That sounds like a valid strategy.

I think you’re referring to what raisin-cane posted here.

Oof. I’ve been shocked by how many people think throwing down dozens of dedicated right of way trolleys are the answer to the problem. It really is a perspective that pops up here pretty frequently, unfortunately.

Generally I tend to be in agreement with Cunninghams_right in these conversations, but I see a greater relevance for bus transit than perhaps they do, especially for people going back and forth to labor-intensive jobs at odd hours of the day/night. Relatively minor point.

Yeah I agree — we’re built to support a close to necessary density, but we need hundreds of thousands more people to approach what’s likely needed. It unfortunately becomes a chicken/egg problem with density and infrastructure investment. It’s not an easy problem to solve, sadly.

The issue is less one of absolute size and more an issue that Baltimore’s population isn’t very dense, complicating some more expensive public transportation options.

That’s a pretty strong claim. You may want to check with the businesses there about their agreement with that sentiment…

Yes, but the mere fact that pedestrian plazas exist does not automatically advocate for their presence everywhere.

OK, but that’s not what’s implied with “streetcar”. Just say “separate, dedicated right of way rail”. At this point, we’re generally referring to that as “light rail” these days.

You’re welcome to advocate for that, but the juice really isn’t worth the squeeze. In addition to the bus and bike lane, the light rail literally already goes to Hampden from downtown. An entire ADDITIONAL single dedicated track going to Hampden that has to arrange an entirely new real estate right of way is just not reasonable. If you want to add an every 15 minute shuttle from the Woodberry light rail stop to the Avenue, that’s a more reasonable proposition.

What are you envisioning, a 75 story parking garage?

There aren’t remotely enough people in the walkable Avenue vicinity to keep all those businesses afloat.

Dirigibles for everyone!

To which the obvious answer is, a more frequent bus. There’s no reason to force the need for permanent rail lines onto the problem. Streetcars aren’t magic.

Oh my, that really does suck. Sorry to hear.

Uhhh….why do people need to walk down the middle of the street? What tangible benefit is realized?

The 94 already goes from downtown to Hampden, and there’s a dedicated bike lane running from downtown to the bottom of Hampden.

Wait I’m confused. Have you not already mentioned this to the landlord/management?

Honestly I think you’re spot on.

Pretty sure there are some great 2D busses made by Calvin & Hobbes Motor Coaches LTD.

Parking, which includes income from city-owned garages, parking meters, neighborhood parking permits and parking fines, typically brings in $6 million to $8 million per month.

That also doesn’t include the property and other general tax contributions (income, sales tax, etc.) of those drivers.

Fare box recovery rates for MTA in Baltimore is currently less than 13%, although that’s lower than normal (I think it was around 20-30% prior to coronavirus — and note that prior to 2017 there was a legally required 35% recovery ratio).

I put this out there because there are certainly very good ways to make the argument that you are making, but I don’t think you’re going to have much luck saying that non-drivers are subsidizing drivers. It’s simply not factually accurate.

Yeah they’re totally average.

I see your point, but let me pose a question:

If you’re traveling in a place you’ve never been and will never come back to, do you just throw trash on the ground? After all, you don’t have any connection to or “investment” in the place whatsoever.

I suspect the answer for the vast majority of people is “no”.

Sure, there’s a larger disenfranchisement issue in Baltimore, but there’s a lot of generally jerk behavior here and in the rest of the world as well.

I think there’s also a distinction to be made between people littering in already abused (“disinvested”) areas where we might see littering as a more expected behavior, given your critique, and people littering in otherwise “kept-up areas” (whatever that may mean and why) — I’ve definitely seen flagrant littering in both.

There’s also a decent amount of illegal littering in rural areas, but it’s just more spread out. Interesting research here.

I’d also like to take this moment to remind everyone that most cigarette butts don’t actually decompose quickly. Somehow most smokers (which was for many years practically a majority of Americans) take it for granted that tossing butts is totally fine. Not sure if this is related or not.

Their menu is posted online.

Trains simply have other liabilities. Route permanence, high cost of implementation, single points of failure, etc.

They also have to negotiate traffic crossing, even if you plan to have light preemption that actually works.

To be clear, I am not fundamentally opposed to the red line — the argument simply seems insufficiently made so far, and bus options, both for the short and long term, and as a quick half-measure for hypothesis testing, does not seem to have been considered. Also note that the red line targets 50K riders per day. The existing light rail targeted 33K per day, never really reached that, and is currently at 9K per day (there are other issues with that light rail obviously, including the fundamental logic of its placement and route).

The red line also doesn’t address the needed last mile issues that will still only be possible through bus; red line is not a magic transportation panacea in and of itself, but that’s what it’s often portrayed as.

The dedicated bus lanes in the city are operating quite well. My understanding is that this has increased average speed from 9 miles an hour on average to about 12 miles an hour (apologies for lack of source). I suspect the relatively high frequency of stops for buses also contributes to lower speeds. Note that the red line claims a targeted 18 MPH. Unclear what this specifically means and broadly that’s achieved through the length of the route.

There’s nothing inconsiderate about my responses, nor anything presumptuous about how my particular experiences with using transit translates to other people’s abilities or capacity.

There are however a lot of claims made by other people here that would incur extraordinary costs with potentially far less benefit than many other solutions, soaking up funding that could otherwise go to other very deserving needs like child care, healthcare, senior centers, schools, lunches etc.

Just because people really like trains doesn’t mean their proposals for trains are superior to other options.

This has been tried, and things didn’t work out that way. Obviously perhaps other conditions might change the outcome.

I could understand subsidies/vouchers for individual transit users with limited means, but overall you likely need to maintain fees.

I think overall, fare recovery ratios for public transit tend to be between 20-30% on average, if that’s of use.