The Purple Line is a light rail line being built to link several Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.: Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton. Slated to open in late 2027, the line will enable riders to move between the Maryland branches of the Red, Green, Yellow, Silver, and Orange lines of the Washington Metro, and between all three lines of the MARC commuter rail system, without riding into central Washington. The project is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), an agency of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), and not the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which operates Metro.
Throughout its decades-long planning process, the project was dogged by resistance, particularly from residents of the upscale community of Chevy Chase and members of the Columbia Country Club. From 2003 to 2006, Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich changed the proposed mode of transportation from light rail to bus rapid transit. Legal attempts to thwart the line continued even after construction had begun; but in December 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Purple Line construction could continue despite these objections.
In 2016, a consortium headed by Fluor Enterprises won the $5.6 billion PPP contract to design and build the Purple Line, then to operate and maintain it for 36 years. Construction began in August 2017. Work halted in September 2020, when the consortium withdrew from the contract, citing mounting delays and disputes with the state government. The project had already consumed $1.1 billion of the anticipated $2 billion construction cost.
A new general contractor was selected in November 2021, and a new contract was signed in April 2022. This new agreement added $3.7 billion to the total cost of building, running, and maintaining the Purple Line for 30 years, bringing it to $9.3 billion. Construction costs alone rose $1.46 billion, bringing the total to $3.4 billion. Full-scale construction activity resumed in summer 2022.
Costs rose and the opening date receded again in 2023 and 2024. As of March 2024, the estimated cost to build the line and operate it through 2057 was $9.53 billion, some $4 billion over the initial 2016 budget of $5.6 billion. Train service is expected to begin in December 2027.
History Early studies, public debate, design
The "Purple Line" has been the name of two different transit proposals. In 1994, John J. Corley Jr., an architect with Harry Weese Associates (which designed the Washington Metro system), proposed a multibillion-dollar Metro line around the Capital Beltway. This would have served as a "ring" line, connecting suburb to suburb and complementing the existing Metro lines, which radiate from Washington. (See .) In 1998, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and Governor Parris Glendening voiced support for the proposed Beltway Purple Line, a $10 billion, line from National Harbor to Montgomery Mall.
In 1987, after CSX expressed a desire to abandon the Georgetown Branch rail line, Maryland leaders began planning to repurpose it for transit and a hiking trail. The idea of adapting the railroad for a transit line dated at least to October 1970, when it appeared in a Master Plan for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Planning Area. Montgomery County purchased its portion of the railroad right-of-way from CSX in 1988 and the following year budgeted $107 million to build a trolley between Bethesda and Silver Spring and a pair of trails between Silver Spring and the District.
Eventually, this proposal came to be known as the "Inner Purple Line" to distinguish it from the "Beltway Purple Line". By 2001, the "Beltway Purple Line" proposal had been abandoned as too costly and the name was attached to the Bethesda to line.
Robert Flanagan, the Maryland State Secretary of Transportation under Governor Robert Ehrlich, merged the Purple Line proposal with the Georgetown Branch Light Rail Transit (GBLRT) line. The GBLRT was proposed as a light rail transit line from westward, following the former Georgetown Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, now a short CSX siding and the Capital Crescent Trail, to .
In March 2003, the Ehrlich administration renamed the project the "Bi-County Transitway", reflecting a proposal by Ehrlich and Flanagan to use bus rapid transit instead of light rail, and because the name "Purple Line" seemed to suggest a new heavy-rail system like the color-named lines of the Washington Metro system. The new name did not catch on; several media outlets and most citizens continued to refer to the "Purple Line". In 2007, Governor Martin O'Malley and Secretary of Transportation John Porcari reverted to "Purple Line".
In January 2008, the O'Malley administration allocated $100 million within a six-year capital budget to complete design documents for state approval and funding of the Purple Line. In May 2008, it was projected that the Purple Line would have about 68,000 daily trips. A draft environmental impact study was issued on October 20, 2008. On December 22, 2008, Montgomery County planners endorsed building a light rail line rather than a bus line. On January 15, 2009, the county planning board also endorsed the light rail option, and County Executive Isiah Leggett has also expressed support. On October 21, 2009, members of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board voted unanimously to approve the Purple Line light rail project for inclusion into the region's Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan.
Planners proposed to use existing Washington Metro stations and to accept the WMATA's SmarTrip farecard. Metro's 2008 annual report envisioned that the Purple Line would be fully integrated with the existing Washington Metro transit system by 2030.
