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| Transit during COVID: "Essential Travel Only" on North Avenue (Photo: Philipsen) |
One bill that passed in 2018 demanded the creation of a Regional Transit Plan by October 2020. (I reported about it in this space). The bill was amended in 2019. In 2020 a slew of transit oriented bills fell victim to the virus and the abbreviation of the session this year. (A list of 2020 transit bills here). The transit supportive lawmakers banded together and have become a strong voice in Annapolis. As Delegate Lierman explained:
[About the re-election of Governor Hogan] “That reality, coupled with the recognition that there was no long-term plan for expanding transit around the state and the role of single-occupancy vehicles in climate change, really propelled us to start thinking bigger about pushing a pro-transit agenda.” (Brooke Lierman, sponsor of various transit bills about the new Transit caucus in the legislature)This article is about the progress on the regional Transit Plan and the state of other transit bills in Maryland.
A Regional Transit Plan could be an amazing thing, given that the last plan from 2002 was essentially wiped out when the Red Line was cancelled. Since 2015 there has been no plan for the region's transit beyond the Baltimore bus revamp that brought us "Baltimore Link". No plan exists that would show any expansion or any improvements of any of the transit modes except a state of good repair for what's already on the ground. And even that wasn't funded.
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| Goals and Objectives from the Regional Transit Plan (RTP) |
The Central Maryland Regional Transit Plan (RTP) is a plan for improving public transportation in the region over the next 25 years.(From the Plan intro)Hard to believe, but the pandemic did not wipe out the work on the RTP. Instead, it continued in spite of social distancing and MTA being in the cross-hairs of the conundrum of running transit transit for essential workers and protect riders and operators at the same time.
A draft Regional Plan was published for comment in April. The due date for the final plan is October, comments on the draft plan can be submitted until June 18 by going online and commenting directly inside the plan. Transit advocates greeted the draft with optimism:
As the COVID-19 crisis shines a light on the vital importance of public transit service in the Baltimore region, a newly released regional transit plan provides an historic opportunity to make much needed improvements that have long been identified by riders, advocates, employers, and other regional stakeholders. The draft plan advances the process of building consensus around a bold vision for Baltimore’s transit system and advocates are preparing public comments to strengthen it further.The Central Maryland Regional Transit Plan is the first comprehensive transit plan for the region in a generation. Advocates are pushing for a plan that provides meaningful changes in people's lives and hope to see implementation of a strong plan begin as early as this fall, starting with feasibility studies planned by MTA and BMC for several priority transit corridors.(Press release of a coalition of transit advocates collaborating under the programmatic moniker: Get Maryland Moving. Disclosure: The author is a participant).
State of poor repair: Stranded MTA Bus on the Blue Route Photo: Ph)
Back when the upcoming mayoral race in Baltimore City still gathered a fair amount of attention, candidates for Mayor started discussing the need for a regional transit authority instead of a State run one. Having the State run transit in a major metro area is quite an anomaly in the United States. MTA is by no means small potatoes, visible in the figures Administrator Kevin Quinn recites in his welcome letter inside the draft plan, after all MTA serves a region of 2,100 square miles, covering over 2.55 million residents, and 1.24 million jobs:
The Maryland Department of Transportation Maryland Transit Administration(MDOT MTA) has been providing transit services for the State for over 50years since its inception as the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1969. Today,MDOT MTA operates the 12th largest multimodal transit system in the countrywith over 250,000 daily riders, 6 transit modes, and paratransit service, whileproviding support to locally operated transit systems throughout Maryland. (Kevin Quinn, MTA Administrator).However, the potential transfer of transit in the metro area from the state to a regional authority is not part of this RTP, which is not surprising since the plan was penned by MTA. The matter of a local agency will be studied by a working group of the legislators.
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| Fixed route improvements for Baltimore: From the RTP |
So what is in the 67 page draft plan? There are six pages of introduction, four pages why transit matters, three pages of goals and objectives, 21 pages of strategies, 14 pages of network improvements and 9 pages of a description of the region's transit corridors. Finally, at the end three pages with next steps.
The plan was not conceived to be the typical wish-list of projects that politicians usually express to MDOT for future planning. Instead the plan is supposed to be based on an analysis of transit needs and the deficiencies of the current system in which the discrepancy between these two translates into in a plan of improvement.
The actual exercise to date wasn't as clear-cut. Although the advisory regional RTP Committee consisting of representatives of the region got a pretty unvarnished description of transit's current shortcomings when MTA Administrator Quinn presented at the first session, goals and objectives were defined in a much loftier language than a simple reversal of the shortcomings would have delivered.
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| MARC train in the recently refurbished Halethorpe station (Penn Line) (Photo: Elvert Barnes) |
The objectives are: Faster more reliable transit, growing ridership, faster more reliable and more equitable service, better job access and "prepare for the future". There has been some analysis and a discussion of strategies before projects would be listed. That is good, because many shortcomings do not stem from "hardware" or the lack of transit routes but from operational and non physical aspects.
