Grace Palo
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) There are several concerns in Montgomery County that if Metro permanently cuts its late-night service it will result in hurting the Maryland Purple Line project.
The permanent cut hours could seriously prolong a lawsuit that has already delayed construction on the light-rail line. Montgomery County Council member George Leventhal expressed his concerns by writing a letter on Thursday to Metro officials.
Leventhal has been an advocate from the beginning for the Purple Line, and said he is concerned that U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon would continue to delay the Purple Line’s construction if he felt that by losing the late-night Metro service it would also end up reducing the Purple Line’s future ridership. Leon had ruled in August that the Purple Line’s federally approved environmental study would be set aside until the project’s ridership could be better predicted and updated depending on the 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 D.C metro system, but at least a quarter of the light-rail rides will be expected to be people who are transferring to the Purple Line from the Metro, so the Purple Line’s hours will coincide with the Metro’s hours to make it more cohesive.
If Metro continues the trend of cutting off late-night service to grant more time for maintenance work, the board should then establish a timeline of which it will return to normal operating hours before 2022, as that is when the Purple Line is schedule to open, Leventhal wrote.
“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.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (photo is a rendering of the Purple Line: Maryland Transit Administration)
