CHEVY CHASE - The 15th hole at the Columbia Country Club is 365 yards of paradise. Golfers chase dimpled balls down fairways framed by majestic oak and pine trees.
Too bad, golfers say, that the state wants to run a train through it.
More precisely, the state wants to run at least 100 trains through the golf course every day as part of the Purple Line extension of the Washington Metro system. Officials say the line from Bethesda to New Carrollton would speed the commutes of thousands of workers who rely on slow, crowded buses.
But the country club says the line would force it to move the 15th tee and realign the greens on the 1st, 14th and 17th holes. In an unusual show of force, members have held fund-raisers for politicians who oppose the route, and the club has given thousands of dollars to anti-Purple Line lobbyists.
Opponents call the project an environmental disaster because the trains would run at surface level on a quiet, leafy trail used by bikers and hikers. The trail happens to bisect the century-old golf course.
"It runs right through the club," said club President Glenn Mitchell, adding that golfers won't be the only ones hurt. "This proposal will go through hundreds, if not thousands, of homes and back yards, literally feet from people's kitchens."
Local elected officials and transit advocates who support the Purple Line say the effect on neighborhoods would be minimal, while the effect on people who rely on transit would be profound.
"It's quite clear: This is a class battle," said Peter Shapiro, chairman of the Prince George's County Council. "I hope the people who are comparing having to reorient two holes on a golf course with improving the quality of life for thousands of working people can sleep at night."
Complicated debate
The debate over the Purple Line can seem deliciously simple - rich golfers vs. lower-income commuters - but it also raises questions of whether scarce public transit dollars should go to dense urban areas or to sprawling, car-dependent suburbs.
Under Gov. Parris N. Glendening, the state has spent $28 million planning an inside-the-Beltway Purple Line that fits the governor's Smart Growth policies. Supporters say it would provide a long overdue stop at the University of Maryland's College Park campus, providing easy access to students and employees who must walk a mile from the closest Metro station.
Supporters also say the line would prompt growth in aging communities while rapidly moving low-income minority workers in Prince George's County to their restaurant and hotel jobs in Montgomery, rescuing them from the frustrations of commuting by bus.
"People are taking 90 minutes each way to commute to these $6- and $7-an-hour jobs in Bethesda, and that's one reason why they're not home at night helping their kids with their homework," said Tom Perez, a member of the Montgomery County Council. "I believe we need to do something for that community."
The Montgomery and Prince George's county councils are expected to endorse the Purple Line route that runs through the club in votes today.
Alternative proposal
That doesn't mean it will be built. Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who takes office next month, could pull the plug on the project. His spokesman said the purpose of rail transit projects should be to reduce highway congestion, not to get people off buses.
"These kinds of decisions need to be driven primarily by traffic engineers," said Ehrlich spokesman Paul E. Schurick. Easing the commute for workers who use buses, he said, "should not be more important than relieving gridlock and getting cars off the roads."
Ehrlich favors an alternative Purple Line that would run north of the Capital Beltway, through the towns of Rock Spring, White Oak and Wheaton. That so-called outer line would allow people in more far-flung suburbs to use public transit. The outer line would also have more daily riders than the inner line - 87,000 vs. 56,000, according to state projections.
But it would cost a lot more money. The 14-mile inner line would cost $1.4 billion, but the 20-mile outer line would cost $5.6 billion - a figure so high that some say it would never get built.
"It's a fantasy," said Glenn Orlin, who analyzes transportation issues for the Montgomery County Council. "It will never happen."
The timing is critical. Next year the federal government will decide which transit projects are authorized to receive funding during the next five years. If the Purple Line doesn't make the cut, then supporters will have to wait until at least 2008 to make their case again.
Lobbying lawmakers
While homeowners along the proposed route of the inner Purple Line have opposed the project for years, the most influence has been brought to bear by the Columbia Country Club. The club has held fund-raisers for politicians who oppose the inner route - including Ehrlich, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and several state lawmakers - with club members donating generously to their campaigns.
"Some of these [fund-raisers] are educational," said Mitchell, the country club president. "We take them out and show them the trail. Some of them didn't have the faintest idea what it was."
Mitchell gave $3,000 to Ehrlich this year, according to state records.
And for the past four years, the club has given more than $25,000 annually - far more than anyone else has - to an anti-Purple Line citizens group called the Committee to Save the Trail. The group has hired Annapolis lobbyists to fight the project.
The trail it is trying to save is the 4.4-mile Bethesda-to-Silver Spring branch of the Capital Crescent Trail. The crushed-stone trail is popular with walkers, joggers and bicyclists.
Walking along the trail one recent morning, Chevy Chase resident Ira Shesser swept his hand at the thick stands of trees that line both sides.
"All of these trees will disappear," said Shesser, who is 82 and walks the trail daily. "We claim this proposed line is environmentally destructive because we'll lose this park."
Though the trail is just 6 to 8 feet wide, the publicly owned right of way is up to 120 feet wide in the portion that cuts through the golf course. That means the golfers are teeing off on publicly owned land.
The trail was originally a single-track freight railroad line used to haul coal into Georgetown. The trains ran infrequently and rarely interfered with golfers, club officials say. The coal trains stopped running in the mid-1980s, and a decade later, the tracks were removed and the trail turned into a park.
Fannie Mae weighs in
State officials say their plans for the double-track light rail line would leave plenty of room for a trail, but Shesser and others say the trail might become too dangerous to use.
Besides the Columbia Country Club, the most prominent group to oppose the inner Purple Line is Fannie Mae, a private company chartered by Congress that usually is in the business of helping low- to middle-income families buy homes. But earlier this year, Fannie Mae gave $11,000 to the Committee to Save the Trail to pay for a survey on the attitudes of Montgomery County residents toward the line.
The committee conducted the survey but declines to release the results.
Asked to explain the contribution, Fannie Mae spokesman Robert McCarson said: "We're particularly concerned about community development and quality of life in the Washington area, which happens to be our headquarters. It's a resource a lot of our employees use."
It is only a coincidence, he said, that Fannie Mae Vice Chairwoman Jamie S. Gorelick is a member of the Columbia Country Club.