On May 30 the Greenbelt City Council held the latest in a series of meetings to consider the city’s response to the proposed maglev train route to run initially between Washington and Baltimore and, if feasibility has been demonstrated, to be extended incrementally, first to New York City, then Boston in the North and to Charlotte in the South. Representatives of Baltimore Washington Rapid Rail (BWRR), the private company developing the project, attended a city council worksession last October, as well as a public hearing held by council on April 3.
This worksession was designed to begin forming a specific plan for moving forward to oppose the project. At least 20 people attended, most from Greenbelt but others from neighboring communities. Also participating in the meeting was Dennis Brady, a former longtime Bowie city councilmember and the head of Stop this Train, the Bowie-based, grass-roots opposition group that has garnered admiration locally for its success in discouraging BWRR from pursuing the routes that would have most directly impacted Bowie.
Mayor Emmett Jordan said council recognized that some Greenbelt residents supported the maglev project but that council’s perception was that most residents who were taking a position opposed it as does the council.
Read more of this story in the June 7 News Review.