Rail System

I use public transportation to commute to work. The light rail line is about 2.5 miles from my home and less than one block from my job.The advantages of that system are that it saves money on parking and gives me time to read.The light rail's disadvantages include insufficient parking, poor bus connections and its ludicrous ticket purchasing system. Also, the trains can be slow, it's a long time between trains and the stations provide almost no protection from the elements.And I sometimes have the feeling the light rail line was built because the money to build it was available, not because anyone was trying to get people where they were going.

CONGRATULATIONS on your editorial on "Putting the 'mass' in mass transit" (Jan. 6). You were right on target on almost everything said.One important point you missed is the strong need for extending the central light rail system through Penn Station and down Guilford Avenue/South Street to serve the office areas that flank the east side of the central business district.Extending light rail to the eastern part of downtown would greatly increase the viability and utility of the line, because it does not serve where most people work.

WASHINGTON -- With lawmakers rushing off for the Memorial Day recess, Congress hurriedly voted yesterday afternoon to enact a behemoth six-year, $200 billion transportation bill that significantly boosts spending on Maryland's highways and public transit systems.Perhaps most striking for Marylanders was the last-minute inclusion of $185 million to expand and upgrade MARC, the state's commuter rail system, and $120 million to provide double tracks for Baltimore's light rail system."We come out better than it looked when we first started out on this voyage," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who was a negotiator on the mass transit portion of the legislation.

First game at stadium showed ills of light railSaturday night, Aug. 8, may turn out to be a turning point in the history of the city's public transportation.That was the night downtown offered, on one boffo evening, the opening game of the Ravens, the jazz concert at Pier Six, and the Reba McIntire concert at the Baltimore Arena.In the course of the evening, thousands of Baltimoreans coming and going were left stranded and frustrated by a light rail system that seemed to fail them. It couldn't get them there from here.

A man jumped in front of a Metro train as it was arriving at the Mondawmin station last night, apparently the first suicide in the rail system's 14-year history.The man, whose name had not been released late last night, apparently jumped from the platform of the underground station into the path of the westbound train shortly after 10 p.m., said Fire Department Battalion Chief Frank Giotis.The man died about 10: 45 p.m., after being trapped for about 40 minutes under the middle car of the five-car train, Giotis said.

BALTIMORE'S FUTURE as a major rail and port complex is very much at stake in the $8.4 billion deal to merge the CSX and Conrail lines into what is touted as "the leading transportation company in the world." Both the numbers and the implications are staggering in a system with 29,000 miles of track, 52,000 employees, $14 billion in annual revenues and operations serving 22 states and 80 countries.For this old seaport town, with more than its share of adversity in BTC recent years, this development poses opportunities as well as dangers.

Public transit officials are bedeviled by their own Catch 22. Costs inevitably rise, and they are required to meet half their operating expenses from fares. But if they raise fares, they lose riders and thus some of the increased income. Not to mention the fact they would be serving fewer people, which is contrary to their mandate. If they fail to cover half their costs, they are violating legislative instructions, with consequences at budget time. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Absolutely. Amtrak, the nation's passenger rail system, isn't about to expire. Efforts by congressional conservatives to kill its $1 billion federal subsidy have run into unexpected opposition from unexpected sources. Two rounds of steep cuts, including one last week, improve Amtrak's immediate outlook. Yet the long-term picture isn't rosy.The basic problem is that members of Congress want to have it both ways: They crave a first-rate rail system but they don't want to pay for it. Ever since Ronald Reagan targeted Amtrak for elimination, the railroad's fiscal situation has gotten progressively worse.

The Central Light Rail Line, now three years old, took a large step toward maturity last week with the start of construction on three key additions. The system is now within reach of its true potential as a major transit facility for the metropolitan area.In two years it will be possible to ride the light rail to work in Hunt Valley, catch an Amtrak train at Penn Station or reach Baltimore-Washington International Airport and the surrounding business parks. The fledgling system is already carrying two-thirds of the passengers projected for 2010.

It's a good thing the folks at the Mass Transit Administration don't take their cues from their boss, Gov. William Donald Schaefer.MTA officials who oversee the Central Light Rail Line that runs between Timonium and Glen Burnie were alarmed at the increase in crime statistics along the line: 71 incidents of assaults, robberies and car thefts on or near the light rail system from June to December last year. On top of that was a sharp rise in shoplifting at some stores near the line. The MTA, to its credit, admitted that it underestimated the vulnerability of the light rail system it unveiled two years ago and now is taking corrective measures.

