This column has never received a more heated reaction than the time it modestly suggested that the bus bays at the Owings Mills Metro station could be put to productive use receiving commuter buses from Carroll County.
From the response, you would have thought I had proposed locating a toxic waste landfill in downtown Westminster. Many Carroll residents wrote in to threaten to take to the barricades at the first sign that the dreaded mass transit would intrude on their pristine county.
Never mind that commuter buses - comfortably equipped and run by private contractors - would merely take commuters to the Metro in the morning and return them in the evening. The fear of "undesirables" squelched any consideration of benefits in gas savings and congestion relief.
That column ran Aug. 13, 2007, when the national average price of regular gas stood at a whopping $2.77 a gallon. Last week, it hit $4.04 and was still rising.
I was reminded of the potential of commuter buses recently when the Maryland Board of Public Works approved the addition of 13 long-distance bus runs to alleviate overcrowding on the state's popular lines.
The new bus runs - serving Western Maryland, Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore - had one thing in common: The destination, in each case, was Washington or its Metro system.
Metropolitan Baltimore got zero, zippo, zilch.
Some might blame the Maryland Transit Administration for this turn of events, but the MTA had good reason to favor Washington lines. That's where the overcrowding has been happening. And that's where the squeaky wheels were squeaking.
Baltimore's long-distance commuters have been far slower to take to buses - though the MTA has long operated lines connecting the city with Laurel, Ellicott City, Columbia and Harford County. Perhaps it's because downtown Baltimore parking is less costly than in Washington - though it's plenty high. Perhaps it's because the congestion isn't as brutal as that around Washington. Or maybe there aren't enough departures to ensure flexibility.
But $4 gas ought to be enough to get some folks thinking about whether it's worthwhile to expand service to Baltimore and its underused Metro and light rail connections.
The MTA, to its credit, is looking at possible new - and restored - commuter routes.
