? This is why I go to U. Md. several times a week to work out. The students there are smarter than many people who are either out of school or who never went.

Robin,

I need some of what you have bin smokin/drinkin soon, and at half price.

The reason the CP station is half a mile from, and not "smack dab in the middle of campus" is because that is where the rail tracks are. We could change that, and divert the rail tracks to campus, but we might have to raise the property tax to fund it. Oop's cancel that.

Ever thought about the extra workout you get while "commuting" from the CP Station to the UMD? Saves you time in your actual workout, that's got to be worth at least a dollar.

I hope the grass roots effort succeeds for the Purple Line and that you can expand your policy efforts to support Amtrak and a national passenger system interconnected with systems like MARC, Metro, UM transit etc.
Best wishes.
Jim Churchill

Robin,

In the late 1970 there was talk of realigning the northern Green line to where the I-95 Park and Ride is today. The proposed route would have turned north up Adelphi Road from the Prince Georgia's Plaza station then follow the easement that was acquired to build I-95 into Washington DC to the I-95 park and ride. The alignment along Adelphi Road would have been in subway, the remainder of the alignment from where the National Archives Annex is to the I-95 park and ride would have been on the surface. The proposal called for a station at University Boulevard.

There are two reasons why the alignment is where it is today. The high cost of building the line and station in subway along Adelphi Road and the cost of the grading that would have been needed to be done to build the service and storage yard at the end of the line adjacent to the I-95 Park and Ride station.

The location of the Greenbelt station on the planing map at the time this proposal was being made was just south of Greenbelt Road.

Isn't the University of Maryland already one of the most dangerous schools in America. Has anyone thought of the safety issues involved with such easy access to the University and it's Students? And what about the aesthetics of the campus? Let's pave over the mall and build an airport to save out-of-staters time on their commutes. I think the purple line is a terrible idea, and an even worse waste of money. As a recent graduate, the University's administration and student body never ceases to disgust me with their lack of intelligence and completely misplaced focus. Why not focus the money to be used for the purple line on fixing the student housing problem or repairing the severely dilapidated building around the mall. There are so many more important things that need to be taken care of on campus. Maybe the opening of the purple line will give the university another reason to bake an inordinate amount of cupcakes again, and we can try and break our last record for shameless self promotion. The University of Maryland is supposed to be a place of study and research...not a metro hub or the commercialized money magnet the administration would like it to be. Instead of improving or adding to the academic institutions of the University, we are busy building the "alumni center" to hold conferences and defacing byrd to add more seats and numbers to the ticket prices. We have the worst graduation rate for players in the NCAA for basketball, but that doesn't matter because we have the comcast center and president Mote doesn't care about education, as long as he's getting that money. With the way the University currently uses money, they will never see a dime of donations from me.

Shayne,
First off, I'm quite suprised that you'd call our alma mater "one of the most dangerous campuses in America". It should be noted that incidents on campus are big news because they are rare.

As far as aethestics are concerned, you should check out some of the renderings with regards to the project at the state's website: www.purplelinemd.com I think you'll see that there will be some nice improvements, especially related to getting all those friggin' cars off Campus Drive, rather than in the way of people going to class.

Mobility does not inherently enhance crime. In fact, the safest urban areas are the busiest. Most incidents that happen anywhere, including on campus happen away from people, off in the dark. The more people you have in an area, the more "eyes on the street". The UMD campus is in an inner pre-WWII suburb. That is not going to change. Liveliness and activity and atmosphere will continue to offer students options and amenities rather than a comatose environment and fear of the dark due to too few "eyes on the street".

Finally, with regards to funding, the University is not on the hook for this one. This project is being designed and funded by the state, with a projected Federal contribution. The University is sort of getting a free ride on this one.

You are free to withhold future donations. It's your money. However, don't do it because of this project. It will be a boon and it will be free for the University.

Cavan,

We we're ranked as the third most dangerous campus in America, based on violent crime statistics...This includes rapes, robberies, assaults, etc. This information comes from the Diamondback, and the ranking was done by the FBI. "...the FBI ranked the university [of Maryland] as the third most dangerous college to attend, having only one fewer violent crime than second-ranked Arizona State, even though ASU has about 14,000 more students." And I disagree with most of your comments. I believe mobility certainly does increase crime. With a metro station in the middle of campus anyone would be able to enter and exit campus easily. This is not safe. During the day I don't see this as a problem, but at night this could become a real issue. I don't understand what is wrong with the college park metro station less than a mile away and its shuttle buses running around the clock. As far as funding, the University is a public school, meaning it is backed by state funding. If the state wants to increase it's spending on the University, they should put the money towards more useful projects, such as the ones I mentioned earlier.

Shayne does have a point. In the computer network security world there is a term "security through obscurity". Many local criminals have never been through campus. You will have thousands of new sets of eyes rolling through campus on a slow moving light rail. 99.x% of these people will be well intentioned law abiding folks. However there will be a small felonious subset that will covet something they see while rolling through campus. Probability says that crime will go up. You will need an increased Campus Police presence.