Agreed. Im just more confident in Metro's ability to actually improve/build things than VRE or MARC. A drastically improved regional rail system would be a game changer, I think having the metro and commuter agencies split is hindering alot of improvements.
The Camden line is useless it’s better to scrap it may as well create an intercity metro we know that almost nobody rides metros end to end. And it works in India it can work here too so no. Camden line is a failure as is the Brunswick line all passenger lines need to be government owned
@@DanHominemVirginia is going to boost VRE thanks to the ROW they purchased. But you make a good case for maglev intercity service that acts like a de facto express
@@qjtvaddict The WMATA Green Line goes right up the Camden Line to the 495 Beltway so why not extend it all the way into Baltimore with a stop at Camden and a connection to Baltimore's Metro? EDIT: 485 to 495
@@EdwardM-t8p Because metro vehicles lack the comfort passengers like to have on longer inter-city trips like that. Also, a line that long could be subject to serious delays and that would cascade onto the rest of the metro network that interacts with the Green Line either directly or indirectly.
Maryland train project wishlist: - New Bay Bridge built with heavy rail ROW to carry a new MARC line from Union station to Ocean City with stops in Bowie, Annapolis, Kent Island, Easton, Cambridge, Salisbury. - MARC line connecting Union Station to Lexington Park, generally following Route 5 with stops in Clinton, Waldorf, Hughesville, Charlotte Hall, California. -Extend the Brunswick line to Hagerstown. -Silver line to Annapolis via Bowie and Davidsonville -Orange line to Glen Burnie light rail via Lanham, Bowie State, Waugh Chapel, BWMC. -Blue line loop through national harbor to Springfield across the Wilson bridge. -Green line to BWI as you mention -Red line extensions to Germantown and Olney -New metro line connecting Rockville to Reston as an alternative option to cross the Potomac. -WMATA takes control of light rail and Baltimore subway, then adds 3 subway lines crossing Baltimore and numerous street level light rails on Baltimore’s wider avenues. -New Key Bridge with light rail ROW Let a man dream of a traffic free Maryland
Waldort and Ocean City right of ways would be huge. Through-running between MARC and VRE, too. Imagine having regular regional rail service from Baltimore to Fredericksburg!
Yes to all of this! I'd even add service from Baltimore west to Cumberland with intermediate stops in Carroll County, Frederick, Hagerstown and Frostburg. Given that the MTA is a state run agency, I feel that WMATA taking control of it would lead to lower prioritization of Baltimore area services. The current MTA should definitely be spun off into its own regional quasi-governmental agency pretty much identical to WMATA and the two could be operated as sister agencies.
@@brran1 ooh a northern MARC branch would be wonderful. I do think that Baltimore and DC should have one large interconnected transit system. Whether it is all WMATA or jointly managed, I suppose it could work either way, but I think the cities are close enough together that the systems shouldn’t be completely cut off from each other.
Did you account for bathroom breaks for the operators on the Silver line with a route from Ashburn to Annapolis via Davidsonville ? Also why in the hell would they built a metro to through Davidsonville the density drops like a rock after crossing 301, if anything the Orange line should be the one going to Annapolis even then it makes zero sense to build anything past 301 How much do you think these fares should be ? Orange line to Glen Burnie after going past Crofton you get a wall of green space there is no way in hell they would pay for this and second it would be to long. Red Line to Germantown yes, Olney no there is nothing around there and they would not recoup the money spent for decades, maybe yes to going to Leisure World or Norbeck though. Metro from Rockville to Reston; Virginia, Maryland, WMATA, Montgomery County & Fairfax County will laugh you out of the room for suggesting that. Marc to Ocean City will never happen, the furtest you will get is Easton or Denton no one is going to build a 100 miles of rail to nowhere through a bunch of farmland. The only way this gets built is if CSX wants anew rail yard over there. Marc to Lexington Park that will get built as far as LaPlata. Why something realistic like MARC to Newark, Hagerstown, Cumberland, LaPlata and electrifiying all of MARC or building all the plans for the Baltimore Metro
@@DanHominem Why would you be a line to Ocean City there is nothing between Oueenstown and Ocean City. Second would it be going along 50 or going through Delaware ?
An even more outrageous airport trip then BWI to Reagan National would be the Green line from BMI to L'Enfant Plaza and transfer to the silver line to go to Dulles.
