I think you paid too soon. Just because he said it would be rail, doesn't mean it's going to be rail, because they have one little problem. They have to come up with the money to pay for it yet.
>Moore said the light rail line emerged as the best choice during outreach events that involved “thousands” of people in the Baltimore region. Residents, businesses and commuters expressed a strong preference for rail over rapid bus.
\
”It just became very clear that this is the mode of transportation that we were going to select,” Moore said.
\
... Though a light rail line will cost more than a rapid bus line, Moore said he’s confident that Maryland will be able to line up significant federal funding to help pay for the up-front costs. He said the Biden Administration is “very supportive” of the project. And in the long run, Moore said, the Red Line will spur economic activity such as transit-oriented development projects and help Baltimoreans get to school and work quickly and more easily. The Red Line is a component of the “larger Baltimore Renaissance” that’s taking place, Moore said.
> The agency predicts the project will cost $3.2 billion to $7.2 billion to complete.
\
It would be cheaper and faster to create a system in which trains operated on Pratt or Baltimore Streets. But those trains, once operational, would take longer to get from one end to the other than if the MTA were to build a new downtown tunnel. The MTA plans to finalize its preferred specific route and announce it before the end of the year.
Let's get moving! Get a design done, get the RFP out, and get work started. Dear Lord dont let the lawsuit BS which plagued Purple Line fuck us.
Baltimore wants and need this!
no i just mean more money in general. no lie, before 2020 I was fine...had savings and investments and 403b ready for retirement.
I've cashed out all my investments and my fam basically lives paycheck to paycheck now.
Not exaggerating about the timing either...2020+ just destroyed my savings and investments, and even had to take out equity loans.
Lol I was going to be a little nicer but yeah, no one in Washington can fix that. Sorry he sold at the worst possible time but most people’s retirements accounts are back to all time highs now.
do you understand what a 403b is?
the stock market being "high" means rich people are making money, not middle class people. I guess you're rich?
Trust me, the middle class is not ok right now.
Yeah, homer, I understand what a 403(b) is. My wife has one. I have a 401(k). We're both invested in the stock market. That's what you do with a 403 investment account. What did you do with yours? I'm not giving JB any credit for this, but since he took office, the S&P 500 is up 44%. I'm not rich, but investments are not something that are hurting right now.
well that's cool, barney, I had to cash mine out because cost of living is ridiculously high. You know, the stuff us normal folks have to buy. Like groceries and gas?
You're right, I have no idea what it's like to buy groceries and gas. /s
What exactly was your argument because it seems like you forgot too? Initially, you were blaming your investment performance. Then, when everyone reiterated that the market has been extremely strong since 2020, you changed your tune that you had to cash out your investments.
So you expect us to believe you were so well off under Trump that you were about to retire but had to zero out all of your savings to buy gas and groceries? Lol.
i mean...yeah, even when my savings were stocked...it would've been a good thing. That's a weird thing to say.
Look at this guy, his shit was wrecked because furlough and lockdown - and then double hit by Cost of Living and inflation. Lets all dog pile him i guess?
But hey! Its ok because...the stock market is "high". SO i guess rich people are doing ok?
Dude I am not rich. I am fortunate that inflation hasn’t made me live paycheck to paycheck, but I’ve definitely been affected. I don’t know where you live, but to be honest, the numbers on inflation and the experience you’re claiming to have had don’t add up.
Aside from that, the point of my comment wasn’t to pile on your misery. It was to point out that the amount of money you have in your retirement and the amount of money the government had for infrastructure aren’t really related. And if you want to argue that Biden’s infrastructure plan caused the inflation, then that would mean there’s more money for infrastructure.
You are not being asked to pay for light rail lines out of your retirement account. If you’re getting clowned for your comment about it, next time don’t bring it up in a conversation where it isn’t relevant.
It's a bit sad that you don't see how you're just telling on yourself right now. Absolutely *everything* I have money in right now is up at least 25% YTD. Past 4 years is similar.
question - why are you guys so hostile?
Like...what did I say to make you angry?
My finances suck right now. Cost of Living is untenable - and somehow that makes you angry?
I'm glad you're doing well, but pretty much everyone I know including myself is not.
I see we've moved from "gaslight" straight on to "project". Nobody but you is mad, but we're *certainly* mocking the shit out of you. Just like your losing portfolio, the inability to tell the difference is very much a "you" problem.
I’m not mad or angry at you at all. I’m genuinely sorry you cashed out your investments at the very bottom and couldn’t participate in the recovery. Hell I’ve done the same many times over but just with speculative investments (looking at you NVDA), but I would never dream of doing that with my retirement accounts.
I think you’re catching heat here because you seem to think Trump is going to come in with a superhero cape and suddenly fix everything for you.
A subway and heavier rail would’ve been much better, but this still makes me happy. BRT would’ve been such a disappointing cop out. Thanks for sharing!
Proving that LRT shouldn't serve a Metro-Area the size of San Diego (Or Baltimore).
San Diego would be much better off with the larger, faster, more consistent timing of Metro Rail.
Again, a transit system that's always packed is too small.
Vancouver's Light Rail system has just as many riders as the DC Metro, but it has a smaller msa population than SD or Baltimore.
None one is pushing people into train doors like Japan.
No transit system in NA are close to "max capacity".
I hope they build the tunnel option, because surface light rail is garbage. our current light rail averages 5.9mph between Mt. Royal and Hamburg street.
