By Jim Parsons, Engineering News-Record; May 2, 2020
The design-build consortium for Maryland’s $2-billion Purple Line light-rail system plans to withdraw from the public-private partnership overseeing the project amid a long-running dispute with state transportation agencies over delays and cost overruns.
Purple Line Transit Constructors, which includes Fluor Corp., Lane Construction Corp. and Traylor Bros. Inc, said in a May 1 statement that it has been “unable to obtain the time and cost relief to which it is entitled” from the Maryland Dept. of Transportation and the Maryland Transit Administration to address a combination of factors that added more than a year and $500 million to the 16-mile, 21-station project across northern suburbs of Washington, D.C. that will link to existing rail lines.