A few things that should have been done or noted 1) Upgrade Fort Totten so that it could also be a Marc Station 2) The right of way along Green Line branch is owned by CSX until you get near the Brentwood Post Office in DC so there is no hanging on to it as they don't own it. 3) If the route is going anywhere near Arundel Mills it has to go to the mall otherwise its dumb ass hell. That station alone will probably generate enough revenue to pay for itself. 4) The route should once leaving Laurel should go straight along 198 until it reaches 32 and 175 and then along that. This way you get a station in a new area with development where you could basically design it from the start with Metro in mind, get a station at Fort Meade and Severn and then Arundel Mills. You would get many traips by themselves just between Laurel, Fort Meade, Severn & Arundel Mills. 5) The train does not need to enter BWI from the BW Parkway. The Airport owns a lot of land, if coming from Arundel Mills it could use Route 100 and then cross Dorsey Road at some point and go underneath the runways and then have the stop where the Garage or parking lot is and then on to Baltimore without needing a wye or loop. 6) After leaving BWI it would make way more sense to use Washington Blvd to go to Baltimore than Camden Line. Stations do not have to be in the exact same spot as Marc Stations. They should be where there are people. 7) It makes zero sense to end at Camden Station where there are no other rail connections; and you would have to take a bus to get anywhere it should stop at Camden but not be the terminal. If anything it should continue to Penn Station, John Hopkins University Metro Station, Bayview Station (if it ever gets built).
FWIW, it's not a bad idea to extend Metro to Baltimore, and your proposal looks darn good IMO...it's most likely not the BEST idea in regards to overall practicalities. The Camden (as well as Brunswick) line for MARC is like the red headed stepchild compared to the uber popular Penn as far as service frequencies go. I think that's where one should start for improving rail travel connections between Baltimore and DC, and then do the rapid transit method.
they need to stop building these long ass metro lines and build some legitimate regional rail. it should be regional rail to dulles instead of the silver line, same with the red line to Gaithersburg. Who would realistically use a low speed limited metro with frequent stops to go to Baltimore. all the areas in between are largely sprawling suburbs with no walking or cycling precense and complete car dependency. the only real use case is for airport workers and some lower income commuters, which is great, but it doesn't justify the billions it would cost. We could probably uber black all the airport workers to the airport for less. IMO. Good vid tho
Thank-you someone finally said it. At the very least there should be a circular area radiating from Rockville, Aspen Hill, Konterra, Six Flags, Clinton, Fort Belvior, Burke, Fairfax City, Wolf Trap, Great Falls and back to Rockvile. Anything inside of that gets Metrorail anything outside gets MARC or VRE or one major metro station to the nearest population center per line that acts as a hub in places like Dulles Airport, Centreville, Woodbridge, Bowie, Laurel and Gaithersburg and thats it.
Long express metros ARE regional rail. You add express tracks and have express trains do the long trips. And as for walking JUST ADD THE INFRASTRUCTURE ITS NOT HARD IS USA SO INEPT AND STUPID IT CANT DO THE BARE MINIMUM
How about we stop trying to run passenger trains on tracks clogged with freight. It’s lazy and incompetent CSX IS USING THE TRACKS no space stop trying. THE MARC has an average speed that is 33 mph far less than the top speed of WMATA which is designed for 75 mph speeds. The Camden line is useless there’s a hard limit on trains per day rendering the Brunswick and Camden lines useless
@@qjtvaddict The wmata average speed is 33mph and the MARC average speed on the Penn Line is 44mph. Both are slow but Marc top speeds are 120 supposedly. Silver line and red line express service would also be great if they don't wanna make a separate RR service. I was recently in Ireland and the Dart was absolutely fantastic, was a branch system, and was all diesel. Would love to see that in DC, hard to determine what the main corridor would be though.
The only problem is that that will require a transfer, which is not that different from what we have for BWI right now. Oftentimes, people flying would have bags, and an unnecessary transfer would discourage people from using the Metro (or any railroad, to be honest) for the added inconvenience. Also, regional rail services tend to be a lot more expensive, unreliable, and infrequent than metro lines.