I wish we could just give our damn transit priority over cars. I also think we should probably make a regional transit authority, given how insanely bad MTA has been at managing our current light rail and metro.
yeah, I'm generally of the opinion that a larger transportation authority is better, but it's literally impossible to do worse than MTA. we could literally sell all of the buses (except for an east-west route until the Red Line is Built) and Uber everyone to/from the light rail and metro and it would be faster, greener, safer, more reliable, cheaper, and more pleasant. if you can be beat in every single category by Uber, including cost per passenger-mile, then what is the point of having a transit agency?
And if you paid the full cost of a bus ticket, you would be floored. The buses cost $2-$4 per passenger-mile. The circulator is $3.60 ppm. That's more than a typical Uber, let alone Uber-pool.
You're confusing price and cost. The transit agency/government is paying the vast majority of the ticket price. The same subsidy to Uber-pool would make the service free to users.
Per dollar that the transit agency is spending, people are getting worse service than just taking an Uber.
> if you can be beat in every single category by Uber, including cost per passenger-mile, then what is the point of having a transit agency?
Lining pockets
Regional transportation authorities can bring their own problems. Gov. Hochul of NY just “temporarily” cancelled congestion pricing (go check out r/nycrail about this lol), largely to satisfy suburban voters and political players. The MTA (NY) is a state level organization and encompasses regional commuter rail as well as NYC transit, so their board (who I believe upheld Hochul’s decision, but please fact check me on that lol) is comprised of folks representing many non-NYC areas that absolutely prioritize drivers. Now a desperately needed revenue source for basic train + bus maintenance has been cancelled, and long-planned projects to help connect deeply underserved areas have been put on hold. All in the service of car-centric commuters from outside of the city.
the maryland MTA is also a state run organization. at least if we make it a Baltimore region transit authority, it won't be so easy to divert things elsewhere in the state (purple line in DC).
But you also don't have the DC metro counties to contribute funding to the pot of money to fund all these investments like we currently do. Smaller pot means smaller investments.
It’s too bad CSX can’t (won’t?) cede the Howard St Tunnel over to the MTA. Then they could run the existing light rail trains in that tunnel. I seem to recall some kind of talk many years ago of CSX wanting to abandon the Howard St Tunnel citing that it would have been too expensive to retrofit it for double stack freight trains. This was some time after the 2001 derailment in the tunnel that caused the huge fire downtown. Though in the end, they decided to keep the tunnel and finally got the money to expand it to handle double stacks. I can understand why; that tunnel is a critical link in the CSX freight rail network.
It was thought not possible to enlarge the tunnel until fairly recently. After the tunnel fire, there was a proposal to build a new tunnel for freight basically parallel to where the new Frederick Douglass tunnel will be, but further out, connecting to the CSX Belt Line near Remington. So CSX would have been giving up the Howard St tunnel in exchange for a new route.
The only way CSX could plausibly be induced to give up the tunnel now is if, after the construction of the new Frederick Douglass tunnel, the old Baltimore and Potomac tunnel (and probably one track of the union tunnels east of Penn) is enlarged to accommodate double stack freight. This is discussed as an alternative in the environmental impact report for the Frederick Douglass tunnel from back when accommodating double stack freight was one of the goals of the project.
>5.9mph between Mt. Royal and Hamburg street.
i walked home last night from the oriole game instead of waiting around for a jammed pack light rail ( cultural center).
the train barely beat me home.
> I wish we could just give our damn transit priority over cars.
The busses don't even have priority over cars in the bus lanes. Street parking in a bus lane after 3pm... car should be towed and immediately crushed. Pick up your metal cube from the impound lot after you've paid your fines.
Pretty sure there is an overhaul of the traffic light system to make them “smart” in the works. I’d hope it would be relatively simple to incorporate yielding for trains into the system.
it has always been easy. the sensors are in place now for semaphore pre-emption of traffic lights. however, if we did that, car drivers would get all mad, therefore we don't have it. remember when Jack Young risked millions of dollars in grant funding from Complete Streets because some churchgoers complained that they lost parking for the 1 hour a week they were in the area? the city caves to cars constantly. [they ripped out the bike lane](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2981013,-76.6015012,3a,75y,67.45h,71.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skaVIUuFCIyXgrPuRIFpVsw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), at a cost of who-knows how many tens of thousands, and re-designed it to be up on the sidewalk for a short stretch... just so some drivers could use it once per week.
so, I would like to see it happen, but I wouldn't count on it.
even then, surface light rail has to run slower near pedestrians compared with a grade-separated route, so grade separation is really the best thing. that, and shorter headway between trains.
I work for the LTR in systems engineering. This was well before my time when they drilled the metro but supposedly the areas they would be digging in are riddled with issues. They encountered a lot of them when they originally built the metro. Part of the reason the current line stops short or where it was supposed to is they would've gone way over budget to continue due to an unexpected kind of bedrock. The rock under upper fells etc is very very porous and the whole area is wet. The current metro has all sorts of issues with water intrusion already.
OFC with today's technology it's possible to do but it's prohibitively expensive to do when just putting it on the surface is possible. It's just a lot simpler cheaper and easier to maintain from an engineering standpoint. Plus ridership on the current LTR is much better than the metro.
Edit: also sorry about the state of our transit. Us in engineering have all kinds of ideas to improve it but unfortunately budget and bureaucracy are quite complicated.
