For Immediate Release: Tuesday, June 25, 2019
From the Office of Councilmember Tom Hucker
WHAT: Press conference
WHEN: July 1, 2019, 8:30 a.m.
WHERE: Wheaton Metro Station, 11171 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, Md. 20902
WHO: Council President Nancy Navarro; T&E Chair Tom Hucker, Councilmembers Evan Glass and Hans Riemer; other elected officials; and representatives from WMATA, Friends of Forest Glen, Montgomery County Renters Alliance, Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, Montgomery Housing Partnership and Montgomery County Sierra Club.
TOPIC: End of Silver Spring turnback on Metro Red Line
On July 1, officials from across the region will celebrate with Metro commuters as the Silver Spring turnback ends that day.
Montgomery County leaders have been working on this operational change for more than a decade. Since 1984, WMATA has been turning around every other Red Line car at Silver Spring to return to Washington, D.C.
The decision to end the turnback comes after a town hall meeting in January with WMATA board members that was organized by Councilmember Hucker, who chairs the council’s Transportation and Environment Committee. Metro riders expressed strong support for increased service on the eastern end of the Red Line by ending the turnback, and Councilmember Hucker collected more than 2,500 petition signatures that were delivered to the WMATA board in support of the change.
Starting July 1, all Red Line trains will travel all the way to and from the Glenmont terminus. This change will effectively double service for the 11,000 riders who use the Forest Glen, Wheaton and Glenmont stations. Currently, riders at those stations wait twice as long as riders at other Red Line station due to the turnback.
The change follows Metro ending the Grosvenor/Strathmore turnback on the western end of the Red Line in December.
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Release ID: 19-225