The proposed project drew support and opposition in the community:
Support for Purple Line Purple Line Now is a non-profit organization that advocated for a Purple Line light rail line from Bethesda to New Carrollton to be integrated with a hiker/biker trail from Bethesda to Silver Spring. The Action Committee for Transit is a community group that supports the Purple Line. The Washington Post editorial board endorsed the Purple Line light rail option in 2008. The Montgomery County Council and Prince George's County Council voted unanimously in favor of the light rail option for the Purple Line in January 2009. Maryland state officials (including former Governor Martin O'Malley) are also strong Purple Line advocates. State officials say that a Purple Line, which is to run primarily above ground, "would provide better east–west transit service, particularly for lower-income workers who cannot afford cars." The development firm Chevy Chase Land Company is a strong proponent of the construction of the Purple Line. The website for the pro-Purple umbrella group Purple Line NOW! lists CCLC president Edward Asher as a member of its board of directors. The Washington Post stated that the development firm would "no doubt profit from property it owns near at least one of the proposed stations." The Sierra Club advocates a larger-scale rail system to parallel the Capital Beltway and link all existing Metro lines at their peripheries. This environmental group advocates rail transit over car use because carbon emissions are a major cause of climate change. Some student leaders (the Student Government Association and Graduate Student Government) at the University of Maryland support transit alternatives to campus. On January 27, 2009, the Montgomery County Council voted to support the light rail option. Governor O'Malley announced his own approval on August 4, 2009. The vice president of trail development for the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has said that with proper design, the trail-Purple Line combination can be "among the best in the nation." Members of the Facebook group New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens were "irrationally excited for the forthcoming Maryland purple line."
Support for bus A 2008 study by Sam Schwartz Engineering for the Town of Chevy Chase supported bus rapid transit using an alternate Jones Bridge Road alignment. The Chevy Chase study expressed concerns about the expected ridership numbers, carbon footprint, interruptions in recreation pathways, and the cost of bus and light rail proposals by the MTA involving a Capital Crescent Trail alignment. Although a Jones Bridge Road alignment was also proposed by the MTA, the study noted that features typical of bus rapid transit that were missing from the MTA proposal.
Opposition to rail
A not-for-profit local organization, Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail, began collecting signatures on a petition opposing the MTA's Purple Line proposals in 2003; in 2014, it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia asserting that the Federal Transit Administration had not complied with federal environmental laws when it approved a grant to help build the Purple Line. In 2008, the organization's website asserted that the MTA's light rail and bus rapid transit proposals would undermine the environment and safety on the Capital Crescent Trail, and endorsed running bus rapid transit on Jones Bridge Road, as recommended by the Chevy Chase study. But the petition called for yet a different option because the Jones Bridge Road route would affect the trail.Save the Trail Petition: Alternatives Studies of alternatives to a Capital Crescent Trail alignment, retrieved December 2, 2009 A leading opponent of the Purple Line was the Columbia Country Club, a private club whose golf course occupies both sides of the planned route between Bethesda and Silver Spring. The club, "long viewed as one of the most well-financed and politically connected Purple Line foes", spent thousands of dollars over a decade lobbying state and federal officials, hosting fundraisers for sympathetic politicians, and organizing "grassroots" opposition. In 2013, newly elected leaders of the Club signed an agreement not to oppose the Purple Line if its route were adjusted by and other concessions were granted. Opponents in the Town of Chevy Chase cited the town's study of bus rapid transit alternatives. The study estimated a cost of less than $1 billion for a bus rapid transit system, compared with an estimated cost of $1.8 billion for light rail. A 2011 news report placed the cost of the rail line at . In 2010, residents around the Dale Wayne stop worried that doubling the size of the road, along with the county's "smart growth" policy around transit stops, would encourage commercial development in a residential neighborhood. They wondered about the accuracy of the MTA's prediction that the Dale station would see 1,427 daily boardings.
Approval
In June 2015, the Purple Line was approved by Governor Larry Hogan, who opposed the project while campaigning in 2014. Hogan cancelled its sister project, the Baltimore Red Line, citing excessive costs, and reduced the state's contribution to the Purple Line from $700 million to $168 million, putting the difference toward highway construction. To make up the difference, Prince George's and Montgomery counties would contribute more money and the frequency of train service would be reduced.
The Purple Line was procured as a full design-build-finance-operate-maintain public–private partnership. On December 7, 2015, four teams composed of major American and international firms submitted their bids to realize the project: Maryland Purple Line Partners: Vinci Concessions, Walsh Investors, InfraRed Capital, Alstom and Keolis Maryland Transit Connectors: John Laing Investments, Kiewit Development Company, Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate and RATP Dev Purple Line Transit Partners: Meridiam, Fluor Corporation, Star America, CAF and Alternate Concepts Purple Plus Alliance: Macquarie Capital Group, Skanska, Kinki Sharyo and Transdev.