choster

Meant to post this earlier-- from the WashPost last Sunday (12 June 2005):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061100595.html

MTA is looking at extending the Green Line from Greenbelt all the way to the BWI airport, with stops at Ft. Meade, Savage, and Arundel Mills. Of course, they haven't event consulted with Metro yet (base closings mean there would be several thousand more workers consolidated at Ft. Meade). The timeline is given as "within the next twenty years."

blueDC

That's a 20+ mile journey and they're thinking of putting the Metro line along the existing Amtrak right-of-way. Why not just use the Amtrak tracks? Kinda like Tokyo where the lines morph from suburban commuter rail into inner-city subways and vice-versa.

Also, that alignment puts the Metro a mile or so away from Ft Meade and BWI. The better alignment would be over 295 which abuts both locations. But I doubt the NPS will let WMATA do that.

Frankly, I would prefer that Metro concentrate on providing more service downtown than branching off into Dulles (NW), BWI (NE), Centreville (W), Ft Belvoir (SW), etc.

wahooflyer

A far cheaper and more reasonable option would be to start MARC service on weekends. MARC from BWI to Union Station is an easy 30-minute ride during the week, but it's a pain to have to do the bus/Metro shuffle (or shell out $13 one-way for Amtrak) on Saturdays and Sundays.

slawecki

Can Amtrak & Metro equipment run on the same track?

Is that Amtrak track, or some railroad track?

The amount automobile of traffic on the I 95/295 corridor would indicate the line would be oversubscribed from the moment it opened.

It seems reasonable to me that Metro run lines to high density population centers like down the I66,i95(n&s),dulles, and rt 5 coridors.

The rich people up in far NW have their Metro, the poor people on the east side need one also.

Annandaler

No. Amtrak uses overhead power lines. Metro uses third-rail power.

AArlington

I don't really ride metro that often (three times in the past year) but something has got to be done about the traffic in this area.I'd ride metro if it were more convenient to where I need to go. I live inside the beltway, but I pity those poor folks who have to take 66 from Centreville into the city. What a mess.

wahooflyer

If I-66 and other DC-area roads had the same style of reversible, separated HOV-3 lanes as I-95/395 do, traffic would be a heck of a lot better at rush hours. I-66's HOV lane outside the Beltway is hardly any faster than the regular lanes, as single-occupant vehicles can zip in and out of the HOV lane with low risk of getting caught.

blueDC

Montgomery County has two lines (both Red) whereas PG County has four (Orange, Blue and two Green). I don't think the "rich" ppl have a monopoly on Metro lines Granted, the lines in PG don't go outside the Beltway (except for Blue) whereas both of Montgomery County's lines go far outside the Beltway.

It just seems redundant to have Metro when MARC plies essentially the same route (95/295 corridor), doesn't it? I think another line through downtown should take priority, although the cost is astronomically more than extending Metro to the outer suburbs.

Lots of ideas, but no resources to execute... If DC were a human body, we'd be dead from asphyxiation by now.

HOT sounds promising. Congestion charging is the way to go, IMHO.

DeafFlyer

Which is probably what was meant. Green should be extended to Laurel, Orange to Bowie, Blue is fine as is. That would be better.

If MARC revised their schedules and ran everyday, then yes, I agree.
Does downtown really need another line?

exerda

Now if someone could only come up with a way to get the I-95 traffic to actually move during rush hours... maybe 10 more lanes?

cptlflyer

Don't bet on it.

BUT, I don't see what's in it for MTA -- they have MARC service on those Amtrak lines (MARC is operated under agreement between MTA, AMTRAK, and CSX), which is essentially what several of you have suggested Metro do.

For those of you who've done it, BWI is an EASY trip from Downtown Washington using MARC... or, at the very least, anyone who uses the METRO in DC will appreciate that a METRO link would certainly not be faster or easier!!!!!!!

mbstone

Cry me a ***** river. You never see a 4-car Green Line train like you see all the time during rush hour on the Blue and Yellow lines.

CrazyOne

This is a good point, especially that last bit. 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.

Probably the frequency is what they'd like to see increased. I don't see why this wouldn't still be easier to do with a couple more MARC trainsets and running some service on weekends. I dunno why they wouldn't look at this. Surely the biggest cost of such an undertaking would be building the track. Getting some more equipment and staff on existing track should be less costly and take a lot less than 20 years too. Yeah, that doesn't service those new stops that someone apparently really wants to have, but why bet only on the big pie in the sky option?

blueDC

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.

ProTexana

That would be really convenient to extend it that far, but I don't think it is cost feasible. Metro is already in loads of debt and has raised their fares recently. I say quit expanding further and further out if it means fare increases.