Start date now targeted for 2020 The Purple Line is going to take longer to build, carry fewer riders and cost more than initially expected, according to new projections from Maryland officials.
The proposed 16-mile light rail line extending from Bethesda to New Carrollton won’t begin construction until 2015, with an expected opening date of 2020 — some four years later than the most optimistic timeline.
| New Purple Line plan |
| What: A 16-mile light-rail line running trains powered by overhead lines almost entirely above ground. |
| Where: The Purple Line would run between the New Carrollton and Bethesda Metrorail stations, providing a key east-west connection to Red, Green and Orange Metro lines and MARC commuter trains, plus the University of Maryland campus, Silver Spring and Bethesda. |
| Begins operation: 2020, from 2016 earlier estimate |
| Cost: $1.95 billion, from $1.5 billion in 2009 dollars |
It also now has a $1.925 billion price tag, up from $1.5 billion estimates made two years ago.
The new figures represent one more delay for the transit line, which has been decades in the making. The state updated its projections as it readies a request for federal construction money. But additional details could still surface.
“The proposal is not yet even in the design phase, so it’s a work in progress,” said Maryland Transit Administration spokesman Terry Owens.
The project is delayed because the application for federal funding has been more time-consuming than expected, said Henry Kay, MTA’s executive director of transit development and delivery. He said the state hasn’t applied for such federal New Starts funding in a long time.
“It got a lot more complicated while we were out of the room,” Kay said.
That, in turn, has caused the costs to rise, he said.
Some of the increase also comes as officials are changing the way they measure the cost, he said, moving from 2009 dollars to a cost based on 3 percent assumed inflation as of about 2017.
Still, $13 million of the increased cost comes from outright changes to the line as officials refine the plan for where it crosses existing roads or goes above them, he said.
When officials announced in August 2009 that they hoped to build the line as light rail, they estimated it would cost $1.5 billion in 2009 dollars and said it could start running as soon as 2016 if everything went smoothly. Ridership was projected to be about 62,500 riders per day.
Now ridership is expected to be slightly lower at 60,000.
State officials are still trying to line up funding for the project SEmD the federal funding is not guaranteed —
but they said they plan to use $135 million that was previously set aside for MARC commuter trains to pay for a portion of the Purple Line instead. “It’s not going to affect any MARC project that’s in our budget now,” Kay said.