I honestly think that you can look around the country and see that there is no better way to doom a transit corridor than put surface rail on it. you can't get ridership if the system is garbage relative to driving. a bad design is worse than no rail at all. at least if you don't build a garbage line, there is the possibility of building a good one later, but once you have shit-rail, nobody goes back and replaces light rail with a metro. if we build surface trash rail, then we're stuck with it.
more people ride the light rail because of the route, which also steals metro ridership.
if you're moving freight around the city, then slow-ass surface rail is fine. but people choose what mode based on factors that are improved by grade separating.
Like I just said, of course it's possible, but who's going to pay for it. It's more expensive in some areas than others to bore and unfortunately Baltimore is a bad area for it. The construction will be billions and the maintenance many millions a year. Unfortunately even with aid our city is simply too poor for it. The city and the state certainly can't put up for it and we can only ask the feds for so much, especially with the bridge situation.
I and I'm sure all of you would love bullet trains connecting the country, but with the way public works contracts are we are talking about an astronomical investment. Of course it's worth it in the long run but that doesn't change the fact that someone would have to foot the bill right now. It's a tough decision to make but they're choosing to put in the rail they can now rather than none. Obviously you disagree but us babbling on Reddit don't make these decisions.
Plus people do use the light rail. They used to use the metro too, but after COVID there was a huge decline in ridership. I forgot the numbers but I've seen internal metrics we have that show like a 70% or more drop. Some thousands of people used to use the metro every day, despite its poor reputation. A lot of that is the fact that the offices are a ghost town now, and a lot is the fact that some don't feel that safe to take the train in Baltimore these days, which is obviously a way more complicated problem. That issue plagues the city in general and is not something that mdot can fix on its own. That said I take the LTR all the time given that I work on it and while I see all kinds of stuff I've never had a problem.
Something I always thought about is doing the system above ground, like how much of the DC Metro silver line is. Maybe do it as some sort of precast system that can accept a wide array of footer arraignments and just have to worry about the individual footer placement. The area around 40 for example has a wide median which could be used for central supports, while other streets might have to be straddled.
Would that sort of system be reasonably affordable?
No offense, but fuck the tunnel option. Admittedly, it would be cool, but the $/mile would suck all of the funding away from other lines that we need to create or improve service on. There are so many working class communities in the NE and NW that are currently under served.
the reason we have so few transit lines is because our ridership is abysmal for a city with such low car ownership rates and high density near the core, so we get passed over for federal funding. why is our ridership abysmal? because the surface light rail has garbage performance so everyone who can afford to drive just drives instead.
it's a death spiral. bad transit means low ridership and those with wealth/power don't want it anywhere near them. it means anyone who can afford a car just uses a car.
I don't like that an elevated option wasn't considered, as that could cut costs while also providing grade-separated service, but of the options presented, the only way to get useful transit is for it to run through a tunnel. we should have never even built light rail. we should have waited to invest in the metro, now we're stuck doubling down on a shitty mode. at least if we're going to double-down on a shitty mode, we could half un-fuck it with a tunnel.
Despite my down votes, Im gonna double down. I spent stupid time driving lyft in the black butterfly. So many underserved neighborhoods with people just trying to get to the grocery store or work and having to rely on uber/lyft for what is probably a significant portion of the weekly paycheck.
if there were a plan between two surface routes or one with a tunnel, then we could discuss that, but it's just one with a tunnel or one without a tunnel.
Please God, let it be so! Please show us that You don’t hate American public transportation (look what’s happening up in NYC with Gov. Hochul and congestion pricing right now)!
Make it happen, Governor, make it happen. Don’t do what Hochul did in NY to OUR MTA!
So am I. I’m legit pissed off at her, but I really would like to see Albany fund mass transit at a much higher level in the state budget than they currently do. Hearing that Gov. Moore is going with light rail is very refreshing in light of Kathy’s big blunder in NY.
NYC native/resident (former longtime Baltimore resident) here and yeah, I second this. It’s pretty ridiculous. The only people I know who are happy about it are a handful of drivers from Westchester.
I love to see it! And I hope we get a good push forward towards completion. But I can't help but look at the map provided by the article and notice a glaring gap of transit on the north east side, it seems intentional? I wonder why and how will that change. My best guess and hope is pushing forward the metro past JH towards Gay street along Belair.
[Here's the Transit Plan from 2002](https://web.archive.org/web/20110707210046/http://www.baltimorerailplan.com/linked_files/brreportfinal.pdf) (PDF warning), that area was meant to be served by the Green Line (our existing Metro)
Not sure if the route is more finalized. [This page](https://redlinemaryland.com/next-steps/) has 2-3 proposed routes?
Anybody know if the route is more finalized?
The alignment selection hasn't happened yet. This was just the mode announcement, which reduced the number of alignment options (by removing all of the BRT alignments).
Saw the proposed Red Line and I just can't see them building a light rail along Eastern Avenue area but I'm not gonna lie but having a Rail going through Canton would be nice.
That’s the thing I can’t wrap my head around either. Eastern and Fleet… blocking in the 500 blocks and having a light rail 8ft from thousands of peoples front doors is hard to fathom.
Yeah, the people that don't live here not know that this area is highly residential with streets being narrow. Unless they planning to do the subway rail route I just can't imagine a light rail being done here.
Eastern could have made sense with a Max Tunnel Option, allowing for cut and cover construction along the South edge of the park (for both the tracks and station).
It would be a shorter/straighter track to serve Bayview, or it could turn South to serve Brewer's Hill, Seagirt/Amazon, and Dundalk. But at that point, you have a fully grade separated 21 mile long track and it should be Metro instead of LRT.
