Purple Line (Maryland)

The Purple Line is a 16.2-mile (26.1 km) light rail line being built to link several Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.: Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton. Currently slated to open in late 2027, the line will also enable riders to move between the Maryland branches of the Red, Green, and Orange lines of the Washington Metro without riding into central Washington, and between all three lines of the MARC commuter rail system. 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 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.