The Problem
Current and prospective Baltimore transit riders continue to be disappointed by the failure of the Maryland Transit Administration to provide the fast, frequent and reliable service we’ve long needed. And while we applaud Governor Moore’s efforts to revive the Red Line, Baltimore transit riders cannot wait until the Red Line is built for improvements in MTA’s current bus and light rail service. Much better transit is needed now!
MTA's unreliable service continues to demoralize current riders, discourage new ones and damage the Baltimore region. Repeated no-show and late buses, drivers failing to pick up passengers waiting at bus stops, light rail breakdowns with lengthy delays, broken arrival time boards, inaccurate arrival time apps, misleading on-time performance data, unreliable paratransit service and poor communications regarding service disruptions are all too common.
The current state of MTA’s service means that far too often:
Students can’t get to class on time
Workers can’t get to jobs on time
Seniors and others with health care needs can’t get to medical appointments on time
Persons with disabilities can’t get where they need to be
Riders don’t have accurate or useful information regarding service disruptions and delays
The status quo cannot continue.
Per the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance’s 2023 Transportation Report Card, “from July to October 2023, Baltimore’s public transit reliability, as measured by ARIES for Transit, significantly underperformed compared to similar metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. Baltimore had the second worst headway adherence and the third worst schedule adherence of all 19 metropolitan statistical areas included in this study, and nearly 20% of all scheduled trips during the study period were either missing from Baltimore’s real-time data feeds or did not actually run at all.”