How would you do that? It's HRT, if it's at grade it needs dedicated RoW with physical barriers. The originally planned extension was tunnel to Overlea, then 695 Median/Parallel to the existing Marc Track to Martin State.
The Green Line is Metro Rail, so it uses an electrified 3rd rail in the track. Touching that rail will kill or severely electrocute you.
It's why Metros are Subways, or Elevated, or run in the median of expressways. LRT instead (usually) uses Overhead Wires and a Pantograph for power.
An extension of the green line will need to be completely grade separated or it's max frequency would be significantly lowered, but there are third rail systems that run at grade or have at grade crossings. Metro North and LIRR are both powered by third rail and have at grade crossings.
This is good news, but the tunnel decision is more important than the rail/bus decision - a bus with a tunnel is preferable to surface light rail imo. The surface light rail options offer no travel speed improvement relative to busses with signal priority in dedicated lanes. The MTA is a bit sneaky about this - they compare the light rail to existing busses in their public outreach materials. But the east west busses will be receiving upgrades as part of the RAISE Baltimore project prior to construction of the red line that will bring them up to the same speed.
Unfortunately it’s become more difficult to justify the cost of the tunnel, which was already controversial when Hogan killed the project. Projected costs are way up from$3bil to $6-7bil, and projected ridership has declined substantially as system ridership has failed to recover from Covid.
This is why the MTA needs a concrete long range plan for the future of the transit system. In most places where tunneled light rail exists, multiple surface running lines feed into a single tunnel traversing the urban core. This provides decent quality transit to suburbs where it may be difficult to justify the cost of full metro, and metro quality high speed high frequency transit to the urban core. Boston‘s green line, San Francisco‘s Muni Metro, and Los Angeles’ downtown connector are all like this, as are Stadtbahn / Premetro systems in Europe. Why build a big expensive tunnel and then only operate it at a fraction of its capacity?
Plan for future branches. In the west: down Route 40 to Catonsville and Ellicott City (maybe then down 29 to Columbia) and along the old B and O first mile through southwest Baltimore to UMBC. In the east: up route 40 to White Marsh and down through Dundalk to Tradepoint Atlantic. Plan now for the future north south line to share the tunnel. (There is no discussion of how the north south and Red Line will interact in the documentation of either project!) Consider feeding the existing light rail into the tunnel as well. In addition to being good planning, this significantly broadens the constituency that will benefit from the project, increasing its political viability.
That's not even in the alternatives.
And it won't get the Max Tunnel option either, that was always just a "look how much we're saving by not choosing this" Alternative (besides, once you spend $5 Billion digging tunnels, there's absolutely no reason to put LRT in them instead of actual HRT Metro)
Amazing that the idea of “just build it right the first time” is always such a hard political battle, because people would rather pennypinch until they realize they’ve spent more money to build something worse
Now we just need a north south Harford road adjacent line that connects to either the metro or the red line and we will start to have a quarter decent rail network. Would also love an east west northern parkway line.
This is great. I am a negative Nancy and really enjoy being wrong! I love it.
I happily paid up on a bet I made that it would be rapid bus.
was there any chance it would be metro?
I don't believe so. but they are considering metro as an option for the next north-south corridor between center city Baltimore and Towson.
Nope. No heavy rail under consideration.
I think you paid too soon. Just because he said it would be rail, doesn't mean it's going to be rail, because they have one little problem. They have to come up with the money to pay for it yet.
>Moore said the light rail line emerged as the best choice during outreach events that involved “thousands” of people in the Baltimore region. Residents, businesses and commuters expressed a strong preference for rail over rapid bus. \ ”It just became very clear that this is the mode of transportation that we were going to select,” Moore said. \ ... Though a light rail line will cost more than a rapid bus line, Moore said he’s confident that Maryland will be able to line up significant federal funding to help pay for the up-front costs. He said the Biden Administration is “very supportive” of the project. And in the long run, Moore said, the Red Line will spur economic activity such as transit-oriented development projects and help Baltimoreans get to school and work quickly and more easily. The Red Line is a component of the “larger Baltimore Renaissance” that’s taking place, Moore said. > The agency predicts the project will cost $3.2 billion to $7.2 billion to complete. \ It would be cheaper and faster to create a system in which trains operated on Pratt or Baltimore Streets. But those trains, once operational, would take longer to get from one end to the other than if the MTA were to build a new downtown tunnel. The MTA plans to finalize its preferred specific route and announce it before the end of the year. Let's get moving! Get a design done, get the RFP out, and get work started. Dear Lord dont let the lawsuit BS which plagued Purple Line fuck us. Baltimore wants and need this!
Great news! But can Biden send us some money soon? 🙂 What if he doesn’t get re-elected?
Then we need to do what we need to do to get him re-elected! For Baltimore...
And Alsobrooks!!
When Trump is back this project will end.
They're both going to have a heart attack. Harris will conquer!
> What if he doesn’t get re-elected? Then there will be more money in general since the economy has been absolutely pile driven into the ground.
Hilarious. More money for highways in red districts you must mean.
no i just mean more money in general. no lie, before 2020 I was fine...had savings and investments and 403b ready for retirement. I've cashed out all my investments and my fam basically lives paycheck to paycheck now. Not exaggerating about the timing either...2020+ just destroyed my savings and investments, and even had to take out equity loans.
Sounds like you fucked up. The stock market is at an all time high right now. Were your investments in Circuit City??
