The Green Line is a rapid transit line of the Washington Metro system, consisting of 21 stations in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The Green Line runs from to , connecting the southeast suburbs to the northeast suburbs through downtown Washington, D.C.
It was the last line in the original Metro plan to be constructed. Planning for the Green Line began in 1968, at which point it was supposed to serve some of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Delays arose due to various disputes, including disagreements over funding and the line's routing. Partial service began in 1991. The line was completed on January 13, 2001, with the opening of the line's final five stations, marking the completion of the original system.
It is one of three north–south lines through the city of Washington. The Green Line shares track with the Yellow Line from to .
On weekdays, trains run every six minutes until 9:30 p.m. and every 7.5 minutes afterward. On weekends, trains run every eight minutes.
Planning Planning for Metro began with the Mass Transportation Survey in 1955, which attempted to forecast what freeway and mass transit systems would meet the needs of the region in 1980.Schrag at p. 33-38. In 1959, the study's final report included two rapid transit lines which anticipated subways in downtown Washington.Schrag at p. 39. Because the plan called for extensive freeway construction within the District of Columbia, alarmed residents lobbied for legislation that created a new transportation agency and blocked freeway construction.Schrag at p. 42. The agency, the National Capital Transportation Administration, issued a 1962 Transportation in the National Capital Region report, which did not include the route that became the Green Line.Schrag at p. 55. A central route under 7th Street in downtown was only added in 1967 primarily to serve the "inner city."Schrag at p. 112.
In March 1968, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board approved its Adopted Regional System (ARS) which included the Green Line from Branch Avenue to Greenbelt. It also foresaw possible future extensions to Laurel, Maryland and Brandywine, Maryland.Schrag at p. 117.
Early decision making Mid-century plans for rapid transit neglected some of the District's less affluent neighborhoods.Schrag at p. 106. By late 1966, some plans started to include a line along 7th Street in the District of Columbia. In 1968, the new WMATA included the line in its master plan for its proposed system. At that time, a Green Line was planned to pass through some of the area's poorest and most transit-dependent neighborhoods and provide them with subway service. Riots following the death of Martin Luther King in 1968 destroyed much of the commercial district around 14th and U Streets, and planners hoped that adding a subway stop in that area would stimulate redevelopment.Schrag at p. 211-12. The original 1969 plan called for a line under 13th Street NW with just two stations. However, in 1970, the District of Columbia Council agreed to pay an additional $3 million to add a third station and reroute the Green Line under U Street, and 14th Street NW.Schrag at p. 213. The southern part of the Green Line was originally planned to pass over the 11th Street Bridges to the intersection of Good Hope Road SE and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE, follow Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE to Suitland Parkway, down Suitland Parkway to Branch Avenue SE, and down Branch Avenue to a terminus at the intersection of Branch Avenue and the Capital Beltway. Public hearings on whether to build a Green Line and the route it should take were completed in 1973, and portions of the line were originally scheduled to open in 1976. However, construction delays kept the first Green Line stations from opening until 1991.
The downtown segment of the line was originally projected to open in September 1977.Schrag at p. 214. Obtaining approval of the District of Columbia and Prince George's County of the exact alignment of the Green Line north of U Street delayed construction. Originally, the ARS called for the line to be placed in the median strip of the planned North Central Freeway, but after that road was cancelled, the route of the replacement subway tunnel became controversial, resulting in years of expensive delays.Schrag at p. 214-16.
The tunnel between the and stations, including the junction with the future Yellow Line, was built at the same time as the other Metro tunnels in downtown Washington in the early 1970s. During construction under 7th Street and U Street, where the cut-and-cover technique was used, street traffic and pedestrian access on those streets was difficult.Schrag at p. 217. That led to the closure of the traditional retail businesses along the route.
The southern section of the line was not spared from issues, however. The site of Anacostia station, set for the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE and Good Hope Road SE, led to concerns that the station would destroy historic Old Anacostia, and after pressure from the federal government, Metro moved the site of the station to Howard Road SE.
By late 1977, Metro had pushed the opening of the Green Line to June 1983. Increasing construction costs and financing problems (caused primarily by the inability of local governments to contribute their share of Metro's funding) led WMATA to consider shifting the Green Line to a more southerly route, along Wheeler Road SE, to terminate near Rosecroft Raceway. Another alternative would have built two Green Lines, one following Wheeler Road SE with a terminus at Southern Avenue and the other following Suitland Parkway to Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE, proceeding northerly along Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE to Good Hope Road SE, and terminating at Good Hope Road SE and SE (then called "Anacostia Station").