It's an interesting idea in a world with infinite resources and political will. I really appreciate the detail of your approach, looking at specific alignments and elevation changes, you definitely went way above and beyond crayoning in my opinion, haha. But, I disagree with the concept overall. A few critiques: you disregard the Penn Line as "out of the way" and being on a bad alignment, allowing you to compare your proposal to the Camden Line. Despite the slightly circuitous route, the Penn Line is definitely the stronger competitor than the Camden Line. Since it runs on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor tracks, its a simple funding issue to add more frequency there. Between MARC Penn Line and Amtrak, there are 52 trains leaving DC and stopping at BWI on northbound trips tomorrow! That's already a really good level of service! In the same vein, I think the length of time of this trip makes it impractical. Even with the circuitous route, a MARC Penn Line train making all stops takes 35 minutes, and Amtrak generally 20-25. I don't see a downtown-to-BWI trip along this route taking less than an hour, probably a bit more. That length of trip is going to be a major negative for most riders. In terms of the intermediary service, I don't think the level of development justifies it. From 30,000 feet on google earth, areas like Laurel and Annapolis Junction look like decent sized towns, but realistically if you've seen them in person, they're just near-continual strip malls with lots of suburban single family homes behind them, which will be mostly park-and-ride style stations. Maybe it sparks future development and rezoning, but I don't see this as a priority area for new Metro service when there are so many much denser destinations in DC that are ripe for development. Again, I really like your approach. I would love to see you tackle a concept inside DC, like maybe an Orange-Line realignment that makes it truly distinct from the SV/BL and not just a branch of that main trunk line.
Thank you for the well thought criticism! There are a few reasons I brought up this route that I probably should have went into more detail on, but it mostly revolves around Baltimore and DC becoming more intergrated over time and the large amount of development in that area. Beyond Laurel, I do see the route becoming less and less useful, and honestly drastically improved MARC service on Camden and Penn would also be a great idea as well. I would love to see a DC RER type service.
Metro to Brandywine or Waldorf would be beyond worth it. It would relieve that bottleneck on branch ave when it drops from 3 lanes to 2 lanes and back to 3 when entering Brandywine. The station could be right around that Carmax. Waldorf station possibly around St. Charles Towne Center.
Nice video. Question for you. What if both Metro and MTA allowed the use of both of their fare cards on both systems? Metro fares in Baltimore and Charm City fares in DC. Both would be used on the Marc and VRE. The VRE and the Marc would now operate like a subway on the weekends. For example, I would be happy to go to Lexington Market in Baltimore from Benning Road Station and being charged one fare then having to transfer and pay a separate fare to get to Baltimore. I would love for some of these options to be implemented but it would take forever for the money to get approved and then the construction to begin. We don’t want another grey line to Dulles debacle or Silver Spring delays.
This would be great, but unlikely. Right now, Baltimore's system does actually accept SmarTrip, but only cash fares. (No passes) Even places like NYC struggle with fare intergration. IMO, MDOT, WMATA, VRE and MARC need to work on a truly regional transit organization, but thats just wishful thinking. Though there are rumors of a MARC and VRE merger or at least a high level of cooperation
@@DanHominemThey did, I used my SmartTrip card on the Baltimore Light Rail for payment because it was essentially the same thing as the MTA Charm Card. Now I use the MTA Charm Pass app in Baltimore and to ride MARC.
I thought of another northern green line alignment that would run this way: North using the CSX alignment you described to Laurel Race Track station, then turn east with a new station in Maryland City. After this, the line would swing north at 295 with a new stop at 295/175 serving Jessup and Ft. Meade area commuters. After this, the train would continue north then turn right to follow Arundel Mills Blvd to a new station at the forested parcel (likely used for catchment) at Arundel Mills Blvd and Ridge Road. After this, there would be an additional stop at the BWI Rental Car Center, a transfer stop at BWI Amtrak, and then the terminus at a new joint BWI Light Rail/Metrorail station. From there, folks can switch to the light rail for the trip into Baltimore. This would capture multiple job areas with higher residential density as well as providing multiple transfer options and a stop right at the airport. WMATA could even zone the last three stops for a special rate (like TfL does for Heathrow).
As someone who lives in Baltimore, I sorta like this idea! One thing though, I think that terminating neither at Penn nor at Camden seem to be a particularly good idea. While Baltimore probably shouldn't be called a 'sprawling' city, it is kind of large in area (with more uniform, continuous density, instead of having a significantly denser 'downtown core', at least not as much as most other American cities), and unfortunately, I don't think we have particularly good transit coverage. ;( But that brings me some 'crazier' ideas on how the downtown BAL part of this line, for example, staying on the i-95 corridor and cross the harbor :) (I think we definitely need MORE cross-harbor transportation options here, especially in the form of rail transit), serving certain 'transit deserts', such as port Covington, Harbor East, and even Fells Point. (The first 2 are actually some of the hottest 'new developments' in recent years). Although I do have to agree that the ultimate solution for a more integrated BAL-WAS transit line, or even an BWI transit line, would be a more 'express metro' style operation for Marc, especially Camden line. Just looked at the map and darn you're right, this line is way closer to density than this section of the NEC. And yet the Camden line's operation is so bad that I haven't even taken it, after living here for literally 2+ years...
