Langley Park Gets New Transit Center

New $13 Million Transit Center for Langley Park.
Let’s hope that this bus hub will be better thought out and overseen than the mess that has become the Silver Spring Transit Center, which is two years behind schedule and still not able to be used because the contractor that built it, in their infinite wisdom or lax oversight (don’t know which), left out the steel beams needed to support the concrete.  The cost of the Silver Spring Transit Center started out at $26 million dollars and today, the cost is up to a whopping $120 million AND WMATA has declared they will not honor their 2008 agreement to operate the 3-level MARC train/subway/bus center because construction flaws and maintenance costs make that impossible.  The Langley Park bus hub is not along the lines in size or scope as the Sliver Spring Transit Center but there is always the possibility that a huge mess can start in a small place if there is not proper oversight. 

From Washington Business Journal, “Columbia-based Costello Construction Co. has been selected to build a $13 million transit center in Prince George’s County at one of the Maryland Transit Administration’s busiest bus hubs.  Eleven bus routes pass through the corner of University Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue in Langley Park. Transportation officials have struggled for years to stem the problem of pedestrians being struck by vehicles, sometimes as they cross six-lane intersections over more than one-quarter mile transferring between buses, the MTA said.

 “The transit center is expected to improve pedestrian safety by making it easier and more convenient to transfer from one bus route to another by providing a central location,” Costello Construction said in a statement.

The MTA acquired land for the transit center where a Taco Bell restaurant is located. According to the Washington Post, the MTA used the threat of eminent domain to purchase the 1.2-acre site.  Costello said the company will break ground on the site this summer and the facility is scheduled for completion in 2015. At least 50 percent of the construction will be done with its own workers, and is “one of the only construction firms in the region able to meet this requirement,” Costello said in a statement. The architecture firm for the project is Baltimore-based ArchPlan Inc. Philipsen Architects.