Van Ness Metro west entrance reopening March 24

Van Ness Metro west side street entrance with the escalator removed. (2015 WMATA photo)

The west entrance to the Van Ness Metro station is reopening well ahead of schedule.

The entrance first closed in June 2015 so it could be used for staging what WMATA predicted would be a three-year escalator replacement project. Under a revised plan negotiated with community leaders dismayed at losing the western entrance for so long, WMATA agreed to close the entrance only as long as needed to remove each of the long escalators to the mezzanine. The entrance then reopened while the new equipment was installed.

Even the revised schedule did not slow the work. The timeline was later shortened from three years to a little more than two years – with completion expected in August 2017. The March 24th completion date is five months earlier than that.

Ann Chisholm, WMATA’s government relations officer, tells Forest Hills Connection that a lot of the work was performed in-house instead of being contracted out, which sped the process.