Metro has cancelled its plan of shutting down the Green and Yellow Line stations scheduled for the summer of 2020.
“In order to be more cost effective, four Green/Yellow stations that had been considered for platform reconstruction next summer will be rescheduled to a later phase of the project,” the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) said in a news release on December 11.
The board of WMATA had not realized at the time of the shutdown announcement the scope and cost of extra work required at Greenbelt, College Park, Prince George’s Plaza and West Hyattsville stations, according to WTOP, which attributed its report to internal Metro documents.
The plan that aims to renovate platforms at 20 stations was first announced last year.
The cancellation was reported to the Prince George’s County Department of Public Works and Transportation in October. However, it had not been known publicly.
“In the interest of minimizing customer inconvenience and to be cost-effective, we want to align these projects and tackle them at the same time,” Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel said in an email to WAMU. “It is our expectation that the Green/Yellow stations will ultimately be reprogrammed somewhere between 2022-2027.”
Repair work planned for the Green and Yellow Line stations is not likely to be done before six to 10 years.
The stations that will see platform reconstruction after the summer of 2020 are Addison Road, Arlington Cemetery, Cheverly, College Park-U of Md, Greenbelt, Landover, New Carrollton, Prince George’s Plaza, Reagan National Airport and West Hyattsville, as per WMATA’s statement.
“Metro is investing in system safety, reliability and the region’s economy through its 10-year, $15 billion capital program,” WMATA added.