BALTIMORE
16 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | JUNE 2017
going up since spring, with canvas
bags placed over them. Overnight,
the canvas bags on the 5,000 bus
stop signs will be taken off .
While BaltimoreLink is about
improving the bus system, it’s
also about taking a multi-modal
approach to system improvement.
When all is said and done, there
will be bikeshare at 11 diff erent
metro light rail stations, in addition
to car share.
Th e project will include 200
new shelters and several big
transit hubs. Th e biggest hub is
at the west Baltimore MARC station.
A sizeable parking lot that
has about 100 spaces is going to
be turned into a bus hub that’s
going to have real-time signage,
shelters, a bathroom for operators
and layover space.
Riders will be able to transfer in
an easy, comfortable way, but also
it pulls off a lot of stops and consolidates
it in one really, nice facility.
Th e focus in spring was outreach.
Quinn said they got a great
“lesson learned” from Metropolitan
Transit Authority of Harris
County (METRO): an information
bus. It’s a bus that goes out on the
current routes. Passengers ride for
free and on board is staff handing
out materials about how the route
will change and available for answering
questions. “It’s really those
conversations with passengers that
are the most important.”
MTA has 30 to 40 transit
ambassadors that went through
training to go on the information
bus. As it gets closer to launch
date, they ramp up the eff orts.
As of April the MTA had been
about halfway through training
its operators on the new system.
Th ey do 30 at a time, for a 3-day
the bus. Comfort said of their bus
service, “It was terrible, just terrible.
It was broken.”
MTA Director Offi ce of Planning
and Programming Kevin
Quinn Jr., AICP, went to Comfort
and told him they had recently
done a study called the
Bus Network Improvement Project
(BNIP). It had taken two years
to complete, but nothing was ever
done with it.
Th e BNIP was a series of origin
destination data, traffi c,
ridership, land-use, demographic
data and comments from riders.
As part of the process, they
had received more than 4,400
comments through three robust
phases of public outreach. Quinn
added, “About 1,000 of those came
from our operators, who know the
system better than anyone else.”
“We took a look and it was the
basis of all kinds of data,” said
Comfort. “It was awesome.”
Th e BNIP was the basis for the
undertaking of BaltimoreLink, a
complete overhaul and rebranding
of MTA’s core bus system.
Th e system was originally designed
to take everyone to downtown
to the central business district.
Th ere are 145,000 jobs in
the downtown area, but there are
another 600,000 jobs in the region
around that.
Th ere are a couple big cities
north of Baltimore, Towson and
White March. To go from White
Marsh to Towson, you have to go
to downtown Baltimore, transfer
to another bus, and then go back
north. It’s a 90-minute or more
ride. To drive the 9 miles between
the cities, it’s about 20 minutes.
“If you’re not going downtown,
you shouldn’t have to,”
Comfort said.
A lot of the routes are also too
long because bus stops had been
continually added and they would
get stuck in the heaviest traffi c.
Comfort added, “You could jog
faster than you could ride our bus
in a lot of the areas. I’m not kidding;
it was terrible.”
BaltimoreLink is a chance to
link MTA’s modes and link people
to where jobs are today, to where
the places people want to go. Th e
network redesign is about effi ciency
and reliability.
Governor Larry Hogan announced
BaltimoreLink in October,
2015. MTA then embarked on
three diff erent phases of public outreach,
completing the fi nal phase in
January, where there were 14 public
hearings throughout the region.
In April, MTA released the
fourth and fi nal network design.
As for route design, 20 of the
MTA’s 65 routes had 70 percent
of the ridership. Th ey looked at
the “heavy haulers” as the lines
they really needed to improve.
Th ey paired them down to 12
main routes, called CityLink. It’s
a high-frequency service, coming
every 10 to 15 minutes all day long.
Comfort explained, “We’re going
to do the management there
by headway management instead
of by timepoint management.”
Th ey have Trapeze soft ware and
they recently started testing it out
for headway management. Th e
service is going to be like pulse
in and out of the city and connect
with light rail and the subway.
“When you do transit right,
you can make someone’s day.
When you do it wrong, you can
ruin their day, or more, you can
cost them their job,” said Comfort.
“We’re never going to have
the most passengers; we’re not
New York or LA, but we can be
No. 1 in safety, No. 1 in effi ciency.”
June 18 is the day everything
will change. Quinn said, “We’ve
got to do it overnight. All the
routes, all the pieces are really
connected. It’s like a body; you
can’t just fi x the arm.”
As part of the rebranding, buses
will have consistent livery and
bus stop signs will get a facelift .
New bus stop signs have the
route number, where it’s going,
how oft en it runs and additional
MTA information on the back.
New bus stop signs have been
Sealing Out
Germs, Putting
in Efficiency
The MTA Bus
Maintenance
EcoSeal Program
utilizes the
water-based
spray and sealant
EcoSeal that prevents
the spread
of germs and it
increases cleaning
efficiency.
David Varner,
director bus
maintenance,
and Jose
Barreda, superintendent
Bush
Division, talked
about the benefits
they’ve seen
since utilizing it.
The MTA bus
fleet is more
than 700 buses
and currently it
takes 16 hours
to clean a bus.
Cleaning the
buses that have
been treated
with EcoSeal
drops that time
to 8 hours.
Calculating it
out, they see
the MTA will
save $60 per
bus or more
than $40,000
across the fleet.
As of April, the
buses at the
Bush Street
Division were
treated and the
Eastern Avenue
buses were
undergoing
treatment. The
Northwest and
Kirk Avenue
Divisions would
then be next for
the program.