Metro says it’s time to get to work making transit upgrades at the future site of the new Commanders stadium in the District. The transit agency’s board met for the first time to talk about needed improvements at the RFK site Thursday.
With the new Commanders stadium expected to be built and open in just four years — by 2030 — the sense of urgency was palpable among Metro staff at Thursday’s board meeting. Officials are seeking to make sure everyone can get to and from games and events at the new stadium.
“At this point, we need to move from study mode and evaluation mode into design and engineering and get to work,” WMATA Chief of Planning Tom Webster said.
Metro is not recommending building a new station at the RFK site, as News4 reported earlier this week. Building a new rail station would cost about $1 billion and wouldn’t be done by the time the stadium is set to open in 2030, according to Metro projections.
Instead, officials want to make massive upgrades to the existing Stadium-Armory station, which serves the Blue, Orange and Silver lines.
Metro officials say they’ll need to double the capacity of that station to handle upwards of 30,000 riders before and after games. Recommendations include:
- new elevators and escalators
- new faregates
- wider entrances
- mezzanine walkways that better distribute riders across the platform
In addition, a new rapid bus line called the Gold Line would go from the stadium to connect directly with Union Station and the Metro station there that serves the Red Line.
Without these measures, Metro warned it could take more than two hours to clear crowds after events at the stadium.
“Your anxiety about this is our anxiety about this, and I don’t want to commit to something we can’t deliver,” Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said. “And I will say, it’s great to have the stadium, but if people can’t get there — Tom showed a picture of Met Life stadium and our partners up in New York when they hosted, and it was really, really bad and it ended up distracting and taking away from the amazing event.”
Clarke said Metro will have to run at full speed to get this accomplished.
The transit agency is hoping to have an agreement in place with the District — and hundreds of millions of dollars committed to these upgrades — by the summer. Metro leaders said Thursday they are working very closely with D.C. officials and the Commanders and that talks are going well.
If this is done correctly, Clarke said, the new RFK site would become the most transit-oriented sports complex in the country.
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/V5vYPEX
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