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Official: Cutting Metro’s late-night hours could hurt Maryland’s Purple Line

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November 4, 2016 at 5:46 a.m. EDT
This is a rendering of what a light-rail Purple Line train would look like running through the University of Maryland campus in College Park. (Courtesy of Maryland Transit Administration)

Permanently cutting Metro’s late-night service could hurt Maryland’s Purple Line project by prolonging a lawsuit that has already delayed construction of the light-rail line, a Montgomery County Council member said Thursday in a letter to Metro officials.

Council member George Leventhal (D-At Large), a longtime Purple Line advocate, said he’s concerned that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon would further delay the Purple Line’s construction if he believed losing late-night Metro service would reduce the Purple Line’s future ridership. Leon ruled in August that the Purple Line’s federally approved environmental study be set aside until the project’s ridership forecasts are updated to reflect Metro’s maintenance and safety problems, as well as its declining ridership.

The 16-mile Purple Line connecting Montgomery and Prince George’s counties would be operated separately from the Metro system, but about a quarter of the light-rail passengers are expected to be people transferring to and from Metro. The Purple Line’s operating hours also would coincide with Metro’s.

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If Metro curtails late-night service to grant more time for maintenance work, Leventhal wrote, the board should establish that it will return before 2022, when the Purple Line is scheduled to begin carrying passengers.

“I fear that if late-night service is permanently cut back, the judge will use this development as further excuse to delay or block the project from moving forward,” Leventhal wrote to Metro board members and Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn.

The judge’s decision favored plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit aimed at stopping the Purple Line on environmental grounds. State and federal lawyers have asked the judge to reconsider his decision, and an appeal is considered likely. Pre-construction work, such as soil borings along the alignment, has continued.