Maryland has awarded a construction contract for the Langley Park transit center.

Langley Park transit center, including future Purple Line connection.

All images from Maryland MTA.

Langley Park is currently the busiest bus transfer location in the region that isn’t connected to a Metro station. But it’s a mess. Bus stops are spread all around the busy crossroads of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard. Transit users hoping to transfer have to cross up to 14 lanes of traffic, and have to memorize which curbside bus stops their route uses. It’s a complicated and dangerous situation.

Solution: bus station.

To solve this problem, Maryland has been planning for years to build a Langley Park bus station. The station would centralize all bus routes in the area under a single building, with vastly improved customer amenities.

Funding for the station was lined up in 2010 when MTA received a TIGER grant for it, but a land ownership issue delayed construction until now. Groundbreaking is expected this summer, with completion in fall of 2015.

Left: location map. Right: Transit center plan.