The Metro subway - and perhaps someday an extended MARC system - could be tied in by building underground passageways. The Red Line could feed right into the terminal.
And after the arena events are over, the terminal could serve as the hub of what advocates call an "owl" bus system - providing a safe, warm place for the many service workers and medical personnel who work night shifts in Baltimore to make transfers.
Having a central terminal would also help visitors and new transit commuters navigate a confusing bus system. With a downtown hub, someone unfamiliar with the system could just take a bus to the central terminal and make connections to any point on the transit grid. The MTA could operate an information kiosk equipped with computers and staffed by a transit concierge.
Another reason the advocates are on to something is that the nature of bus travel is changing in the 21st century. Buses are cleaning up their act a lot faster than passenger cars. Modern hybrids have little in common with the dirty, noisy, fume-belching diesel models that gave buses a bad name.
My embellishment to the advocates' plan would be to restrict the use of the terminal to the "greenest" buses on the market. You don't want diesel fumes turning the air blue in a subterranean terminal. You don't want the noise of the old clunkers.
Maybe parts of this proposal are impractical, but the concept of integrating an entertainment venue and a transit hub is nothing new. Isn't that Madison Square Garden sitting atop New York's Penn Station?
The one thing that's certain is that it would be utter folly to proceed with such an important downtown project without the full participation of transit advocates and the MTA. It's too important an opportunity to squander.
