DC Area Transit Zone

Though the Green Line has died several times over on Capitol Hill since the last congressional appropriation met Metro estimates in 1985, there are stirrings of life in Hyattsville.

From 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 35 men move between the dirt hills that, since November, have risen on either side of Ager Road, where the Green Line is under construction.

There is a 35-foot-wide, 40-foot-long incision cut into the earth;  18 wells pump 80 gallons of ground water per minute into the storm-water system to make room for a tunnel;  a line of steel pilings mark where track will be laid.  Before te end of the year, 140,000 cubic yards of dirt will be moved, 4 million pounds of reinforcing steel will be placed, and 27,000 cubic yards of concrete will be poured.

The $11.6 million contract for the 5,000-foot section of cut and cover tunnel and surface rail -- almost in the middle of the Green Line between Washington and Greenbelt -- is expected to be done on schedule in July 1987, according to Charles F. Deprez, resident engineer for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Deprez walks across the hardened mud where the West Hyattsville line will be and stops in his tracks at the sound of the word "funding."  Although the segment under construction is funded, threats that federal subsidies will be cut sound like a death knell from Capitol Hill to the end of the Green Line.

There have been no problems here;  no snags to stop construction;  no workers injured.  Only one citizen has complained in five months.  Deprez has a hunch the work will be done several months ahead of schedule.

In contrast to the rocky terrain alignment decisions and the allocation of federal construction funds, design and contsruction of the Green Line has been running on level grund.

The design work for the northern Green Line is fully funded and under way on all segments, according to Edward Lassen, chief of the Metro Design Management Branch.  Lassen said design of more than half of the line will be complete before the end of the year.

Despite some glitches in the design process, including changes in the tunneling method and extended debate over the environmental impact of the line in College Park, the Green Line is go in this department.

"We're not planning our design schedule on a construction schedule anymore," said Lassen.  He added, "It never used to be like that."

Lassen said the change in philosophy came after the Urban Mass Transit Administration withheld the appropriated 1985 grant.  "We're just proceeding with the designs in the hopes that construction money will be available."  If the funds are not available when the designs are finished, "we put the drawings on the shelf," Lassen said.  No design work has been funded for the southern Green Line.

Federal funds for construction are harder to find and slower to come in 1986 after delays that have, thus far, put the extension seven years off course.

Metro received a hard-fought-for $217 million of an anticipated $250 milliin in 1986, and the lines have long been drawn over a budget proposal submitted by President Reagan that included no construction funds.

County Executive Parris Glendening had gone so far as to threaten to sue the federal government to get the Green Line back on track.  And although they are more optimistic now, they have left their options open.

Robert Ostrum, who represents Prince George's on the Metro Board of Directors, said this week that support is strong for a "reasonable appropriation" in 1987.  Even Urban Mass Transit Administrator Ralph Stanley, who supported zero funding and has called for Metro to come up with a dedicated funding source, said earlier this week that some federal monies would likely be found for Metro.  In addition, the Senate Budget Committee tentatively has restored Metro funding to $217 million.