In October 1977, WMATA's Board of Directors refused to declare construction of the Green Line a "high priority" (favoring extension of the Red Line to ) although it instructed Metro staff to work on plans to fund the line and to determine its route. Although the United States Department of Transportation approved the Glenmont extension, federal officials were unhappy that Metro had yet to construct the Green Line into Anacostia.
In January 1978, a WMATA regional task force approved a Green Line route in Anacostia that followed Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue and then Wheeler Road down to the Beltway, with a new station added near St. Elizabeths Hospital. Nonetheless, the Prince George's County government successfully demanded in May 1978 for WMATA to choose the Suitland Parkway to Rosecroft route instead. In August 1978, WMATA's Board of Directors recommended to the federal government and its partner state and local governments for the entire -long Metrorail system to be fully built, a proposal that included immediate construction of the , , , and stations. WMATA announced in November 1978 that it had secured funding to build the Green Line from Gallery Place to Waterfront and that construction was nearly complete on that portion of the line, but that funding did not exist to push the line from Waterfront to Anacostia. Nonetheless, Metro reiterated that it intended to complete the extension by late 1983.
Two additional realignments occurred at the north end of the Green Line but with less acrimony. North of , the line was to have surfaced in the median of the planned North Central Freeway, I-95, and to have proceeded to a point just west of Prince George's Plaza, with an intermediate station at Chillum. I-95 and Metro would have run through the Northwest Branch Stream Valley Park, but the cancellation of I-95 through the District and out to the Beltway in 1974 meant that it was no longer necessary or appropriate to condemn an I-95-sized swath of parkland just for Metro. WMATA eventually selected a new route that skirted most of the park, and it was federally approved by the mid-1980s. The planned Chillum station was relocated and named . The other alignment dispute occurred in the Petworth section of Washington and involved whether the tunnel would go under or skirt Rock Creek Cemetery and how to go through its soft-soil burial ground (i) and the least disruptive way under New Hampshire Avenue from to . The tunnels eventually skirted the cemetery by using the New Austrian tunnelling method and stacked under New Hampshire Avenue.
Legal and funding battles
In December 1978, Metro announced that the new completion date of the Green Line past the Anacostia station to Rosecroft Raceway would be 1987, a year later than anticipated. Metro also announced that cost considerations had forced it to abandon the high-vault ceiling design for all unbuilt stations (except Navy Yard), and that a less-costly design would be used at all unbuilt Green Line stations. By July 1979, despite the release of billions of dollars in construction funds by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Metro had pushed back the construction of the Anacostia station to mid-1985 and the completion of the Branch Avenue extension to late 1986. But construction schedules continued to slip: despite reaffirming its construction schedules in December 1979, Metro announced in January 1980 that completion of the Green Line terminus in Prince George's County would be pushed back six more months to 1987.
Even as Metro officially designated Rosecroft Raceway as the Green Line's southern terminus, more than half of Prince George's County's representatives in the Maryland state legislature asked Governor Harry Hughes to review the proposed route after allegations of improper political pressure regarding the 1978 route decision surfaced. Metro officials proceeded anyway in March 1984 with Green Line design and planning, and moved the line's completion date up to late 1986.
1980 troubles and near-cancellation Funding troubles delayed construction even further. In March 1980, Maryland officials worried that high inflation would leave Metro without enough funds to complete the Green Line, forcing Maryland to bear these construction costs alone. These fears were confirmed in part in September 1980 when Metro announced that inflation had created a $16 million shortfall in its $271 million budget. By now, Anacostia residents were increasingly angry at the repeated delays in building the Green Line. In September 1980, D.C. City Council member Jerry A. Moore, Jr. delivered a petition containing 1,000 signatures from Anacostia residents demanding that construction on the Green Line be sped up.
In October 1980, The Washington Post ran a major article asking "What Ever Happened to the Green Line?" in which the newspaper concluded: "The 18.86-mile (30.35 kilometer) Green Line, which some argue should have been the first built because it would serve the most disadvantaged sections of the Washington area, is last on the construction list and threatened with extinction." The article confirmed that funds were in place and contracts signed to complete the Green Line to the proposed Anacostia station at Howard Road SE and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE, but that repeated local opposition in Maryland to the line's actual location had forced planners to delay final siting of the line inside the District of Columbia. Additionally, Maryland businessmen argued that the switch of the terminus from Branch Avenue to Rosecroft Raceway had economically harmed them, and they filed a suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland demanding a halt to construction of the Green Line until the line's route could be again reconsidered.