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O'Malley wants MARC to grow
MARC Growth & Investment Plan
This information from "On Your MARC" Newsletter December 2007
For more details, see MARC Growth & Investment Plan
Below are some media articles on O'Malley's plan and some of the follow up:
September 24, 2007
The Maryland Transit Administration is planning a sweeping expansion of its popular but crowded MARC commuter train service, including weekend runs and additional weekday trains by next year and a tripling of the system's capacity by 2035.
The detailed blueprint, outlined in a briefing by MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld, envisions a system that eventually would stretch from Virginia to Delaware and have the capacity to carry more than 100,000 riders a day.
The plan, the cost of which would amount to billions of dollars over the next 28 years, would add tracks in areas that are bottlenecks and would increase the frequency of train arrivals. It would bring new interconnections with existing and future transit lines and create a new transportation hub at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
Although many of the changes would not occur until much of today's work force is long retired, the plan also includes improvements that current riders would see between now and next summer.
MTA's near-term plans include additional trains on the Penn Line, some of which would operate on weekends, and a midday train on the Camden Line.
MARC's Penn, Camden and Brunswick lines now run on weekdays only. The Washington-to-Baltimore Camden Line runs at peak hours only -- a deterrent to potential riders who worry about having to return home early in an emergency.
Wiedefeld cautioned that many of the changes require the assent of CSX Corp., which owns the Camden Line and Western Maryland's Brunswick Line, and Amtrak, which owns the Perryville-to-Washington Penn Line.
But the administrator, a former chief executive of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, said he has begun negotiating with the two railroads on adding trains.
The MARC service has been growing steadily in popularity in recent years as long-distance commuters have sought alternatives to congested highways and relief from high gasoline prices. Daily boardings, which were fewer than 20,000 in the mid-1990s, now exceed 30,000.
That growth is good news for the MTA and the environment, but not for riders' comfort. The system has only 27,000 seats, and many trains run with passengers standing.
"There are certain trains that are so crowded the conductors can't get through the trains anymore," said Christopher Field, a regular rider of the Penn Line. "Extra seats are more than welcome, and weekend service would be an absolute thrill."
Wiedefeld said the number of riders has been increasing at a rate of 6 percent a year, which he attributed largely to highway congestion.
"We expect this demand to grow," he said.
In addition to crowded trains and overflowing parking lots, the MARC service has been beset by track and equipment problems that have cut its reliability -- defined as arrival within six minutes of the scheduled time -- to about 90 percent, Wiedefeld said. The MTA's goal is to improve that performance to 95 percent or more.
The plan is broken into five stages: the improvements to be made over the next nine months; intermediate stages in 2010, 2015 and 2020; and a long-range plan extending to 2035.
Such long-range plans have been a recurring phenomenon in Maryland transportation. Some have been carried out, but others -- notably Baltimore's planned regional Metro subway system of the 1970s -- have been consigned to history's dustbin as the projected expenses grew.
But Wiedefeld's MARC plan, which he said he drafted at the direction of Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari, has several powerful imperatives driving it.
One is the military's base realignment and closure process -- known as BRAC -- which is expected to bring thousands of jobs to Maryland over the coming decade. Two of the areas that will see the most job growth are Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground -- both of which lie along the MARC Penn Line.
Another is the obsolescence of the Amtrak and CSX tunnels through Baltimore. The plan envisions a new Amtrak tunnel leading to Penn Station by 2020 and a new CSX freight tunnel by 2035 -- allowing the Howard Street Tunnel, the scene of a near-disastrous fire in 2001, to be converted to passenger use.
MARC has had a sometimes difficult relationship with Amtrak and CSX, neither of which is focused on commuter rail. But Wiedefeld said he expects the two railroads to work closely with MARC on system expansion because all will benefit.
"It has to be done in partnership with Amtrak and CSX," he said.
