About

What is the Purple Line Community Story Map?
The story map is a project of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition (PLCC), a partnership of regional stakeholders across Montgomery and Prince George’s County working to ensure that investments in the planned light rail line will offer the maximum economic, social, and environmental opportunities to residents and businesses along the corridor.

Since 2014, PLCC has worked with stakeholders to develop strategies to achieve that vision. These efforts resulted in the Pathways to Opportunity: A Community Development Agreement for the Purple Line Corridor. To monitor progress towards the goals outlined in the plan, the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth, the lead convener of the PLCC, has created the Purple Line Corridor Dashboard.

The story map supplements PLCC’s efforts to monitor and map progress towards these goals by allowing residents, businesses, and other stakeholders to add their perspectives. It is designed to be a user-friendly, open platform for sharing stories about how the Purple Line is affecting the lives of individuals and communities along the line.
NCSG is a non-partisan center for research and leadership on smart grown and related issues in Maryland and is not related to any governmental or non-governmental agencies responsible for Purple Line construction. This project has been supported by funds from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

How to use the story map?
To share your story about how the Purple Line is affecting you or your community, click the “share your story” button at the top of the page. You may sign in using an established account or as a guest. To contribute your story, drag and drop an image into the story map. If you do not have one, you may fill out a survey instead.

Follow the remaining instructions on the page. If you would like to receive further updates on the PLCC’s efforts or the story map, please enter your email address. Finally, don’t forget to submit your story. Once approved by the story map administrators, your story will appear publically on the Purple Line Community Story Map. If you have made mistakes or do not wish to share your story, simply close out of the map.

To explore community stories click Purple Line Community Story Map header or enter through the main page. Once there, you can read any story by clicking on the circular dots on the map. The story will appear in the right hand navigation bar. You can explore the stories by clicking on or scrolling through the image in the navigation bar. Finally, you can use the analysis tool at the top of the page to sort the stories by title and see the number and location of stories in each category.

What will we do with your story?
As administrators of the story map, NCSG will review all stories to ensure that they are appropriate (i.e. no cursing or inappropriate images) for public posting before being included in the Purple Line Community Story Map. Once approved, your story will be made publically available on the story map for other users to view. Email addresses will not be made publically available. To further protect your privacy, please make sure that you do not enter any personal information into your story description.

By submitting your story, you agree to allow NCSG or other PLCC members to download the data entered into the story map for annual reports related to the Purple Line Community Development Agreement or other purposes. You are also agreeing to allow any images or information other than email addresses to be used for these purposes. When entering a story you will also be asked to agree to other term and condition specified by ESRI, the story map platform provider.

NCSG is affiliated with the University of Maryland and is not involved in the Purple Line construction. If you wish to get in touch with agencies who can respond to any issues that you may be having or learn more about the Purple Line plans or construction, please see our resources page.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the story map, please contact us.

Resources

If there is an urgent issue, please use the appropriate contacts below. The community map tool is intended to better understand the corridor assets and challenges and does not automatically report location specific issues.

Pre-construction Alerts and Updates
Pre-construction activity has started in the corridor. View the latest updates and sign up for pre-construction alerts with MTA.

If you have questions or comments about Purple Line pre-construction activities, please call or email the MTA:
443-451-3706 (English)
443-451-3705 (Español)
outreach@purplelinemd.com

For critical construction matters occurring after 5 pm or on the weekend that need immediate attention, call: 240-424-5325

PURPLE LINE PROCUREMENT, BUSINESS, CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Purple Line Transit Partners Purple Line Transit Partners (PLTP), responsible for constructing the Purple Line, is led by three experienced and successful public-private partnership (P3) developers and equity investors. Visit the PLTP website to learn more about the project and procurement, Minority, Women owned, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, and career opportunities in a variety of fields.

SMALL BUSINESS TRAINING

Maryland Small Business Development Center offers a variety of services to small business owners including in Spanish. Visit the SBDC web site or Spanish language site.

The Maryland Women’s Business Center provides training and support for small businesses throughout the region. Visit their website.

HELP MAP SIDEWALK ACCESSIBILITY

Project Sidewalk, an initiative of the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Computer Studies, aims to collect street-level accessibility information from every street in the world and enable design and development of a novel set of location-based technologies for accessibility for individuals. Learn more and add to their crowdsource map.

RELATED COMMUNITY ASSET MAPS

The Langley Park Asset Map was developed by the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth and CASA with Langley Park residents to help them better locate utilize their existing strengths and capacities in planning for their future, particularly in light of the coming Purple Line.

The Northern Gateway Story Map is a product of the Councilmember Deni Taveras’s efforts to bring together unincorporated legacy communities of District 2 to increase the quality of life and economic investment in the area. It was created in partnership with the National Center for Smart Growth.

PURPLE LINE CORRIDOR DATA DASHBOARD

Explore demographic, economic, employment and housing trends in the corridor with this pilot tool developed by the National Center for Smart Growth and designed to help measure and monitor progress toward the Purple Line Community Compact. Visit the dashboard.

LOCAL PLANNING

Montgomery County Planning Department - Purple Line Project
The Purple Line is an east-west route connector for Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Learn more about Montgomery County transit planning and the Purple Line.

Prince George's County Planning Department - Purple Line Project
The Purple Line is an east-west route connector for Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Learn more about Prince George's County transit planning and the Purple Line.