Suburban Light Rail To Resume Construction in Maryland

The Washington region’s “first direct suburb-to-suburb rail line,” the Purple Line, will resume construction after more than a year of delays, reports Katherine Shaver in The Washington Post. “The Maryland Transit Administration has continued overseeing some work, such as moving utility lines. However, a team led by the American subsidiaries of Spanish firms Dragados and OHL will complete most of it.”

“Reviving a megaproject that has lain mostly dormant since September 2020 is no small feat. It requires bringing in staff and equipment from around the country to rev up 16 miles of abandoned construction site,” writes Shaver. “A good portion of the underground work has been done. The operations and maintenance facility in Glenridge [in Prince George’s County] has been constructed,” said Terry Gohde, project manager for Maryland Transit Solutions, in an interview. Other critical components of the projects are nearing completion. Doran Bosso, CEO of Purple Line Transit Partners, pointed out that production on the line’s train cars continued unabated. “We have 10 or 12 vehicles that could be shipped to site today if we had the track and other facilities built.”

Gohde said “Opening date is October 2026. But the public will get a look at the [light-rail] vehicles running on track work [during the testing phase] about a year before that, in fall 2025.”