Over the next nine months, Wiedefeld said, MARC plans a series of improvements in customer service -- including an overhaul of an electronic passenger alert system that now often delivers news of problems hours after the information would be useful. Between now and next summer, he said, he hopes to add 1,500 seats per day. An additional 4,000 would be added by 2010.
The 2015 phase of the plan is expected to bring a more drastic expansion -- especially on the Penn Line. Under the plan, MARC's busiest line would gain 12,000 seats and would be extended to Elkton and Newark, Del., where it would connect with the commuter rail systems serving Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.
The plan also calls for expanded service by 2015 at Odenton and at a new Aberdeen station to accommodate BRAC-related riders. It also envisions a new station at Bayview, which would eventually connect with the planned east-west transit service known as the Red Line. Penn Line trains would run every 15 minutes at peak times and 30 minutes off-peak.
By 2020, the plan calls for an extension of all three MARC lines across the Potomac River to Northern Virginia -- giving BRAC workers rapid-rail access to the Pentagon and the concentration of military offices in Crystal City. For the Penn Line, it anticipates a new Amtrak tunnel through Baltimore, helping to alleviate the current speed restrictions.
By 2035, most of the Penn Line would have four tracks, allowing more flexible scheduling for MARC and Amtrak. The Penn Line also would connect with the Baltimore Metro at its Upton Station and an anticipated station north of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Presuming that the Howard Street Tunnel will at some point no longer be needed for freight traffic, the plan also calls for the Camden Line to be extended to the north and east. The outline shows the Camden using the track of what is known as the old Belt Line to make stops at the old Mount Royal Station, Charles Village and Clifton Park before meeting up with the Penn Line at Bayview.
Ed Cohen, president of the Transit Riders Action Council, said the Camden proposal is an "efficient use of constrained resources."
"This is a way of utilizing a resource that already exists," he said.
Wiedefeld said that in coming weeks, he will meet with legislative leaders and other MARC stakeholders to outline the financial details behind the proposal.
The MTA chief said the expansion of MARC -- with a large percentage of high-income riders -- would not come at the expense of other transit services such as the bus system, light rail and the Metro.
"We shouldn't think of this as a Gucci system," he said. "This is moving toward more of an urban commuter rail system."
michael.dresser@baltsun.com
Washington Post 9/25/07
Md. Officials Plan To Expand MARC As Region Grows
N.Va. Service, Greater Capacity Sought
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 25, 2007; B01
Maryland transportation officials outlined yesterday an ambitious expansion of the MARC commuter train service that would extend it across the Potomac River into Northern Virginia and more than triple the system's capacity in the next three decades.
The plan calls for steadily increasing the number of riders from about 30,000 to 100,000 a day by 2035 to accommodate growth in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, part of which will be fueled by jobs coming with military base realignments. Improvements include building stations, increasing peak-time departures, expanding weekend service and providing connections to more Metro stations.
State officials said the plan would transform a rail system used almost exclusively at rush hours by District-bound commuters to a mass transit service more like Metro.
"It lays out a path to gradually transform MARC over a 30-year period of time into something that resembles public transit," said Henry M. Kay, deputy administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, which oversees MARC. "Rather than being a kind of marginal service that provides a lot of value for a very small number of people, it becomes comparable to I-95. There's a lot of capacity over a very long day."
MARC trains run on tracks owned by Amtrak and CSX, and the railroads operate the commuter trains under contract with the state.
The expansion plan, first reported in yesterday's Baltimore Sun, is designed to increase mass transit for the Fort Meade area in western Anne Arundel County, which will add as many as 22,000 jobs in the coming decade because of the base realignment and closure process, Kay said.
MARC's three train lines end at Washington's Union Station, but service would be extended to Northern Virginia by 2020. Kay said MARC trains would continue past Union Station on lines used by VRE, stopping at L'Enfant Plaza, the Pentagon and Crystal City, home to many defense industry jobs.