Riding the MARC Camden Line to a conference on high-speed rail is a bit like taking a horse and buggy to an auto show. But that's exactly what I did last Thursday. And by the end of the day's presentations, riding the pokey old train back from Union Station to Dorsey, the sense of being behind the times was overwhelming. It came as no surprise that the United States is far behind Japan or Germany or France in high-speed rail. We've known for years that visitors from these highly developed industrial nations have been laughing behind our backs at our woefully antiquated rail system.

Cheers from political and business leaders and jeers from neighborhood activists greeted Gov. Martin O'Malley's announcement Tuesday that he will seek federal funding for a 14-mile light rail system with limited tunneling as Maryland's plan to build the long-awaited east-west Red Line. During an appearance at West Baltimore's MARC station, O'Malley surprised nobody by selecting the plan that has won the endorsement of Mayor Sheila Dixon, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. and the Greater Baltimore Committee.

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama promoted his plan for developing high-speed railways in America on Thursday, detailing how $13 billion in federal money would act as a "down payment" on creating speedier passenger train service. "High-speed rail is long overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways," Obama said. "There's no reason why we can't do this." The plan lists the long-planned rail corridor from Los Angeles to San Francisco as one that could receive funding, as well as a planned network featuring Chicago as the hub of a system reaching to Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis and St. Louis.

Maryland has an unexpected opportunity to turn the Obama stimulus package into a local triumph. With a little vision and a lot of determination, we can make it happen. House and Senate conferees inserted language into the stimulus bill that provides $8 billion for high-speed rail systems. The funding was part of President Barack Obama's bold plan to help shift America's transportation priorities and jolt our high-speed rail infrastructure into catching up with what the Europeans, Japanese and Chinese have been doing for decades.

Md. to receive $5.1 million to help ease bay pollution Maryland is getting $5.1 million in federal funds to help clean up farm runoff polluting the Chesapeake Bay, officials said yesterday. The money is the state's share of $23 million earmarked for bay restoration this year in the farm bill approved by Congress. The bill authorized a total of $188 million over four years to address farm pollution in the bay, but the Bush administration had at first balked at spending it. Officials said Pennsylvania will get $6.7 million this year and Virginia nearly $7 million, with the remainder split among Delaware, New York and West Virginia.

If you were paying attention on Election Day, you probably felt the jolt. The train has finally left the station. Actually, trains are beginning to leave the station all over the country. This month, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will inaugurate the Rail Runner, a new commuter line linking Albuquerque and Santa Fe. California voters just approved $10 billion to start building a high-speed rail line that will stretch from San Diego to Sacramento. In Colorado, transportation planners are talking seriously about a "front range" line that would connect Colorado Springs, Denver, Fort Collins and other communities along the eastern edge of the Rockies.

It takes about two hours to fly from Baltimore to Chicago. But if you want to take public transit from Hunt Valley to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to catch that plane? The 25-mile trip is going to take at least as long. As problem-plagued as Baltimore's light rail system has been over its 15 years in service, one would think that every shortcoming had been exposed. Maryland Transit Administration officials have discovered a startling new one: falling leaves.

Don't blame leaves for light rail woes I cannot believe that leaves are what is really stopping the light rail indefinitely ("Stopped short," Nov. 18). It seems to me that the real problem is the braking technology the Maryland Transit Administration installed on the system in 2004. The light rail system has been open since 1992, and I am sure that leaves have fallen on the tracks ever since and that trains have ground them into a "gelatinous substance." So why, after 16 years, have the trains come to a screeching halt in the northern half of the system?

Leaders of Baltimore's medical institutions, colleges and universities rallied yesterday in support of a proposed east-west light rail line from the city's eastern border to Woodlawn, calling it an essential part of a robust urban transit system. Representatives of such institutions as Mercy Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Bayview, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and Sojourner-Douglass College gathered at the UMB Biopark for an event organized by the Greater Baltimore Committee to show support for its preferred version of the so-called Red Line.

Past time to invest in improved transit I find it fascinating that in all the years I've sat in traffic on Interstate 83 or Interstate 695 or Light Street, sometimes for 15, 30, 60 minutes, I've never seen an article referring to the cars packed on our region's highways, going nowhere fast, as sardines ("Angry sardines," May 8). I think there is a clear bias here. Why can we sit patiently in traffic but are "frustrated and irritated," as Michael Dresser put it, waiting for the light rail?