Last week, I observed that “Transit’s failure to recover from the pandemic is due largely to its downtown-centric orientation in most urban areas.” An op-ed in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun makes a similar point about the planned Red Line light-rail project for that city. “The problem with Baltimore transit is not that it doesn’t have enough expensive rail lines; it is that its route map is mired in the past,” said the op-ed. “Most of its routes focus on downtown Baltimore.”
Rooted in the past: Baltimore’s light-rail system. As an aside, the Orioles ad features steam locomotive wheels because the Orioles play at Camden Yards Stadium, which was built on a former Baltimore & Ohio freight yard, with B&O’s passenger station incorporated into the station. Photo by Mr.TinMD.
This isn’t entirely a coincidence since the Antiplanner wrote the op-ed. “Before the pandemic, more than 20 percent of downtown Baltimore workers commuted by transit, while less than 6 percent of the rest of the region’s workers commuted on transit,” says the article, echoing what I wrote here last week. “The system’s downtown orientation simply does not work for 94 percent of non-downtown workers.”
The article also points out that Baltimore’s bus and light-rail ridership in 2019 was almost 25 percent lower than bus ridership in 1982, before the city began building rail transit. “The Red Line is 110 percent about political patronage and minus 10 percent about transportation,” says the article, reasoning that the line will have negative effects on transportation in the city. “That’s because light rail is inferior to buses in every respect,” it argues. “A properly designed bus system can move more people at higher speeds in greater comfort than light rail and do so for far less money.”
Building a new downtown-oriented light-rail line “is particularly inappropriate considering the large numbers of former downtown workers who are now working remotely some or all days of the week.” Instead, the article concludes, the Maryland Transit Administration should redesign its bus system to serve everyone in Baltimore, rather than just those who work downtown.
Light rail is about Cutting ribbons, posing for pictures and newspaper/online headlines.
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=14964
The “real” solution is making Baltimore accessible by bikes/pedestrians where suitable and incorporating De-regulation. Government HEAVILY regulates automotive transit. That’s why paratransit service is expensive & limited to seniors or disabled people.
Transit has evolved into such a bureaucratic monster its no longer serving its purpose.
Deregulated paratransit can move anyone cheaply. New Jersey is running adequate Jitney service little as a Dollar…….But Children can be accommodated effortlessly, by same transit system, parents maintain “netflix” style subscription and vanpool picks em up to take them to desired destinations, Parks, Malls. Anyone under 16 cant drive or own a vehicle.
Light rail is crime-genic
Private transit has incentives to deter criminality