Aww, METRORail Purple Line Opening Delayed Until December

I live about five blocks from where the METRORail Purple Line will terminate, and I have had a ringside seat for its construction, soon to be completion and anxiously anticipated by moi opening.

That was supposed to happen in October for the new Purple and Green Lines, but according to  Swamplot, that's not going to happen until December for several reason not including the delay in getting the needed 39 railcars from CAF USA to start the new service.

Houston Rapid Transit, the contractor building the two new rail lines, won't be ready to turn the rail lines over to METRO until September 30.  It will then take METRO sixty days to prepare the rail lines for revenue service. 

In addition, the live wire testing is happening on both lines along with the initial construction of the second downtown 1000 room convention center area  hotel scheduled to open in 2016. 


The Altic and Cesar Chavez stations on the far end of the Green Line won't be accessible until the rail only overpass crossing the Union Pacific freight railroad tracks is completed.  

It was going to be a rial and traffic underpass, but chemical contamination combined with liability concerns caused METRO despite the desires of the community to go with the overpass option.

Well, we've waited this long for the new Purple and Green Lines, what's another few weeks?  

Now if we can get the federal funding we need to get the east-west Blue Line started to connect the rest of our rail system with the planned Bus Rapid Transit Gold Line in the Galleria area.