The folks at the Maryland Transit Administration are doing something extremely stupid - for which they should be commended.
If you go to the MTA's newly redesigned Web site (www.mtamaryland.com), you will see a tab for its new trip planner.
This Web-based service is a long time coming for the MTA. Many transit agencies of comparable size have had something similar for a long time. With those agencies, people can sign on 24/7 and get help in navigating their way around a complicated maze of bus and rail services without having to call a "service line" and listen to a half-hour of elevator music before finally talking with a human being.
The MTA trip planner online is a beta version of what it hopes to offer its customers. Or, as the MTA puts it, "We are still trying to work some of the bugs out of the system."
Ya think?
Let's say you're a Glen Burnie resident who lives within walking distance of the Cromwell light rail station. Your sainted mother, may she rest in peace, lies buried in the Meadowridge cemetery in Elkridge. Saturday is her birthday, an occasion upon which it is your practice to visit her grave. You don't have a car but you get a ride each year with your sister.
But Sis breaks her ankle. So you wonder whether public transit offers a way to get there. You fire up the computer and go to the MTA's trip planner for an answer. You type in Cromwell Station as your start and U.S. 1 and Meadowridge Road as destination, with a start time of 9 a.m.
And this is what it tells you:
First of all, you have to give up that foolish notion of getting there on a Saturday. Monday's good enough for you.
To get there, the MTA advises you to catch the light rail train departing from Cromwell at 7:01 p.m. Sunday and arriving at Pratt Street at 7:26 p.m.
There you catch a Route 35 bus heading in the direction of White Marsh as far as Franklin Square Hospital Center. Get off at 8:15 p.m., wait 34 minutes and connect with the Route 24 bus heading for the Whispering Woods Apartments.
When you get to Whispering Woods, stay on the bus until you come to the MARC train station at Martin State Airport and get off at 9:15 p.m.
I do hope you've brought a sleeping bag because the MTA trip planner figures you're going to camp out for eight hours and two minutes to catch a Washington-bound MARC Penn Line train at 5:17 a.m. Monday.
