Purple Line 90% complete, outreach begins in Prince George's County

For Prince George’s County commuters stuck in east-west traffic, the Purple Line is no longer a distant promise. Construction is about 90% complete, test trains are running through the University of Maryland campus, and state officials are shifting from construction updates to the question that matters most to daily life: how much easier it will be to cross the county and reach jobs, schools and transit once the line opens.

The 16-mile light rail project will connect Bethesda to New Carrollton with 21 stations, giving Prince George’s riders new links to Metro’s Red, Green and Orange lines, MARC trains and local bus service. That network connection is the core selling point in a county where many trips still depend on cars, especially for travel between neighborhoods that are hard to reach without long drives or circuitous transfers.

Maryland Transit Administration officials say the line is scheduled to open in winter 2027, with end-to-end system training planned for spring 2027. Dynamic testing began on April 3, 2025, and the 28th and final light rail vehicle arrived on November 25, 2025, two milestones that made the project’s final stretch more visible after years of delays.

The buildout still has real work left. A Maryland state budget and committee report said the project was 87.4% complete as of November 30, 2025, with nearly 154,000 of 193,100 feet of track laid. Purple Line project materials now list construction at 88% complete, underscoring that the line is close but not finished.

That is why outreach is expanding now. The Maryland Transit Administration has scheduled virtual community meetings from April 14 through April 28 so residents in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties can get construction updates and raise questions about how the line will function when service begins. The Purple Line also says it operates eight Community Advisory Teams, four in each county, to keep local neighborhoods and businesses tied into the process.

For Prince George’s neighborhoods near the alignment, the remaining questions are practical ones: how much construction disruption is still ahead, how station areas will connect to sidewalks and bus routes, and whether local businesses can stay visible as the corridor finishes changing around them. Montgomery County’s April 14 virtual workshop on Purple Line Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Area sidewalk proposals for the Long Branch and Manchester Place stations showed that access around the line is still being negotiated block by block.

The project has carried a long public price tag. Maryland approved about $148.3 million in additional payments tied to delays in 2023, and state officials later sought approval for as much as $425 million in relief payments in 2024. Even with that history, the Purple Line remains one of the biggest transit bets in Maryland, aimed at reducing congestion and linking Prince George’s County more directly to the region’s rail and bus network.