Quote:
Originally Posted by zx10guy
.. When light rail or extension of the Metro is brought it, you get lame excuses about it being too expensive. As if it's cheaper to just sit in traffic. The Metro extension on the red line from Shady Grove to Frederick, should have happened years ago. Still nothing. And the MARC train is just a joke.
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I'm actually not so sure re metro extension. The ridership on Silver line has been, to my knowledge, pathetic even pre-covid; nowadays metro is a ghost town pretty much everywhere. But once you build it (and construction costs are indeed huge, just look at the 267 toll hikes), the operating costs are significant and mostly fixed, so I can only imagine the current overall $$$ losses. And in general, the whole concept of riding a metro train for 1+ hour one way is questionable, we're not Japan or Europe or even NYC. Then we have insolvable dilemma of MARC & VRE trains sharing the tracks with cargo trains (and I think cargo have priority), so high speed is a no-go.