"You hope the demand forecast is pretty good," White said. "But one never does know until one enters the marketplace."
Much as Prince George's wanted the Blue Line extension, officials and residents were equally adamant that they did not want to see it, hear it or feel it.
With its wider platform and additional fare gates, the new Morgan Boulevard Station is designed to handle pedestrian traffic to FedEx Field.
(Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)
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So instead of building aboveground, as many suburban lines are, Metro workers built a shallow tunnel an average of 12 feet underground. The line slips into sight for a little more than a half-mile, including bridges across a protected wetland and the Beltway, and at both stations.
The stations sport the sleek steel and glass design Metro unveiled at New York Avenue. The pavilion entrances are wrapped in glass, the platform canopies are arched steel and glass and the hand rails gleam, due in part to a stream of lights on their undersides. There are also overhead signs instead of pylons, airier wind screens and recessed lighting. Other new design standards include two elevators in case one breaks and multiple escalators with parallel stairs.
Both stations also have art near their entrances. There is a sculpture shaped around a traffic light at Morgan Boulevard in honor of traffic light inventor Garrett A. Morgan. The road is named for Morgan as part of an effort by county leaders to honor prominent African Americans. At Largo, a large, spherical, reflective sculpture sits at the entrance of the station.
Elements were included that Metro officials said will correct past mistakes and cut down on maintenance delays. Workers added three track crossovers and reworked another so that trains can more easily be diverted around a breakdown or failed track. Also, the crossovers come every nine-tenths of a mile, more than twice as often as on the rest of the track.
At Largo, two garages with 2,200 spaces frame the station and are connected by a top-level bridge so drivers can cross from one to the other. There are also 200 surface parking spots at Largo and 500 at Morgan Boulevard.
Morgan was designed to handle pedestrian traffic to FedEx Field, just under a mile away. The platform is 30 feet wide, four more than at similar stations; there are 13 fare gates; and doors open directly to a sidewalk leading to the stadium.
Metro officials said they will run buses from Landover Station on the Orange Line for the final Redskins game Jan. 2 but haven't decided whether to continue running shuttles from Addison Road.
The Morgan Boulevard Station is the first at which Metro has built a child-care facility. The center, paid for by Prince George's, is a short walk from the station entrance and will serve 90 children.
On the tracks beyond the Largo station, an underground rail yard represents another first. The yard, which can hold 36 cars, will allow Metro to fix trains in all manner of weather and store them when the rail lines are icy. The yard also gives Blue Line trains a starting point on the line; currently they have to be moved over from the Orange Line in a taxing, time-consuming process.
"The people who built the system and designed it have never run it or operated it," said Metro Assistant General Manager P. Takis Salpeas. "They were great construction guys, but they never really had the sensitivity to maintain what it takes to work it."
