Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Wednesday that the state has chosen a team of private companies to build, operate and maintain a light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs for $3.3 billion over 36 years.
Under the winning bid — proposed by the team Purple Line Transit Partners and led by construction giant Fluor Enterprises Inc. — six years of construction would begin late this year, and the 16-mile line would open to service by spring 2022.
If approved by the state’s Board of Public Works on April 6, the contract would allow the Maryland Transit Administration to secure about $900 million in recommended federal construction aid. That would put the final funding in place to build the region’s first suburb-to-suburb rail link. The Purple Line also would be the first rail line to connect spokes of the Metrorail system, which was designed to carry federal workers between suburbs and the city.
It would be only the second U.S. transit project to involve public financing; the other is in Denver.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Katherine Shaver over at the Washington Post