By Joel Lev-Tov
On May 29, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority will close down four stations, including the College Park station, to renovate the platforms. Metro says the changes are necessary to replace aging infrastructure.
Here’s what you need to know about the closures.
- Starting May 29, the Greenbelt, College Park-U of Md, Prince George’s Plaza, and West Hyattsville stations will be closed until September 6, a week after the University of Maryland starts the fall 2021 semester. Green and yellow line trains will stop at Fort Totten.
- WMATA is providing free shuttle buses to replace the trains. Two limited-stop routes circulate between three stations each, and one serves all the stations less frequently.
- Other bus routes could make up for the closed stations. WMATA has a list of bus routes in the area on its website. Metrobus routes 83, 86, F6, R12, and the MARC commuter rail Camden line all stop at the College Park station. Schedules for all Metrobuses are available here.
- If you’re riding anywhere else in the system, trains will operate every 12 minutes on weekdays and every 15 minutes on weekends.
Metro is renovating the outdoor platforms at 20 stations as part of its Platform Improvement Project. It has completed 13 renovations so far and is scheduled to complete the rest by 2022. WMATA said it is improving customer experience through brighter digital screens to always display train arrival times with service alerts scrolling along the bottom. Other planned updates include new cameras and clearer speakers.
The closures are part of an effort to renovate the system, which has faced significant safety issues in the past including derailments and collisions. One recent system audit found that Metro had not properly trained its drivers to operate the Automatic Train Control. It can space trains a safe distance apart to avoid collisions, identify safe speeds to travel at and stop trains to avoid collisions.
In summer 2022, Metro plans to renovate the outdoor platforms at the Cheverly, Landover and New Carrollton stations and will shut those stations down.
Featured image: The College Park Metro station will close for renovations on May 29 through September 6. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