Part of the findings in the draft plan deal with delays from the current cash payment system, GPS tracking capabilities of transit vehicles in real time, dedicated bus lanes and cooperation with employers. Another part identified issues beyond the control of MTA, many having to do with land use. For example job growth in areas not served by transit and lack of development where transit already is in place. Lastly, there is the obvious fact that transit's performance is most important to the most vulnerable populations, the aging, the poor and the people with disabilities. Poor performance, therefore isn't equitable and the best performing modes of the system often doesn't serve the disadvantaged people.
Even the objective of "preparing for the future" isn't as hollow as it sounds: Changes in the workforce and in technology are so rapid, that any plan has to forward looking enough not to be outdated before it has been completed.
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| The Transit Corridors of the RTP |
Finally, the suggested improvements: They range from possible additional commuter routes, the creation of transit hubs where various routes or modes meet to extension of services hours or frequencies on existing systems, consideration of new local and express bus routes and the definition of regional transit corridors in which transit services and land use planning would be bundled and prioritized. The latter have been grouped into "early opportunity", mid-term and long-term. Recommendations include also elements of a traditional projects list including items listed by the BBJ in this manner:
- Realigning the light rail tracks on Howard Street
- Supporting Amtrak in the construction of a new Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel on the MARC Penn Line. A new B&P Tunnel has been in the works for years but does not have funding. The project had an estimated cost of $4.5 billion in 2017.
- Removing at-grade crossings on the MARC Camden Line
- Replacing the West Baltimore Station in coordination with the B&P Tunnel realignment
- Establishing a connection between the MARC Penn and Camden Lines
- a possible extension of MARC train service to L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia.
Lastly, and much in keeping with demands form transit advocates, the RTP addresses the matter of measures of progress, tools that are supposed to allow the public to hold the agency's feet to the fire by measuring progress from year to year under metrics such as speed, reliability, ridership, transit accessible jobs and mode split. Only equity has no proper metric, except to measure ADA accessibility.
The RTP has goals and objectives, and some moderate targets. The question is what it would take to reach those targets. There is no modeling that would indicate how much each proposed measure would contribute towards the targets. Not even the baselines are given, nor are there comparisons to other systems. The plan has a 215 year horizon with updates every 5 years. Therefore, targets should be set for 5 year increments. This issue will certainly be one of the comments of transit advocates.
At no point does the RTP get as concise as the 2002 plan, which resulted in a system map that looked like the one depicting the DC metro system. The new plan doesn't have a substitute for the Red Line nor does it reinstate the Red Line, as much as many transit advocates would want to see just that. But the RTP isn't as limited as the old plan either. Its focus isn't just rail in recognition that the majority of riders are bus riders. The RTP is not constrained by cost and it doesn't carry any cost for the suggested measures.
In light of the all encompassing world wide, biggest possible crash global societies currently experience, readers that made it to this point may be consumed by the question: Who cares about transit? Won't transit be hard hit by social distancing and the reverberating fears that may persist long after a vaccine has been found for this virus? Certainly, transit riderships have fallen precipitously during the pandemic. But the crisis has also shown, that metropolitan areas and big cities cannot exist without it. Buses, trains and subways continued to shuttle essential workers to and from their jobs, no matter that the workers in the buses and trains not only risked their lives at their jobs but also in transit. everyone, including those safely at home benefit from transit, especially in difficult times. Even though the virus has accentuated the division between those who are transit dependent and those who have a choice even more, it surely hasn't proven transit superfluous. The crisis, however, further highlighted current vulnerabilities and weaknesses that left many essential worker riders livid about the service.
And as far as having lost the Red Line: Montgomery and Princes George's Counties which were allowed to move forward with the construction on the Purple Line may not be as lucky at it seemed. After innumerable delays two of their key contractors threatened to walk off the job (Washington Business Journal), potentially providing a deadly blow to the much touted Private Partnership Project (P3). Tye project is under construction since August 2017 and is with a final price tag of $5.6 billion the largest public-private partnership (P3) transit development in North America today. It is owned by the MDOT MTA. The Purple Line Transit Partners (PLTP) represents the private-sector partner to design, build, operate and maintain the light-rail system. The 36-year agreement includes a six-year design and construction period followed by a 30-year operations and maintenance period.
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| Purple Line Construction (Photo: Purple Line Transit Constructors) |
P3’s are not the easy fix that some believe they are. The main umbrella contract remains intact but could be in jeopardy. The lesson:
Government and private businesses dance to very different pipers when it comes to schedule and cost.
The future of our regional transit is under as many question marks as ever. Like so much in this pandemic, the weaker the baseline when the crisis hits, the worse the outcome afterwards.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Corrected and refined for statements about targets. 5/5/20
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