Originally Posted by CrazyOne
It might get easier, I suppose, if the station were right at the terminal. You could get to downtown DC without changing modes of transport. (Existing options both require a bus to the train.) And maybe it would have more frequency. But it wouldn't get faster certainly.
Maybe they should extend the Light Rail from BWI to the Amtrak/MARC station? That way, it'll be like the EWR/JFK AirTrain whereby one takes light rail from airport->train station and then commuter rail to Union[DC] or Penn[Balt]. Having never been to BWI, is the distance from the Amtrak station to BWI airport prohibitively far for this option to make money at $5 per journey (which is how much the AirTrain charges)?
I lean towards a multimodal rail transportation system. Metro should concentrate on serving densely populated areas i.e. downtown and the inner suburbs/counties that can generate traffic all-day long, and leave the outer suburbs/counties to commuter rail. Running dedicated mass transit to areas that only generate rush hour traffic like the outer suburbs/counties is a waste of transit resources, IMHO.