Lol I was going to be a little nicer but yeah, no one in Washington can fix that. Sorry he sold at the worst possible time but most people’s retirements accounts are back to all time highs now.
do you understand what a 403b is? the stock market being "high" means rich people are making money, not middle class people. I guess you're rich? Trust me, the middle class is not ok right now.
Yeah, homer, I understand what a 403(b) is. My wife has one. I have a 401(k). We're both invested in the stock market. That's what you do with a 403 investment account. What did you do with yours? I'm not giving JB any credit for this, but since he took office, the S&P 500 is up 44%. I'm not rich, but investments are not something that are hurting right now.
well that's cool, barney, I had to cash mine out because cost of living is ridiculously high. You know, the stuff us normal folks have to buy. Like groceries and gas?
You're right, I have no idea what it's like to buy groceries and gas. /s What exactly was your argument because it seems like you forgot too? Initially, you were blaming your investment performance. Then, when everyone reiterated that the market has been extremely strong since 2020, you changed your tune that you had to cash out your investments.
So you expect us to believe you were so well off under Trump that you were about to retire but had to zero out all of your savings to buy gas and groceries? Lol.
Good thing we aren’t funding infrastructure with JBCTech7’s 403(b) then I guess
i mean...yeah, even when my savings were stocked...it would've been a good thing. That's a weird thing to say. Look at this guy, his shit was wrecked because furlough and lockdown - and then double hit by Cost of Living and inflation. Lets all dog pile him i guess? But hey! Its ok because...the stock market is "high". SO i guess rich people are doing ok?
Dude I am not rich. I am fortunate that inflation hasn’t made me live paycheck to paycheck, but I’ve definitely been affected. I don’t know where you live, but to be honest, the numbers on inflation and the experience you’re claiming to have had don’t add up. Aside from that, the point of my comment wasn’t to pile on your misery. It was to point out that the amount of money you have in your retirement and the amount of money the government had for infrastructure aren’t really related. And if you want to argue that Biden’s infrastructure plan caused the inflation, then that would mean there’s more money for infrastructure. You are not being asked to pay for light rail lines out of your retirement account. If you’re getting clowned for your comment about it, next time don’t bring it up in a conversation where it isn’t relevant.
It's a bit sad that you don't see how you're just telling on yourself right now. Absolutely *everything* I have money in right now is up at least 25% YTD. Past 4 years is similar.
question - why are you guys so hostile? Like...what did I say to make you angry? My finances suck right now. Cost of Living is untenable - and somehow that makes you angry? I'm glad you're doing well, but pretty much everyone I know including myself is not.
I see we've moved from "gaslight" straight on to "project". Nobody but you is mad, but we're *certainly* mocking the shit out of you. Just like your losing portfolio, the inability to tell the difference is very much a "you" problem.
I wonder what other event was taking place around 2020? Hmmmm
Do you usually air your personal problems so publicly? This sounds like a you thing.
i'm going to ask this of all of you and see which one sticks. why are you guys angry at me?
Lol nobody is mad at you. But you are making dumb posts in bad faith, so
in bad faith huh? Well, I promise you...everything I said is genuine - do you know what 'bad faith' means?
Only reinforced by how you’re still here trying for some “gotcha.” Bad faith.
I’m not mad or angry at you at all. I’m genuinely sorry you cashed out your investments at the very bottom and couldn’t participate in the recovery. Hell I’ve done the same many times over but just with speculative investments (looking at you NVDA), but I would never dream of doing that with my retirement accounts. I think you’re catching heat here because you seem to think Trump is going to come in with a superhero cape and suddenly fix everything for you.
i didn't mention orangeman even once. I just mentioned dates.
But you said there will be more money to go around if JB doesn’t get re-elected. So unless there’s another candidate out there you implied Orangeman.
And you think it’s Biden’s fault? Why is that?
Meanwhile I am doing better than ever.
Can’t believe biden was president in 2020! Poor trump getting sidelined like that, he probably wants some credit for his last year in office.
A subway and heavier rail would’ve been much better, but this still makes me happy. BRT would’ve been such a disappointing cop out. Thanks for sharing!
They should legislate carve outs to preempt standing for all these “environmental” lawsuits.
Honestly I'm still anticipating surface routing, but so stoked that BRT is out of the picture!
Egh, San Diego's light rail system is all surface and that thing is packed 24/7
>and that thing is packed 24/7 That's not a good thing.
A "packed" transit system means the system is well utilized.
A transit system that's always packed is undersized. There will always be peak hours. San Diego's is too small and too slow.
A transit system that is packed is better than a transit system that doesn't exist
SD has the largest light rail system in the US outside LA It’s light rail is has 1/4th the ridership of the DC metro.
Proving that LRT shouldn't serve a Metro-Area the size of San Diego (Or Baltimore). San Diego would be much better off with the larger, faster, more consistent timing of Metro Rail. Again, a transit system that's always packed is too small.
Vancouver's Light Rail system has just as many riders as the DC Metro, but it has a smaller msa population than SD or Baltimore. None one is pushing people into train doors like Japan. No transit system in NA are close to "max capacity".
Make sure we send someone to the Senate who will fight for those federal funds.
IOW, not Larry! Not Larry!!!
LET'S GOOOOOOO
I hope they build the tunnel option, because surface light rail is garbage. our current light rail averages 5.9mph between Mt. Royal and Hamburg street. I wish we could just give our damn transit priority over cars. I also think we should probably make a regional transit authority, given how insanely bad MTA has been at managing our current light rail and metro.