"This is spectacular for the region," said Ed Cohen, president of the Transit Riders Action Council, an advocacy group of MARC commuters. The additional stops would allow many riders to avoid transferring to Metro at Union Station.
"It will completely redistribute the ridership in the D.C. system, making it far more efficient and less crowded," he said.
By 2015, the Penn Line would continue north to Newark, Del., providing a connection to Philadelphia's mass transit line.
More immediate improvements, to be completed next summer, include adding afternoon and evening trains and initiating weekend service on the Penn Line. The line, which runs between Perryville, northeast of Aberdeen, and Union Station through Baltimore's Penn Station, is MARC's most heavily traveled. MARC would also add a midday train on the Camden Line, which runs between downtown Baltimore and Union Station.
State officials have not put a price tag on the plan, which could cost several billion dollars. Maryland is facing a $1.7 billion budget shortfall, and Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari said the state has a $40 billion backlog in unfunded transportation projects.
Still, Porcari said, expanding MARC is a top priority for Gov. Martin O'Malley (D)."Governor O'Malley directed us to draft a very ambitious plan to connect the two great metropolitan areas, Washington and Baltimore, through better MARC service," Porcari said yesterday. "As we look to increase transportation revenues, after we take care of our system preservation needs, this would be one of the first calls on this."
Kay said the state is considering private development of stations and parking lots to generate revenue for the expansion.
"This is a very ambitious concept, and we don't have money in the bank to pay for it. But we have a reasonable expectation that these are cost-effective ideas that would bring a lot of transportation benefit, and we'll find the money as the years go by," Kay said.Kay said state officials have discussed their plan with Amtrak and CSX."They're willing to talk," Kay said of the railroads. "Ultimately, these are their railroads, and they have to be willing to do this."
More from the Baltimore Sun:
Editorial, 9/25/07
Tracking the future
Maryland's MARC commuter rail system has reached a critical junction. Either it stays semi-derailed as the overcrowded, underfunded, oft-delayed transit stepchild it is today or Maryland capitalizes on its potential to help revitalize Baltimore, relieve traffic congestion and accommodate future growth, including the thousands of defense-related jobs headed for the state under the Pentagon's base realignment and closure plans.
The Maryland Transit Administration's new long-term comprehensive plan for MARC outlines what's needed for that latter vision - and it's no train ride in the park. State officials have yet to release numbers, but the investment required is likely to run to several billion dollars or more over the next quarter-century, particularly if replacing Baltimore's aging tunnels is included.
And money alone may not be the biggest hurdle. MARC operates at the pleasure of CSX Corp. and Amtrak, which own the tracks. In the case of Amtrak, that means mustering federal support. CSX could be even tougher to convince; it doesn't like passenger rail to interfere with its freight schedule.
But what's exciting about the MTA plan is that it envisions MARC as a much more serious transportation alternative than it is today. Not only would passenger capacity triple but trains would run more frequently and more reliably. MARC might also play a new role: to better connect Baltimore's somewhat scattershot transit systems.
Is such an undertaking worth it? Unquestionably. MARC is the most cost-efficient transit service available in Baltimore. Riders pay for about 60 percent of its daily operating expenses. Subway, bus and light rail patrons pay for little more than one-third. MARC ridership has grown to record levels despite all its problems - it's about 3,000 passengers above capacity.
Adding capacity means more than buying more locomotives and trains, although both are needed. It would involve acquiring right-of-way and building track, crossovers and signaling, renovating stations, creating storage and maintenance facilities, and expanding parking.
Maryland has had MARC on the cheap to date, but those days are numbered - if the public wants more from the system. Many of the plan's specifics should - and will - be debated in the years ahead. Funds are limited, particularly from the federal government. But this much is certain: An expanded MARC offers a sensible, cost-effective and energy-efficient form of transportation. Maryland's leaders ought to get on board.
