Rail Line

It's been held to imposssibly high standards and hit with a barrage of slanted statistics that puts the system in a no-win situation.It's not surprising this would happen. After all, we live in an era of instant gratification: If the new president can't perform miracles in a few days, we crucify him; if our favorite baseball team can't play like world champions in the first few weeks of the season, we turn into boo-birds; if our corporations don't produce big earnings gains each and every quarter, stockholders demand the CEO's head on a platter.

On a chilly afternoon, thoughts turned to springtime and catching a train that slices its way through the trees and ends up at the ballpark for a baseball game.Yesterday, the train left the station -- although just a test run, spring training for the real thing, Opening Day 1993.On April 5, trains will begin carrying passengers on the light rail line's southern spur, south of Baltimore's Patapsco Avenue station. The new section cuts a winding path, with stops at Baltimore Highlands in Baltimore County, Nursery Road and two stations in Linthicum.

As of 9 a.m. Friday, traffic was slow on the inner loop of I-695 near Harford Road, due to an accident involving two vehicles. An accident was slowing traffic at Monument Street and Washington Street in Baltimore City. The Maryland Transit Administration is warning light rail system patrons to expect minor delays from Hunt Valley to the Cromwell and BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport stops.

Light rail attracted light ridership in its first business day.Mass Transit Administration officials said this morning the result came as no great surprise. They had predicted small crowds for the first several weeks of service as commuters adjust to the new $446.3 million Central Light Rail Line.Still, the turnout left most parking lots only half-full and plenty of room for passengers to stretch out inside the trains."I don't think ridership was light, it was steady," said Dianna Rosborough.

As of 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, traffic was slow on U.S. 50 westbound at Ritchie Highway, due to an accident involving five vehicles. Accidents were slowing traffic on I-95 southbound near O'Donnell Street in Baltimore City, the inner loop of I-695 at I-83 in Baltimore County, the outer loop of I-695 near Edmondson Avenue in Baltimore County, and Belair Road at Putty Hill Avenue in Baltimore County. The Maryland Transit Administration is warning patrons of the Central Maryland light rail system that it is experiencing service delays between Hunt Valley and the Cromwell and BWI Thurgood Marshall airport stops.

IN THE LAND of bulging surpluses, why is it that Congress has put the nation's passenger rail line on a starvation budget? And why is it that Congress continues to believe its own fiction that Amtrak will turn a profit by December 2002? It's time for Congress, and the Bush administration, to confront reality. Here are some facts worth remembering. No national passenger rail service anywhere in the world is profitable. In fact, Britain's privatization of its superb passenger rail network has been an unmitigated disaster.

No one could have known in the 1840s that the gritty black fill used to build a railroad in Baltimore County would have residents worrying in the 1990s about possible exposure to contaminated soil.During the past two years, construction workers have dug up much of the fill as they altered the rail bed to accommodate the Baltimore area's new light-rail line.Spurred by residents' concern, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to conduct tests to see if the dirt contains troublesome levels of lead and other toxic substances often found in fly ash or slag, materials used to build railroads decades ago.The EPA plans to look for possible "hot spots" of contamination along the rail line near Robert E. Lee Park in Ruxton, says James McCreary, a project officer handling the case for the EPA.Also scheduled for testing is a school athletic field in Brooklandville where a subcontractor dumped some soil from the rail line.

The Maryland Transit Administration's proposed Red Line in Baltimore has received U.S. approval to move to the next phase of development, a strong indication that the east-west light rail line will eventually qualify for federal funding. Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to announce Tuesday that the Federal Transit Administration has given the state the green light to move into what is known as preliminary engineering, or PE — a phase that would take the project beyond the conceptual stage and into specific planning.

- Is it any wonder that a city renowned for its lofty skyscrapers has created a stunning park in the sky? The High Line Park, a 1930s-era elevated rail line, has been transformed into vibrant green space, perched some 30 feet above Manhattan. There aren't many spots in a bustling city where the cacophony of horns and rushing traffic below melds with the Zen-like peace of an urban sanctuary up above. Yet the High Line, which was opened in 2009 and bills itself as the first public park of its kind nationwide, manages to achieve that feat.

The state will shut down the light rail line south of Camden Yards for about seven months, severing the city's rail link with Baltimore-Washington International Airport and forcing some Orioles and Ravens fans to find different routes to the stadiums. The shutdown from Feb. 28 until October will allow the Maryland Transit Administration to add a second track to portions of the line that have a single track. Single tracking has limited the frequency of trains and contributed to persistent low ridership.