Comment on the Red Line

If you have ever visited a major metropolitan area with great public transit (such as Washington DC, Boston, or New York City) you probably returned to Baltimore thinking "Why can't my city have efficient, convenient mass transit?"  The ridiculous mish-mash of transit modes is a joke to almost anyone who looks at it.  We have heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail, buses, express buses, and commuter buses.  Nothing connects to anything else (unless you count the stunted offshoot of the light rail that takes you to Penn Station, which I don't - see below).

In the next 6-8 years, however, Baltimore will build the Red Line.  It's actually a really good idea.  Basically it's a transit corridor stretching from Woodlawn, down Security Blvd., along the US 40 corridor through West Baltimore, cuts across downtown, Fells Point, and Canton before reaching the JHU Bayview campus.  Along the way it will have legitimate interchanges with the MARC Penn Line (in 2 places!) and the existing light rail.  Finally, Baltimore is going to invest in some transit that will connect areas where people live to area where they work and wish to go for entertainment!  It's a revolutionary concept, but let's give Baltimore the credit it deserves, as the City Paper recently pointed out, "the Red Line is, remarkably, on schedule."

In fact, this is where you, the blog-reading public, come in.  Right now we are in the public comment phase of the AA/DEIS phase of the project.  I forget what DEIS means, but AA = Analysis of Alternatives.  This is where they do a super in-depth study of the alternatives for this transit corridor.  Then they solicit community input.  Then they decide which option they will propose for Federal funding.  So right now (until January 5th, 2009), is your big chance to help campaign for a good choice.

They considered 12 different options, which I have conveniently summarized for you.  The format is "Alternative #: Title = My Interpretation"

Alternative 1:  No Build = No one wants this, but you have to do it as part of the process for getting Federal funding

Alternative 2: TSM = Don't build anything, but time the stop-lights better.

Alternative 3A-F: BRT = Bus Rapid Transit, because what we really need is yet ANOTHER mode of transit in Baltimore.

Alternative 4A-D: LRT = Light Rail; the best option

It is imperative that you go to the Baltimore Red Line website and submit a comment endorsing Light Rail, preferably Option 4C.

Pretty much everyone in their right mind realizes that 4C is the best compromise.  1 and 2 are only included for completeness as part of the Federal funding process.  Alternative 3 is included because, apparently, the Maryland Secretary of Transportation was a big fan of bus rapid transit (source is wikipedia for that).  Let's face it, buses just seem cheaper and crappier than light rail.  I don't think any upwardly mobile urban professionals have ever thought "I like this apartment because it's near a bus stop!"  But how many people do you know who live in a certain part of DC because it's close to a Metro stop?  Light rail is not as cool as a functioning subway network, but it's a hell of a lot better than some funny looking buses.

Here's a list of the organizations that endorse Option 4C:

• The Greater Baltimore Committee (a business consortium)
• The Central Maryland Transportation Alliance
• The University of Maryland, Baltimore
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
• Mercy Hospital
• Baltimore City Community College
• Sojourner-Douglas College

It's pretty much the only option that is both reasonably affordable and will actually change the way people travel across the city.  It's not a completely done deal though, there is a lot of concern among community residents about how this transit corridor will work out.  However, in my view, the most important thing is that this transit corridor happens at all.  Sure, construction won't begin until 2013, but there is no way to make something this expensive go any faster.

In case you want to be more informed before you submit an online comment, there are 4 different light rail options:

A - Dedicated Surface

B - Downtown Tunnel and Dedicated Surface

C - Downtown Tunnel and Cooks Lane Tunnel and Dedicated Surface

D - Maximum Tunnel and Dedicated Surface

Here's my take on each of these:

A - Can you imagine if Baltimore and Lombard Streets had light rail tracks like Howard Street?  This is a BAD idea.

B - This is a good idea, unless you have ever been down Cooks Lane in West Baltimore, then you realize that...

C - Is the best option.  Light rail is what you want, it has tunnels to get it past bottlenecks, but is not out-of-this-world expensive.

D - Probably too expensive to get Federal help.

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Idiocy of Light Rail Connection to Penn Station

So it is technically possible to get from Penn Station to other places using the light rail, but my question is "Why would you?"  It's impossibly inconvenient.  It is only effective if you are at Penn Station and want to go to one of a few light rail stops along Howard Street.  Otherwise you will have to get off the light rail train you're on and wait for another train that actually goes somewhere useful.  It's design flaws like this that make Baltimore public transit a case study in how NOT to design transit.

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This is how the opening message on Mayor Sheila Dixon's Red Line Website:

Baltimore... We Got Next... The Next Generation of Light Rail that is.  The Red Line... OMG!

Generally I think Sheila Dixon's doing an all right job, but I think that's just embarrassing.