This information from "On Your MARC" Newsletter December 2007
For more details, see MARC Growth & Investment Plan
| Changes planned for the Camden Line trains that serve Riverdale & College Park: In the next 9 months - 15 months:
|
Below are some media articles on O'Malley's plan and some of the follow up:
MARC aims to triple service
Baltimore Sun 9/24/0728-year plan calls for more trains, track, 2008 weekend runs
By Michael DresserSeptember 24, 2007
The Maryland Transit Administration is planning a sweeping expansion of its popular but crowded MARC commuter train service, including weekend runs and additional weekday trains by next year and a tripling of the system's capacity by 2035.
The detailed blueprint, outlined in a briefing by MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld, envisions a system that eventually would stretch from Virginia to Delaware and have the capacity to carry more than 100,000 riders a day.
| MTA's near-term plans include... a midday train on the Camden Line. ...The Washington-to-Baltimore Camden Line runs at peak hours only -- a deterrent to potential riders who worry about having to return home early in an emergency. |
Although many of the changes would not occur until much of today's work force is long retired, the plan also includes improvements that current riders would see between now and next summer.
MTA's near-term plans include additional trains on the Penn Line, some of which would operate on weekends, and a midday train on the Camden Line.
MARC's Penn, Camden and Brunswick lines now run on weekdays only. The Washington-to-Baltimore Camden Line runs at peak hours only -- a deterrent to potential riders who worry about having to return home early in an emergency.
Wiedefeld cautioned that many of the changes require the assent of CSX Corp., which owns the Camden Line and Western Maryland's Brunswick Line, and Amtrak, which owns the Perryville-to-Washington Penn Line.
But the administrator, a former chief executive of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, said he has begun negotiating with the two railroads on adding trains.
The MARC service has been growing steadily in popularity in recent years as long-distance commuters have sought alternatives to congested highways and relief from high gasoline prices. Daily boardings, which were fewer than 20,000 in the mid-1990s, now exceed 30,000.
That growth is good news for the MTA and the environment, but not for riders' comfort. The system has only 27,000 seats, and many trains run with passengers standing.
"There are certain trains that are so crowded the conductors can't get through the trains anymore," said Christopher Field, a regular rider of the Penn Line. "Extra seats are more than welcome, and weekend service would be an absolute thrill."
Wiedefeld said the number of riders has been increasing at a rate of 6 percent a year, which he attributed largely to highway congestion.
"We expect this demand to grow," he said.
In addition to crowded trains and overflowing parking lots, the MARC service has been beset by track and equipment problems that have cut its reliability -- defined as arrival within six minutes of the scheduled time -- to about 90 percent, Wiedefeld said. The MTA's goal is to improve that performance to 95 percent or more.
The plan is broken into five stages: the improvements to be made over the next nine months; intermediate stages in 2010, 2015 and 2020; and a long-range plan extending to 2035.
Such long-range plans have been a recurring phenomenon in Maryland transportation. Some have been carried out, but others -- notably Baltimore's planned regional Metro subway system of the 1970s -- have been consigned to history's dustbin as the projected expenses grew.
But Wiedefeld's MARC plan, which he said he drafted at the direction of Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari, has several powerful imperatives driving it.
One is the military's base realignment and closure process -- known as BRAC -- which is expected to bring thousands of jobs to Maryland over the coming decade. Two of the areas that will see the most job growth are Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground -- both of which lie along the MARC Penn Line.
Another is the obsolescence of the Amtrak and CSX tunnels through Baltimore. The plan envisions a new Amtrak tunnel leading to Penn Station by 2020 and a new CSX freight tunnel by 2035 -- allowing the Howard Street Tunnel, the scene of a near-disastrous fire in 2001, to be converted to passenger use.
MARC has had a sometimes difficult relationship with Amtrak and CSX, neither of which is focused on commuter rail. But Wiedefeld said he expects the two railroads to work closely with MARC on system expansion because all will benefit.
"It has to be done in partnership with Amtrak and CSX," he said.
