Once upon a time, we headlined a story “The Purple Line Is Really Happening,” after Republican Governor Larry Hogan gave it a surprise green light and the Maryland Department of Transportation selected a firm to build and operate the 16.2-mile light rail line. Construction was slated to begin in late 2016.

But we should have known not to count wealthy NIMBY neighbors out.

The Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail filed a lawsuit that already resulted in one major delay, when U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled last August that the MTA needed to recalculate its ridership projections in the wake of WMATA’s issues. Now, that same judge ruled today that federal transit officials failed to sufficiently take Metro’s safety and ridership problems into account and has ordered another study.

“After careful consideration of the motions, the applicable law, and the entire record in this case, I find that defendants have failed to take the requisite ‘hard look’ at the potential impact that WMATA’s ridership and safety issues could have on the Purple Line project,” Leon wrote in a 12-page opinion.

While the 16.2-mile, $2.4 billion light rail line isn’t a part of the Metro system, it will have connections to the Red, Green, and Orange lines among its 21 stops (should it ever get built).

Transit advocates argue that the Purple Line is a vital link for the corridor and that the connections to Metro are only a part of its benefit for the region.

“We already know that Metro ridership will make up only a limited percentage of Purple Line ridership,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, in a statement. “The Purple Line is a badly-needed east-west transit connection for access to jobs and revitalization, and significant ridership will be driven by that demand, as well as the revitalization inside the Beltway that the project will spur.”

On the other side, Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail argues that Maryland should be focusing on coming up with its portion of the billions necessary to make badly needed repairs for Metro.

Maryland will pay $160 million in construction costs for the Purple Line, and has sought $900 million in federal transit aid along with contributions from local jurisdictions. Today’s ruling puts already appropriated federal funds in jeopardy, and could conceivably even spell the end for the project. From The Washington Post:

“How much more delay the Purple Line project can withstand is hard to say. Maryland officials can’t secure federal funding until Leon or another judge reinstates the light-rail project’s federal environmental approval, which Leon revoked in August.

State officials have said they need that environmental approval restored by June 1, or they would have to suspend much or all of the rail project’s planning and design work because state money would run out. The state would then have about 60 days before it would have to cancel the project, Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn said in a court filing.

If the state canceled the Purple Line, Rahn said, it could lose more than $800 million: $545 million already spent on planning and design, more than $200 million in contract termination costs and up to $150 million in delay costs.”

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John Smith’s commute from Rockville, Maryland to downtown D.C. is only 20 miles, but during the morning rush hour, it takes him an hour and 20 minutes. Smith, a finance professional, would rather take Metrorail’s Red Line, but he puts up with the traffic because his employer pays for his parking space.

“It’s just a bunch of traffic. If I leave really early, it’s not too bad, but to get here on time it’s stressful,” said Smith on a recent morning near his office.

Even with Metro’s problems, he would prefer to use mass transit instead of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work.“It’s less stressful, especially when the Metro is working well,” he said.

Smith may soon be able to cash in on his preferred mode of transport by cashing out his parking benefit.

Legislation proposed by D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) would require any business that pays for a worker’s parking space to offer that same benefit — in cash — if the employee chooses to walk, bike or take transit to the office instead of driving.

This is not the pre-tax transit or parking benefit many employers already offer; Allen’s proposal deals with taxable cash paid out in addition to an employee’s salary or wages.

“It’s only fair that if you choose transit, you choose bike, you choose walk, some other way to get to work, that value should carry with you. It’s about fairness for our employees,” said Allen in an interview with WAMU.

If an employer provides a specific parking subsidy, for example, up to $350 per month for parking, the worker would be able to cash out the amount and use it to pay for their preferred mode of transportation, even walking. Where an employer does not specify a value, the bill calls for a maximum of $255, the same amount in tax-free parking benefits an employer can provide in 2017 under IRS rules.

Why would someone need money to walk to work?

“Well, you might buy a new pair of sneakers every six months,” said Cheryl Cort, the policy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth, an advocacy organization that favors sustainable transportation over highway expansions. “But it is taxable cash,” she added. “So you can use it how you want. And the point is, rather than only incentivizing driving and parking, why not incentive healthier, sustainable commutes?”

Good for the environment, good for business?

Allen’s proposal appears to square with the District’s goal of getting commuters out of cars at a time when the city has ambitious goals to reduce downtown gridlock. The Council member said his legislation would not add costs to any employer’s operation.

