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The light-rail vs. bus rapid-transit Purple Line debate has finally been settled, but it's clear residents along Dale Drive in Silver Spring still have work to do, lobbying Monday night for a Purple Line station, and the transit-related amenities they say will come with it, to be placed in their neighborhood.

County officials and planners have told Maryland Transit Authority officials they are unsure about including a light-rail station at Dale Drive and Wayne Avenue along the Purple Line, a 16-mile, $1.5 billion mass-transit route that would connect downtown Bethesda to New Carrolton via Silver Spring. MTA included the Dale Drive station in the original Purple Line design, but county officials and planners weren't sure the station would yield positive ridership numbers.

So local officials told MTA to design the Purple Line in case a Dale Drive station is approved down the road, whenever that decision may be.

"It could be made in the next couple years, it could be made during construction, it could be made after the project is done," said Michael Madden, the Purple Line project manager with MTA. The final design for the Purple Line won't be completed until at least 2013, and construction is expected to begin in late 2013 at the earliest, Madden said.

In August, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) chose light-rail as the transit mode for the Purple Line rather than a rapid bus route. The state will now seek federal funds to help make the project a reality.

But in a community meeting Monday night at a school on Wayne Avenue, where the majority of the Silver Spring portion of the project will run, residents said there are still big decisions to be made.

While MTA officials said Silver Spring residents have been mostly split on a Dale Drive station, many of the roughly 50 attendees at Monday's meeting supported a station.

Residents nearby the proposed station location said they have to walk more than a mile to the Silver Spring Metro station for public transportation or must use the mostly unreliable county Ride On buses. Dale Drive is plagued by vehicular traffic during morning and evening rush hours and consists mostly of single-family homes and middle-aged residents. It's exactly the type of neighborhood that would use the Purple Line, residents said.

"It's ridiculous that not having a station would be even considered with the locally preferred alternative," said Jerry Withers, who lives on Dale Drive.

MTA officials agreed, citing ridership estimations that support a Dale Drive station. For the Silver Spring portion of the Purple Line, which includes stations between the Silver Spring Metro stop and Manchester Road, there would be 14,197 Purple Line riders per day if there were no station on Dale Drive, according to MTA statistics. With a station, which would cost about $2 million, ridership would be 15,844.

"We think the station makes a lot of sense, but [the county Planning Department] are the ones who said drop it," Madden said.

Planners said they are still wary of the potential ridership at a Dale Drive station.

"We would like for them to go back and take another look," said Tom Autrey, a master planner of transportation with the Planning Department. Autrey said bus stops along Dale Drive have low ridership numbers, and despite the support for a station at Monday night's meeting, plenty of residents are against the Dale Drive station.

Those residents are concerned that the Purple Line will bring redevelopment that could negatively affect their quiet community.

Dale Drive is not zoned for dense development, said Kathy Reilly, a project manager with the Planning Department, and both the East Silver Spring and North Silver Spring master plans adopted in 2000 do not allow redevelopment along Dale Drive. Any rezoning requests would have to be approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board and County Council, Reilly said.

MTA officials said even if county officials paved the way for redevelopment, it would be very difficult for a developer to buy enough single-family properties for a cost-effective project.

"With some areas along the [Purple Line] you can put in transit-oriented development, but it doesn't mean you have to," said Harriet Levine, an MTA consultant for the Purple Line.

All of that being said, some long-time Dale Drive residents wouldn't mind looking toward the future, even in a neighborhood steeped in its past.

"This is a system for the next generation," said Harry Sanders, a Silver Spring resident and member of the Action Committee for Transit, a pro-Purple Line organization. "If you don't designate Dale Drive as a future stop, you won't get new people moving in."