Over the next nine months, Wiedefeld said, MARC plans a series of improvements in customer service -- including an overhaul of an electronic passenger alert system that now often delivers news of problems hours after the information would be useful. Between now and next summer, he said, he hopes to add 1,500 seats per day. An additional 4,000 would be added by 2010.
The 2015 phase of the plan is expected to bring a more drastic expansion -- especially on the Penn Line. Under the plan, MARC's busiest line would gain 12,000 seats and would be extended to Elkton and Newark, Del., where it would connect with the commuter rail systems serving Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.
The plan also calls for expanded service by 2015 at Odenton and at a new Aberdeen station to accommodate BRAC-related riders. It also envisions a new station at Bayview, which would eventually connect with the planned east-west transit service known as the Red Line. Penn Line trains would run every 15 minutes at peak times and 30 minutes off-peak.
By 2020, the plan calls for an extension of all three MARC lines across the Potomac River to Northern Virginia -- giving BRAC workers rapid-rail access to the Pentagon and the concentration of military offices in Crystal City. For the Penn Line, it anticipates a new Amtrak tunnel through Baltimore, helping to alleviate the current speed restrictions.
By 2035, most of the Penn Line would have four tracks, allowing more flexible scheduling for MARC and Amtrak. The Penn Line also would connect with the Baltimore Metro at its Upton Station and an anticipated station north of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Presuming that the Howard Street Tunnel will at some point no longer be needed for freight traffic, the plan also calls for the Camden Line to be extended to the north and east. The outline shows the Camden using the track of what is known as the old Belt Line to make stops at the old Mount Royal Station, Charles Village and Clifton Park before meeting up with the Penn Line at Bayview.
Ed Cohen, president of the Transit Riders Action Council, said the Camden proposal is an "efficient use of constrained resources."
"This is a way of utilizing a resource that already exists," he said.
Wiedefeld said that in coming weeks, he will meet with legislative leaders and other MARC stakeholders to outline the financial details behind the proposal.
The MTA chief said the expansion of MARC -- with a large percentage of high-income riders -- would not come at the expense of other transit services such as the bus system, light rail and the Metro.
"We shouldn't think of this as a Gucci system," he said. "This is moving toward more of an urban commuter rail system."
michael.dresser@baltsun.com
Washington Post 9/25/07
Md. Officials Plan To Expand MARC As Region Grows
N.Va. Service, Greater Capacity Sought
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 25, 2007; B01
Maryland transportation officials outlined yesterday an ambitious expansion of the MARC commuter train service that would extend it across the Potomac River into Northern Virginia and more than triple the system's capacity in the next three decades.
| "MARC would also add a midday train on the Camden Line, which runs between downtown Baltimore and Union Station." |
The plan calls for steadily increasing the number of riders from about 30,000 to 100,000 a day by 2035 to accommodate growth in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, part of which will be fueled by jobs coming with military base realignments. Improvements include building stations, increasing peak-time departures, expanding weekend service and providing connections to more Metro stations.
State officials said the plan would transform a rail system used almost exclusively at rush hours by District-bound commuters to a mass transit service more like Metro.
"It lays out a path to gradually transform MARC over a 30-year period of time into something that resembles public transit," said Henry M. Kay, deputy administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, which oversees MARC. "Rather than being a kind of marginal service that provides a lot of value for a very small number of people, it becomes comparable to I-95. There's a lot of capacity over a very long day."
MARC trains run on tracks owned by Amtrak and CSX, and the railroads operate the commuter trains under contract with the state.
The expansion plan, first reported in yesterday's Baltimore Sun, is designed to increase mass transit for the Fort Meade area in western Anne Arundel County, which will add as many as 22,000 jobs in the coming decade because of the base realignment and closure process, Kay said.
MARC's three train lines end at Washington's Union Station, but service would be extended to Northern Virginia by 2020. Kay said MARC trains would continue past Union Station on lines used by VRE, stopping at L'Enfant Plaza, the Pentagon and Crystal City, home to many defense industry jobs.