“The employer was going to spend the money anyway,” Allen said. “But if the employee chooses not to drive their car or if they don’t have a car, then now that value can be transferred to help support their transit, their way of getting back and forth to work.”

Six percent of D.C. residents bicycle to work and 12 percent walk, according to Census data. Less than 50 percent of city residents drive alone to the office. An informal survey by the District Department of Transportation found that 34 percent of D.C. employers pay for employees’ parking.

Matt Klein, the president of Akridge, a major real estate developer with offices in downtown Washington, said it remains to be seen if the business community will embrace Allen’s legislation, even if it brings no additional costs.

“It’s important to look at the total weight of regulation on businesses in the District,” Klein said. “This is really smart policy. This is something we should explore fully relative to how we improve road capacity within Washington. But my business sense is that we really have to also understand what it means to have the District start to become more involved in the interaction between employer and employee.”

Some employers may welcome Allen’s proposal as a way to become more competitive. The downtown architecture firm ZGF already offers the pre-tax transit benefit. Otto Condon is an executive at the firm.

“We need to actually look at a benefits package which does address getting to work, whether that’s bike assistance, transit assistance, even shoe subsidies for people who walk,” Condon said.

There is evidence such incentives are effective. Donald Shoup, an expert on sustainable transportation at UCLA, contends that employer-paid parking is an invitation to drive to work alone, and it is single-occupant vehicles that cause congestion. A parking cash-out law approved in California in 1992 has produced benefits, Shoup said.

“What it has done in some cases is encourage people to live closer to where they work and use the cash payment as a rent subsidy,” said Shoup, who has researched the effect of the parking cash-out law in Los Angeles, a city known for horrific congestion. “Out of every 100 employees, it shifted 13 out of solo driving into carpooling or mass transit,” he said.

In a March 28 editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Shoup wrote: “Of those 13 former solo drivers, nine joined carpools, three began to ride public transit and one began to walk or bike to work. Overall, the share of commuters who drove to work alone fell from 76% before the cash option to 63% afterward,” Shoup wrote in a March 28 editorial in the Los Angeles Times.

Some Washington workers said the Council proposal sounds good — almost too good to be true.

“I think encouraging people not to drive is a great idea. I wonder if this legislation would have that effect,” said Erica Handloff as she walked to her office at a think tank one morning. Handloff lives in the District, takes a bus downtown and then walks the rest of the way. “If somebody was offering $250 or whatever the benefit is, that would be fantastic. I also think there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It sounds too good to be true.”

She and other skeptics could get answers to their questions soon. Council member Allen’s bill could get a hearing before the Council takes its summer recess in July.

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Sydney Taylor used to have a mantra: Metro or bust.

For years, the 27-year-old relied exclusively on the subway to commute downtown from Eastern Market, a daily travail she described as “horrible and super-crowded and just a generally terrible experience.”

Then, an aunt offered her a tip. Why not try the bus? After a few trips on the D6 Metrobus, Taylor reached a few surprising conclusions: The bus was fast. It was cheap. And it was, strangely, kind of lovely.

“I got to see so much more of the city,” said Taylor, who now lives in Adams Morgan and takes the 96 every day. “It was just, on the whole, much more pleasant.”

As Metro continues to battle its myriad rail reliability problems and track infrastructure overhauls, a rare bright spot has emerged in the agency’s transit offerings: its bustling bus network.

Even as Washington-area residents malign the subway — vowing after each rush-hour meltdown that they’ll never take a train again — there is an increasingly vocal cohort of bus evangelists.

Why bother with the sturm und drang of SafeTrack, they ask, when buses are nimble, affordable and increasingly predictable with the help of mobile apps?

It’s an option that has become increasingly favored by Dan Reed, a 29-year-old who lives in Silver Spring. When he heads home from work in the afternoon, he checks the status of the Red Line. If he spots a blooming flare-up of delays, he’s quick to swap modes.

“It’s great that I can check the status of the Red Line and say to myself, ‘Oh, wait, I don’t actually have to go deal with this at all,” Reed said. “A lot of times, the buses are more predictable.”

The glowing reviews are a stark departure from long-held stereotypes about buses: capricious schedules, undependable service, plodding speeds, grubby interiors and a general “sketchy” aesthetic.

