This has been tried, and things didn’t work out that way. Obviously perhaps other conditions might change the outcome.

I could understand subsidies/vouchers for individual transit users with limited means, but overall you likely need to maintain fees.

I think overall, fare recovery ratios for public transit tend to be between 20-30% on average, if that’s of use.

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Not really. Light Rail was meant for people to get to the O's game and Raven's game and back without a car, done for as cheap as possible using floated bonds. This was done under Wm. Donald Shafer's orders.

Yes, Light Rail was build by and on politics.

That was the old trolly line

The other way to do it is to make it free. MTA costs roughly $800M per year and sees less than 100M riders. If every rider was spending two bucks a ride, that still wouldn't even get to 25% of the budget.

Just make all transit services free and watch ridership balloon.

Anyone who is unwilling to take an MTA bus will be equally unwilling to take any rail line they build.

Light rail was meant for politicians to be able to say “look, we built a light rail” and not much else. It was built on the cheapest route they could find which happened to be on an old railroad that didn’t serve many dense areas. The metro was built in a similar way, it just happens that the old rail corridor used for metro happened to serve denser areas than the light rail

I so agree as someone that lives in rosedale.

It’s gotta make you wonder what the hell people are thinking, or not thinking. This is an oxymoron if I have ever seen one.

Yes. I should have been clearer in that statement 12/11/22 is the event

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/37th-annual-union-square-cookie-tour-of-historic-homes-tickets-387149533677

Correct me if I’m wrong but it was also sort of pitched as a way to resurrect the west side of downtown/Howard Street corridor. Obviously not gonna work if there’s no plan and not much else on the corridor.

“Preferable” is a subjective term, and not a dimension that really bears much emphasis unless it’s accompanied by data.

Subway and light rail are not remotely in the same category.

I agree on the west side, but it also really would’ve made car-less life and overall life in downtown, Fells, Harbor East, Canton, and Highlandtown better too. Sadly lots of residents of canton were opposed to it.

It used to be awesome. I think there are some funding shortfalls, and a spat with the original contractor (Veolia?). For a long time the schedule was completely unreliable and live tracking was totally broken. Hopefully it has improved since then, but I rarely see those buses these days. Transit app would be worth checking.

Buses provide an extremely good step in that direction, without the costs or liabilities of rail, and with much faster implementation. So many people here just insist that trains are magic and anything other than that is a pale shadow of a solution.

EDIT: buses also allow for greater route flexibility over time (additions, changes).

I would love to see a tram line on Greenmount/York Rd in addition to the redline.

They would not. I love a good BRT line but a light rail or subway would be preferable for sure. The main difference is that BRT could be ready to go within months, versus a subway line taking almost a decade to complete.

I mean, they do compared for the majority of neighborhoods with no access. But yea, a ton of stops have abysmal logistics for people nearby to even get there.

> Let's not forget: light rail was meant for people from the suburbs to get into the city and back out. Not for intra-city travel.

Not really, it was just made for a few specific uses (stadiums, State Center, BWI) rather than general reliance, same as the subway.

I remember the first time I rode the light rail into the city from Timmonium how the city has basically a forest and a suburban-like sprawl within city limits.

this is what I call sprawl-oriented transit. or boomer-transit. basically, the idea is "fuck the city, I want to work there and benefit from the density, ports, etc.. but I want all infrastructure spending to support folks in the suburbs".

even the red line is pretty sprawl-oriented, but it's better than nothing.

but also, the map isn't that helpful because it's not taking into account things like the gigantic park in one area might drop the overall density, or it might ignore that there are large towers near the tracks but lower density or industrial areas in the segment.

here is a better map that has finer detail/granularity, I just wish it zoomed in better
https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#10/39.2976/-76.5253

Just to clarify: next Sunday = tomorrow (December 11)! The cookie tour is always a great time.

So….I’m being downvoted for being an exclusively bike and public transport user? Cool. Makes total sense.

Express buses would accomplish this just as easily.

I never thought about how relatively undeveloped the JFX corridor is north of Hampden, and I spent three months in 2019-20 riding between Northern Parkway and Fayette every day.