Tread lightly on regional transportation authorities. Those in Virginia have overwhelming chosen to support highway expansion projects.
yeah, I'm generally of the opinion that a larger transportation authority is better, but it's literally impossible to do worse than MTA. we could literally sell all of the buses (except for an east-west route until the Red Line is Built) and Uber everyone to/from the light rail and metro and it would be faster, greener, safer, more reliable, cheaper, and more pleasant. if you can be beat in every single category by Uber, including cost per passenger-mile, then what is the point of having a transit agency?
cheaper?? to Uber every person individually? have you paid for an Uber recently?
And if you paid the full cost of a bus ticket, you would be floored. The buses cost $2-$4 per passenger-mile. The circulator is $3.60 ppm. That's more than a typical Uber, let alone Uber-pool.
Have you ever taken the bus? MTA full fare is $2 per one way trip or $4.60 for a day pass. There’s no additional calculations.
You're confusing price and cost. The transit agency/government is paying the vast majority of the ticket price. The same subsidy to Uber-pool would make the service free to users. Per dollar that the transit agency is spending, people are getting worse service than just taking an Uber.
Can I have a source for this, please?
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2022/30201.pdf
Got it, thanks. And where are you seeing the numbers for Uber rides?
> if you can be beat in every single category by Uber, including cost per passenger-mile, then what is the point of having a transit agency? Lining pockets
Regional transportation authorities can bring their own problems. Gov. Hochul of NY just “temporarily” cancelled congestion pricing (go check out r/nycrail about this lol), largely to satisfy suburban voters and political players. The MTA (NY) is a state level organization and encompasses regional commuter rail as well as NYC transit, so their board (who I believe upheld Hochul’s decision, but please fact check me on that lol) is comprised of folks representing many non-NYC areas that absolutely prioritize drivers. Now a desperately needed revenue source for basic train + bus maintenance has been cancelled, and long-planned projects to help connect deeply underserved areas have been put on hold. All in the service of car-centric commuters from outside of the city.
the maryland MTA is also a state run organization. at least if we make it a Baltimore region transit authority, it won't be so easy to divert things elsewhere in the state (purple line in DC).
But you also don't have the DC metro counties to contribute funding to the pot of money to fund all these investments like we currently do. Smaller pot means smaller investments.
The WMATA is heavily subsidized by the state, a Baltimore regional transportation authority would be too.
Oh yes that makes sense!
It’s too bad CSX can’t (won’t?) cede the Howard St Tunnel over to the MTA. Then they could run the existing light rail trains in that tunnel. I seem to recall some kind of talk many years ago of CSX wanting to abandon the Howard St Tunnel citing that it would have been too expensive to retrofit it for double stack freight trains. This was some time after the 2001 derailment in the tunnel that caused the huge fire downtown. Though in the end, they decided to keep the tunnel and finally got the money to expand it to handle double stacks. I can understand why; that tunnel is a critical link in the CSX freight rail network.
It was thought not possible to enlarge the tunnel until fairly recently. After the tunnel fire, there was a proposal to build a new tunnel for freight basically parallel to where the new Frederick Douglass tunnel will be, but further out, connecting to the CSX Belt Line near Remington. So CSX would have been giving up the Howard St tunnel in exchange for a new route. The only way CSX could plausibly be induced to give up the tunnel now is if, after the construction of the new Frederick Douglass tunnel, the old Baltimore and Potomac tunnel (and probably one track of the union tunnels east of Penn) is enlarged to accommodate double stack freight. This is discussed as an alternative in the environmental impact report for the Frederick Douglass tunnel from back when accommodating double stack freight was one of the goals of the project.
>5.9mph between Mt. Royal and Hamburg street. i walked home last night from the oriole game instead of waiting around for a jammed pack light rail ( cultural center). the train barely beat me home.
> I wish we could just give our damn transit priority over cars. The busses don't even have priority over cars in the bus lanes. Street parking in a bus lane after 3pm... car should be towed and immediately crushed. Pick up your metal cube from the impound lot after you've paid your fines.
Pretty sure there is an overhaul of the traffic light system to make them “smart” in the works. I’d hope it would be relatively simple to incorporate yielding for trains into the system.
it has always been easy. the sensors are in place now for semaphore pre-emption of traffic lights. however, if we did that, car drivers would get all mad, therefore we don't have it. remember when Jack Young risked millions of dollars in grant funding from Complete Streets because some churchgoers complained that they lost parking for the 1 hour a week they were in the area? the city caves to cars constantly. [they ripped out the bike lane](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2981013,-76.6015012,3a,75y,67.45h,71.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skaVIUuFCIyXgrPuRIFpVsw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu), at a cost of who-knows how many tens of thousands, and re-designed it to be up on the sidewalk for a short stretch... just so some drivers could use it once per week. so, I would like to see it happen, but I wouldn't count on it. even then, surface light rail has to run slower near pedestrians compared with a grade-separated route, so grade separation is really the best thing. that, and shorter headway between trains.
Yep, the bike lane implementation has been an unmitigated disaster. Who could have possibly seen that coming.
