As a result of the public comment process, project planners removed the proposed alignment, which would have brought a bus rapid-transit line along Philadelphia and Ethan Allen avenues, Maryland Transit Administration spokesman Richard Scher said. MTA officials made the decision last week.

"This is just part of the study process that will ultimately help us determine what alternative we will recommend to build," Scher said. "This is the only one that was eliminated."

Transitway planners made the decision after holding public meetings in September, at which time they unveiled several proposals for the transitway project, formerly known as the Purple Line. If built, the transitway would create an east-west mass transit link between Bethesda and New Carrollton.

Now that Maryland Route 410 -- the state's name for Philadelphia and Ethan Allen avenues, also known as East West Highway -- is no longer being considered, state planners must still determine how to move the transitway through the dense residential neighborhoods east of Silver Spring. Alignments still under consideration include a 1.25-mile bus or light-rail tunnel under Takoma Park's Ward 5 and the Long Branch neighborhood of Silver Spring, a bus rapid-transit line along Franklin Avenue between Colesville Road and University Boulevard East, and a bus or light-rail line along Wayne Avenue from downtown Silver Spring to Flower Avenue. City Councilman Bruce Williams (Ward 5) said he was relieved state officials are no longer eyeing a transitway that would bisect Takoma Park.

"We just made it quite obvious that [MTA's] idea didn't have a hope of being feasible or working," Williams said, "or if they thought it was feasible or did work, they had a unified sense of Takoma Park that we didn't think it would happen.

"The important thing is that [State Highway] 410 through Takoma Park is narrower here than anywhere else," he said. "Even if the state wanted to take property [to add bus rapid transit lines], there was no room to take it. You'd be in people's living rooms."

The initial decision to consider East West Highway drew vehement opposition from city leaders. At a City Council meeting in October when MTA officials discussed the option, Mayor Kathy Porter predicted fierce opposition from the city if state planners selected East West Highway since it would most likely require widening the two-lane road.

"The City of Takoma Park would stand -- physically, if necessary -- in the way of your expanding that roadway," Porter told the project manager.

At that October meeting, Philadelphia Avenue resident Peggy Bulger said the state would have to condemn her house in order to build a bus rapid-transit line on her street. She said she is now happy that transportation planners are looking elsewhere for the transitway's route.

"A lot of people complain about the fact that we pay higher taxes in Takoma Park and we have our own City Council, but this situation is where the beauty of it lies," Bulger said. "We do have a City Council that cares and will fight with us on things that really matter.

"This whole idea of four-laneing a road right through a historic district ... It was crazy from the very beginning," she said. "I don't know why they put [the proposed alignment] on there except to make people upset."

Scher said MTA would continue to whittle down the options.

"Like dominos, there are going to be other stretches that we will eliminate as we go along until we get down to one recommended alignment," he said. "Public comments and comments from elected officials are all weighed very heavily through this entire process. We do this because the public is a part of this process ... and their comments and questions are very important determining factors." Scher added that the elimination of the Takoma Park section of East West Highway does not mean that transitway planners are abandoning bus rapid transit altogether.

"It just basically means that if bus rapid transit is ultimately selected, it will not travel along the Takoma Park stretch of East West Highway."