Those stereotypes persist in many other parts of the country, where transit advocates bemoan the way buses continue to be treated as a second-class form of transportation — at least by politicians and residents who don’t have to rely on bus service.

“Bus is a second-class citizen for ‘choice’ riders because it’s scary, it’s harder to figure out, it’s obtuse,” said Aimee Custis, deputy director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Trains are like public transport for beginners — there are physical tracks, so you can see where it goes. The Metro map is easier to read than any bus map I’ve ever seen.”

But in the District, that perception is shifting.

“I had a bus awakening,” said Dylan Landers-Nelson, a health policy researcher who lives in Adams Morgan. He and his wife just purchased a condo in 16th Street Heights. (Haven’t heard of it? It’s the neighborhood north of Columbia Heights and west of Fort Totten.)

When they were looking to buy a home, they prioritized finding a place near transit. But they weren’t perturbed by the prospect of buying a home a mile away from the nearest Metro station. Instead, Landers-Nelson and his wife marvel at all the bus routes that pass within a block of their home. The S1, S2 and S4! 52, 53, 54! The 70!

“The bus lines give you options in a way that Metro often doesn’t,” Landers-Nelson said. “It turns out to be a very convenient, quick way to get around the city.”

Some of that shift in attitudes can be attributed to large-scale policy changes aimed at improving the coverage and reliability of the network: fleet repairs to improve on-time performance, signal prioritization at some intersections, built-out transit centers in Silver Spring and Takoma-Langley Park.

But commuters’ openness to bus transportation also is fostered by the small, often underappreciated pleasures of bus travel that are inherent to the mode: The comforts of being aboveground, able to grasp one’s geographical bearings in the city and watch the world go by. Steady access to cellphone service, so riders can download a podcast or stream a new playlist mid-commute. No need to deal with the annoyance of an unexpected broken escalator.

And even when you’re stuck on a bus, the experience feels less fraught with gloom and senselessness.

“You can look out, you get some light, and if you’re not moving, you at least have a sense of why you’re not moving,” Landers-Nelson said. “On Metro, you’re quite literally left in the dark.”

Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said some people may be intimidated by the idea of using the bus system — deciphering their most convenient route, tracking down a schedule — and that some have benefited from the extra push SafeTrack provided.

“It’s been positive. We’ve heard that from people,” Wiedefeld said. “They see, okay, that works well, too, for some of their trips, so that’s been possible.”

And the historical weakness of bus systems — its lack of a dedicated right of way — may also be one of its greatest strengths. Buses can be easily diverted and reassigned. And without reliance on tracks and tunnels, one bus breakdown doesn’t cause a ripple effect throughout the region. That’s become increasingly apparent in the past couple of years, when buses are frequently dispatched to rescue stranded riders when arcing insulator incidents and unexpected track problems strike the system at inopportune moments.

“The reality is, any time we have issues on the trains, the buses are there to save us,” Wiedefeld said.

To be sure, buses are not immune to Metro’s ridership woes: The number of trips taken by bus in the second half of 2016 was 11 percent lower than in the year before — a drop-off that is still less than the ridership decline on the rail side. The rise of Uber, the shift toward walking and biking, the low cost of gas, and the increased prevalence of teleworking during SafeTrack all affect Metrobus ridership just as they do for the trains.

And yet, there are signs that buses have become the golden child of Metro’s transit offerings. Bus reliability has increased dramatically in recent years. And customer satisfaction among bus riders remained at a modest 77 percent last year — about the same as the previous year — quite a bit better than the 66 percent of satisfied rail customers, a number that has steadily dropped in recent years.

Technology has also been a major boon for the Metrobus network. In the past, would-be riders lacked trust in the system, wondering whether a scheduled bus would in fact arrive anywhere close to its appointed time. But between apps that connect to GPS systems installed on the buses, offering fairly accurate estimated times of arrival, and LED countdown clocks installed at popular bus stops, technology has helped address that concern.

That technology has also been bolstered by the rise of Uber and Lyft, as tech-savvy riders have grown accustomed to using their phones to perform a daily mental calculus on the best option for travel based on the time of day and their intended destination.

“The ride-sharing economy made me realize that you don’t always have to subscribe to this set system — Metro, cab, or walk,” Taylor said. “When I step out the door, I’m thinking, ‘What else could I be doing that’s cheaper or simpler?’ ”

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