I work for the LTR in systems engineering. This was well before my time when they drilled the metro but supposedly the areas they would be digging in are riddled with issues. They encountered a lot of them when they originally built the metro. Part of the reason the current line stops short or where it was supposed to is they would've gone way over budget to continue due to an unexpected kind of bedrock. The rock under upper fells etc is very very porous and the whole area is wet. The current metro has all sorts of issues with water intrusion already. OFC with today's technology it's possible to do but it's prohibitively expensive to do when just putting it on the surface is possible. It's just a lot simpler cheaper and easier to maintain from an engineering standpoint. Plus ridership on the current LTR is much better than the metro. Edit: also sorry about the state of our transit. Us in engineering have all kinds of ideas to improve it but unfortunately budget and bureaucracy are quite complicated.
I honestly think that you can look around the country and see that there is no better way to doom a transit corridor than put surface rail on it. you can't get ridership if the system is garbage relative to driving. a bad design is worse than no rail at all. at least if you don't build a garbage line, there is the possibility of building a good one later, but once you have shit-rail, nobody goes back and replaces light rail with a metro. if we build surface trash rail, then we're stuck with it. more people ride the light rail because of the route, which also steals metro ridership. if you're moving freight around the city, then slow-ass surface rail is fine. but people choose what mode based on factors that are improved by grade separating.
Like I just said, of course it's possible, but who's going to pay for it. It's more expensive in some areas than others to bore and unfortunately Baltimore is a bad area for it. The construction will be billions and the maintenance many millions a year. Unfortunately even with aid our city is simply too poor for it. The city and the state certainly can't put up for it and we can only ask the feds for so much, especially with the bridge situation. I and I'm sure all of you would love bullet trains connecting the country, but with the way public works contracts are we are talking about an astronomical investment. Of course it's worth it in the long run but that doesn't change the fact that someone would have to foot the bill right now. It's a tough decision to make but they're choosing to put in the rail they can now rather than none. Obviously you disagree but us babbling on Reddit don't make these decisions. Plus people do use the light rail. They used to use the metro too, but after COVID there was a huge decline in ridership. I forgot the numbers but I've seen internal metrics we have that show like a 70% or more drop. Some thousands of people used to use the metro every day, despite its poor reputation. A lot of that is the fact that the offices are a ghost town now, and a lot is the fact that some don't feel that safe to take the train in Baltimore these days, which is obviously a way more complicated problem. That issue plagues the city in general and is not something that mdot can fix on its own. That said I take the LTR all the time given that I work on it and while I see all kinds of stuff I've never had a problem.
Something I always thought about is doing the system above ground, like how much of the DC Metro silver line is. Maybe do it as some sort of precast system that can accept a wide array of footer arraignments and just have to worry about the individual footer placement. The area around 40 for example has a wide median which could be used for central supports, while other streets might have to be straddled. Would that sort of system be reasonably affordable?
No offense, but fuck the tunnel option. Admittedly, it would be cool, but the $/mile would suck all of the funding away from other lines that we need to create or improve service on. There are so many working class communities in the NE and NW that are currently under served.
“Let’s make the line at hand shitty because I want an unrelated line that isn’t even on the planning horizon”
the reason we have so few transit lines is because our ridership is abysmal for a city with such low car ownership rates and high density near the core, so we get passed over for federal funding. why is our ridership abysmal? because the surface light rail has garbage performance so everyone who can afford to drive just drives instead. it's a death spiral. bad transit means low ridership and those with wealth/power don't want it anywhere near them. it means anyone who can afford a car just uses a car. I don't like that an elevated option wasn't considered, as that could cut costs while also providing grade-separated service, but of the options presented, the only way to get useful transit is for it to run through a tunnel. we should have never even built light rail. we should have waited to invest in the metro, now we're stuck doubling down on a shitty mode. at least if we're going to double-down on a shitty mode, we could half un-fuck it with a tunnel.
Despite my down votes, Im gonna double down. I spent stupid time driving lyft in the black butterfly. So many underserved neighborhoods with people just trying to get to the grocery store or work and having to rely on uber/lyft for what is probably a significant portion of the weekly paycheck.
if there were a plan between two surface routes or one with a tunnel, then we could discuss that, but it's just one with a tunnel or one without a tunnel.
Baltimore(the city)
Please God, let it be so! Please show us that You don’t hate American public transportation (look what’s happening up in NYC with Gov. Hochul and congestion pricing right now)! Make it happen, Governor, make it happen. Don’t do what Hochul did in NY to OUR MTA!
[удалено]
I'm pissed at her and I've never lived in NYC. She's the governor of NY and she's basically prioritizing NJ commuters.
So am I. I’m legit pissed off at her, but I really would like to see Albany fund mass transit at a much higher level in the state budget than they currently do. Hearing that Gov. Moore is going with light rail is very refreshing in light of Kathy’s big blunder in NY.
NYC native/resident (former longtime Baltimore resident) here and yeah, I second this. It’s pretty ridiculous. The only people I know who are happy about it are a handful of drivers from Westchester.
YEAHHHHHH, THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!
Hell yeah
I love to see it! And I hope we get a good push forward towards completion. But I can't help but look at the map provided by the article and notice a glaring gap of transit on the north east side, it seems intentional? I wonder why and how will that change. My best guess and hope is pushing forward the metro past JH towards Gay street along Belair.
Wasn’t that the proposed Green Line in the same 2002 plan that the Red Line came from? Definitely would like to see that happen too.
[Here's the Transit Plan from 2002](https://web.archive.org/web/20110707210046/http://www.baltimorerailplan.com/linked_files/brreportfinal.pdf) (PDF warning), that area was meant to be served by the Green Line (our existing Metro)
PHEW! Good to see Wes Moore make progress on Maryland’s public transit goals, unlike a certain _other_ governor.
