Metro riders who use the Bethesda Metro station will have to wait even longer for the agency to restart its elevators there.

The transit agency pushed back the completion of a months-long rehabilitation project of the two elevators there from Friday to Jan. 4, blowing yet another deadline.

The two elevators serve as a life line for wheelchair users but also help many other riders at the station with the sytem's second-longest escalators. When the escalators are down, many riders flock to the elevators to avoid the 212-foot climb between the faregates and the street.

Metro closed down the elevator to the street there in May, then closed the one from the train platform to the faregates in July for the first major rehabilitation of the equipment since the station opened. Both were supposed to be finished in October. But Metro was missing key parts, according to the agency, then had to update the elevators to meet new state codes.

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Metro had told The Washington Examiner that the work is done but that the agency has been waiting for a state inspection of the equipment before it can restart them.

kweir@washingtonexaminer.com