"This is spectacular for the region," said Ed Cohen, president of the Transit Riders Action Council, an advocacy group of MARC commuters. The additional stops would allow many riders to avoid transferring to Metro at Union Station.
"It will completely redistribute the ridership in the D.C. system, making it far more efficient and less crowded," he said.
By 2015, the Penn Line would continue north to Newark, Del., providing a connection to Philadelphia's mass transit line.
More immediate improvements, to be completed next summer, include adding afternoon and evening trains and initiating weekend service on the Penn Line. The line, which runs between Perryville, northeast of Aberdeen, and Union Station through Baltimore's Penn Station, is MARC's most heavily traveled. MARC would also add a midday train on the Camden Line, which runs between downtown Baltimore and Union Station.
State officials have not put a price tag on the plan, which could cost several billion dollars. Maryland is facing a $1.7 billion budget shortfall, and Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari said the state has a $40 billion backlog in unfunded transportation projects.
Still, Porcari said, expanding MARC is a top priority for Gov. Martin O'Malley (D)."Governor O'Malley directed us to draft a very ambitious plan to connect the two great metropolitan areas, Washington and Baltimore, through better MARC service," Porcari said yesterday. "As we look to increase transportation revenues, after we take care of our system preservation needs, this would be one of the first calls on this."
Kay said the state is considering private development of stations and parking lots to generate revenue for the expansion.
"This is a very ambitious concept, and we don't have money in the bank to pay for it. But we have a reasonable expectation that these are cost-effective ideas that would bring a lot of transportation benefit, and we'll find the money as the years go by," Kay said.Kay said state officials have discussed their plan with Amtrak and CSX."They're willing to talk," Kay said of the railroads. "Ultimately, these are their railroads, and they have to be willing to do this."
More from the Baltimore Sun:
Editorial, 9/25/07
Tracking the future
Maryland's MARC commuter rail system has reached a critical junction. Either it stays semi-derailed as the overcrowded, underfunded, oft-delayed transit stepchild it is today or Maryland capitalizes on its potential to help revitalize Baltimore, relieve traffic congestion and accommodate future growth, including the thousands of defense-related jobs headed for the state under the Pentagon's base realignment and closure plans.
The Maryland Transit Administration's new long-term comprehensive plan for MARC outlines what's needed for that latter vision - and it's no train ride in the park. State officials have yet to release numbers, but the investment required is likely to run to several billion dollars or more over the next quarter-century, particularly if replacing Baltimore's aging tunnels is included.
And money alone may not be the biggest hurdle. MARC operates at the pleasure of CSX Corp. and Amtrak, which own the tracks. In the case of Amtrak, that means mustering federal support. CSX could be even tougher to convince; it doesn't like passenger rail to interfere with its freight schedule.
But what's exciting about the MTA plan is that it envisions MARC as a much more serious transportation alternative than it is today. Not only would passenger capacity triple but trains would run more frequently and more reliably. MARC might also play a new role: to better connect Baltimore's somewhat scattershot transit systems.
Is such an undertaking worth it? Unquestionably. MARC is the most cost-efficient transit service available in Baltimore. Riders pay for about 60 percent of its daily operating expenses. Subway, bus and light rail patrons pay for little more than one-third. MARC ridership has grown to record levels despite all its problems - it's about 3,000 passengers above capacity.
Adding capacity means more than buying more locomotives and trains, although both are needed. It would involve acquiring right-of-way and building track, crossovers and signaling, renovating stations, creating storage and maintenance facilities, and expanding parking.
Maryland has had MARC on the cheap to date, but those days are numbered - if the public wants more from the system. Many of the plan's specifics should - and will - be debated in the years ahead. Funds are limited, particularly from the federal government. But this much is certain: An expanded MARC offers a sensible, cost-effective and energy-efficient form of transportation. Maryland's leaders ought to get on board.
MARC plan highlights
September 24, 2007
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