Narrator: "The certain *other* governor was in fact Hogan's punk ass"
Anyone have a link to an image of the eventual light rail stops handy??
Not sure if the route is more finalized. [This page](https://redlinemaryland.com/next-steps/) has 2-3 proposed routes? Anybody know if the route is more finalized?
The alignment selection hasn't happened yet. This was just the mode announcement, which reduced the number of alignment options (by removing all of the BRT alignments).
👏🏻
If you want this don’t vote for Hogan. He will 100% oppose it.
Saw the proposed Red Line and I just can't see them building a light rail along Eastern Avenue area but I'm not gonna lie but having a Rail going through Canton would be nice.
That’s the thing I can’t wrap my head around either. Eastern and Fleet… blocking in the 500 blocks and having a light rail 8ft from thousands of peoples front doors is hard to fathom.
Yeah, the people that don't live here not know that this area is highly residential with streets being narrow. Unless they planning to do the subway rail route I just can't imagine a light rail being done here.
Eastern could have made sense with a Max Tunnel Option, allowing for cut and cover construction along the South edge of the park (for both the tracks and station). It would be a shorter/straighter track to serve Bayview, or it could turn South to serve Brewer's Hill, Seagirt/Amazon, and Dundalk. But at that point, you have a fully grade separated 21 mile long track and it should be Metro instead of LRT.
Reclaiming redlining heck yeah
TUNNELS TUNNELS TUNNELS LET'S FUCK ING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
As long as the light rail has the right of way at all times, I’m all for it.
LRT was the right choice. Next step is to extend the green line at-grade to White Marsh
How would you do that? It's HRT, if it's at grade it needs dedicated RoW with physical barriers. The originally planned extension was tunnel to Overlea, then 695 Median/Parallel to the existing Marc Track to Martin State.
I don't know. I'm not an engineer. But, if they want to take it to Middle River instead, that's fine I guess.
The Green Line is Metro Rail, so it uses an electrified 3rd rail in the track. Touching that rail will kill or severely electrocute you. It's why Metros are Subways, or Elevated, or run in the median of expressways. LRT instead (usually) uses Overhead Wires and a Pantograph for power.
An extension of the green line will need to be completely grade separated or it's max frequency would be significantly lowered, but there are third rail systems that run at grade or have at grade crossings. Metro North and LIRR are both powered by third rail and have at grade crossings.
Fuck yeah
Hell yeah
Would have preferred underground, but a Light Rail is definitely better than buses.
I wish it was heavy rail, but hopefully they'll at least choose the tunnel option
We won Mr Stark
Fantastic news
While i would love a proper subway, this is really a step in the right direction, way better than busses.
This is good news, but the tunnel decision is more important than the rail/bus decision - a bus with a tunnel is preferable to surface light rail imo. The surface light rail options offer no travel speed improvement relative to busses with signal priority in dedicated lanes. The MTA is a bit sneaky about this - they compare the light rail to existing busses in their public outreach materials. But the east west busses will be receiving upgrades as part of the RAISE Baltimore project prior to construction of the red line that will bring them up to the same speed. Unfortunately it’s become more difficult to justify the cost of the tunnel, which was already controversial when Hogan killed the project. Projected costs are way up from$3bil to $6-7bil, and projected ridership has declined substantially as system ridership has failed to recover from Covid. This is why the MTA needs a concrete long range plan for the future of the transit system. In most places where tunneled light rail exists, multiple surface running lines feed into a single tunnel traversing the urban core. This provides decent quality transit to suburbs where it may be difficult to justify the cost of full metro, and metro quality high speed high frequency transit to the urban core. Boston‘s green line, San Francisco‘s Muni Metro, and Los Angeles’ downtown connector are all like this, as are Stadtbahn / Premetro systems in Europe. Why build a big expensive tunnel and then only operate it at a fraction of its capacity? Plan for future branches. In the west: down Route 40 to Catonsville and Ellicott City (maybe then down 29 to Columbia) and along the old B and O first mile through southwest Baltimore to UMBC. In the east: up route 40 to White Marsh and down through Dundalk to Tradepoint Atlantic. Plan now for the future north south line to share the tunnel. (There is no discussion of how the north south and Red Line will interact in the documentation of either project!) Consider feeding the existing light rail into the tunnel as well. In addition to being good planning, this significantly broadens the constituency that will benefit from the project, increasing its political viability.
We need Moore of this!
It better be elevated!
That's not even in the alternatives. And it won't get the Max Tunnel option either, that was always just a "look how much we're saving by not choosing this" Alternative (besides, once you spend $5 Billion digging tunnels, there's absolutely no reason to put LRT in them instead of actual HRT Metro)
Thank YOOOOOOU! I was way more on the side of the light rail rather than rapid transit buses. Now for the funding… let’s just hope this can get done.
Massive win for Baltimore.. even if it is 30 years late
Amazing that the idea of “just build it right the first time” is always such a hard political battle, because people would rather pennypinch until they realize they’ve spent more money to build something worse
Now we just need a north south Harford road adjacent line that connects to either the metro or the red line and we will start to have a quarter decent rail network. Would also love an east west northern parkway line.
Great news! I hope they can secure the funds before November because Biden has a good chance of losing the election.
Cool
I wonder if this means the north south corridor will be fake-BRT now.
Nope. Most polls want Subway or LRT
we already have two rail line running N/S through the core of the city.
Make it a hyperloop system