Purple Line may see more delays, overruns after latest setback, Wiedefeld says

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Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said Monday that the latest delay and cost increase for the Purple Line light rail may not be the project’s last.

Transportation officials are expected later this month to seek another $425 million for the Purple Line, bringing its 30-year price tag to nearly $9.9 billion. The original 30-year cost was $5.6 billion.

The state on Friday also pushed the project’s end date back 234 days, to winter 2027. As of July, the project was set to be completed by spring 2027.

After years of delays and billions in cost overruns, Democratic Comptroller Brooke Lierman said in July, as the Board of Public Works approved a contract extension, “I think we’re all done with additional delays and more modifications for the Purple Line.”

But on Friday, the Maryland Transit Administration put out a press release stating it would seek approval from the Board of Public Works for a contract extension through winter 2027, and Wiedefeld on Monday declined to say there wouldn’t be further setbacks.

“Can you all make a pretty firm commitment here today that, barring some act of God or further cataclysm that might happen, there will not be any further pushing back of the date of the actual opening of the line — that we are as far back as we’re going to go?” state Del. Jared Solomon, a Montgomery County Democrat, asked Wiedefeld and Transit Administrator Holly Arnold during a hearing.

“I would be hesitant to do that, to be frank,” Wiedefeld said.

Wiedefeld said any further delays and associated cost increases will likely result from “systems work,” which will include testing the performance of the various systems comprising the transit network and will require contracting workers who are in international demand.

“I’ve been trying to throw the flag up for people, just so they do understand, that has nothing to do with anyone missing (sic) something,” Wiedefeld said. “It is the nature of these big projects.”

The 16-mile, 21-station Purple Line, first approved in 2016 under Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan, is planned as a light rail line to connect Bethesda to New Carrollton.

Arnold, who has led the Transit Administration since 2021, has said the need to prolong the project is the result of delays in relocating utilities, the challenges and complexities of construction in an area with substantial pedestrian and vehicle traffic, national workforce and supply chain issues, and high inflation.

State Democrats have laid blame for the project’s numerous delays and multibillion-dollar cost overruns with the Hogan administration.

Arnold said in a statement Friday that, despite reaching 65% completion and having 13 of 21 stations in active construction, the project’s dense, urban environment and significant traffic have complicated construction.

The $425 million cost increase will be spread over five years, and payments to Purple Line Transit Partners — with which the state entered a public-private partnership agreement in 2016 — will depend on the arrival of the first light-rail car in Maryland, completion of construction work on the University of Maryland, College Park, campus, the reopening of the Capital Crescent Trail and the start of systems testing, Arnold said.

The state is already strapped for cash to pay for transportation projects, and Gov. Wes Moore has proposed more than $3 billion in cuts to balance a six-year spending plan.

The state may now have to pay as much as $100 million more for the Purple Line in both the current fiscal year and next fiscal year.

For now, the department is expected to draw unused funding from other transportation projects to cover Purple Line costs, and then backfill those projects in future years, if needed.

“This is a project that, obviously, we’re committed to and we have to come up with the dollars,” Wiedefeld said to lawmakers.