In October, consultants suggested building Forest Glen and Wheaton stations as two small separated tubes rather than using one large cavernous design that had been used for nearly every other underground station. The consultants said that changing the design of those two stations would save $352.6 million. Glenmont station would still be built with the cavernous underground design. Gleason praised the study because it saved significant money without sacrificing the stations, and he decided to release Montgomery County's construction funding after plans surfaced for a study by region-wide task force. In February 1978, the Department of Transportation approved engineering studies of the Glenmont line extension, which suggesting it was warming to building the line after all. The study by a regionwide task force ended up approving the routing of stations on other Metrorail lines but it did not review the routing of the red line at all. In August, WMATA board members approved a Metrorail plan that included building the Glenmont extension as the latter phase of a two-phase construction schedule. WMATA released the plan to the Department of Transportation.