Ernst ‘Squeal Award’ Goes to National Capital’s Purple Line, a ‘Billion-Dollar Boondoggle’
Calling it a “billion-dollar boondoggle,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) named a chronically over-budget and behind-schedule public transportation project in the nation’s capital as the winner of her latest Squeal Award highlighting waste and fraud in government spending.
“The National Capital Purple Line, which was supposed to connect Washington D.C.’s subway lines in the Maryland suburbs, is on track to being yet another billion-dollar-boondoggle. It was over budget and behind schedule before it even started,” Ernst said in a statement made available to The Epoch Times on June 29.
“Construction costs have steadily increased from $2 billion to $3.4 billion, while the overall price tag to build, operate, and manage the system has ballooned from $5.6 billion to $9.3 billion,” Ernst said.
The Iowa Republican added that “as the costs go up, the completion date keeps getting pushed back! The service, originally expected to begin in spring 2022, is now delayed until fall 2026.”
The Purple Line extension of the Washington region’s public transportation subway system is designed to connect Maryland’s heavily populated inner suburbs through an East-West corridor.
Construction began in 2017 but the project—the biggest public infrastructure construction effort in Maryland history—has been plagued with delays, cost-overruns, and court fights.
“The project has literally been stopped in its tracks for two years because the companies building it quit. Ironic, since the Purple Line was promoted as ‘Transit that Works,’” Ernst said in her statement.
The project’s problems go beyond costs and scheduling, however, because, the Iowa Republican pointed out, “to get the rail service back on track, a contractor with its own track record of cost overruns and delays has been hired to complete the construction of the system.
“And the company selected to produce the trains for the Purple Line was responsible for making the D.C. subway system’s ‘least reliable’
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