Bethesda Metro Station construction

 Bethesda Metro Station is getting a new south entrance and connection to the future Purple Line light rail.  Work has been going on inside the station for a while.  On Wednesday I took photos of the status.

 At the far (southern) end of the station a wall panel is removed and you can see the real walls behind it.  The area is open behind the red plywood.  When the station was built they envisioned a future south entrance so left a knock-out panel for it. 

 To give you a sense of scale, at the very center of the plywood is a full-sized door, so I think the opening is 12 feet tall.  It seems a bit close to the tracks for a bridge over the tracks but I guess not. 

False Walls

I never knew the curved concrete walls of the station were removable panels and the real station walls weren't curved.  Here you can see the gap between the real wall and the apparent wall.

The new entrance will be located on Elm Street near Wisconsin Avenue and  will only have elevators, no escalator to the metro station.  A mezzanine will be built over the south end of the platform to allow access to the trains.

 

Fossil extension cord

I can't be 100 percent sure, but it really looks like when they poured the original concrete station walls they left an extension cord there and it left this serpentine outline.

 

Station in July 2025

 Here's how the station looked last July, the concrete panel that has since been removed was still up on the right side of the picture and they were still building the work areas on the platform. 

 

More information:

•  WRA page about their work
•  Montgomery Planning page about the entrance
•  Bethesda Today article about escalating costs