I think to BWI would be great along the alignment closer to 295 since the green line is already on the north/western side of it and east of us 1. A great distance between both would really great and serving laurel is a must. Also improving Marc in that area and all over the state is a must, especially since they’ve been talking about extending it into northern va and to Philly
this is actually a genius idea I think. Why beg at the heals of CSX to have more Camden line service when we could (theoretically) build our own tracks on the existing right of way and run our own service that way? I think Maryland actually toyed with a similar idea as a light rail project back in the early 2000s. The Camden line has been one of my biggest disappointments since I moved to Baltimore 3 years ago. It's alignment is so eminently practical, yet it ends up being nearly useless because they hardly run any actual trains on the damn thing. I have friends who chose to live in Laurel because it's halfway between DC and Baltimore and they needed access to both. A commuter line between the two would be lifechanging, and even though one technically exists, it's nearly impossible to use owing to its abysmal schedule, so they still have to maintain and drive two cars through DC/Baltimore rush hour traffic every day...
I think its doable. A wild futuristic fantasy would be that it would possibly go underground somewhere around the football stadium, link up with the existing subway line and run out to Owings Mills!
a Metro extension would be better than nothing. However, I find that WMATA should be focused on staying in the beltway. The silver line out from Tysons should have been VRE, not Metro. I think that service enhancements on the Penn and Camden lines of MARC, including using NEC track and purchase of right-of-way would be the best use of MARC. In a perfect world I would love to see VRE run from Richmond, through DC, and end in New Carrolton and have MARC run from their current termini, adding a branch to Annapolis, and ending in Alexandria. Move toward true regional rail with VRE and MARC
I've been saying for a decade now that DC Metro's green line needs to be extended along 295 and meet up with Baltimore's subway line at Lexington Market. I like a lot of your station and routing suggestions. I think the Metro expansion would help address daily traffic problems on 95 and 295 much better than adding additional lanes since that'll just make 495, 100, and 32 worse. The closer stations are are big employers (National Business Park), Arundel Mills, and townhouse communities the better. Move the people from where they live to where they work and shop. I don't really care if subways, traditional rail, monorails, or light rails are used to connect DC, Baltimore, and all the points of interest in between. I just care about traffic being reduced on 100 and 295. If I could take a train or bus to and from work every day reliably, then I'd choose that over sitting in the same daily traffic jams. No such train or bus does the route I need to take.
I have a suggestion for the Branch to BWI, would a Wye make sense? I looked at it and it seems like if you were to simply branch off to BWI then flip the switch and continue onwards
Maybe? I think a branch would work better for a few reasons. First, Baltimore is already connected to BWI directly by the LRT, and a branch would also allow a more direct Dc to Baltimore trip.
@@DanHominem Why not have it come from a differation direction should that all trains could stop at BWI and ones going to Baltimore could continue. Perhaps have a 4 track station where two tracks are meant for trains continuing to Baltimore and the other tracks for going toward DC
This was something I thought about way back in 1977 😮 I work at BWI the number of people who ask me how to get to Greenbelt is crazy. B30 has been down since The Virus 😮
If you could get anything built along the BW Parkway land I’d LOVE to see it, they refuse to do ANY development along that highway, doubtful they’d change. They want that thing to look as it has all my life with NO change.
@qjtvaddict Main issue there is there is no rail to Annapolis already, so itll require original contruction either way. But thst long of a distance, "commuter" rail makes more sense, especially with the lack of sensity. DC needs a Philly or Chicago scale commuter rail honestly
Why are your station sites all so big? Every station does not need a parking lot. Annapolis Junction, in particular does not need one because it's a destination, not an origin. (People don't leave their car at work to take the Metro home.) I'm also confused by Arundel Mall. Malls are not trip attractors. The other Dorchester station is better because it's closer to housing.
My approach to this was along the lines of "what would actually end up being built after political shenanigans and planning" and came to the conclusion that almost evey station would end up being a P&R for better or worse. Ideally, a station with a direct connection to or under Arundel Mills would be best imo.
It would be nice since the B30 no longer exists. In used to take it because it ran every 30 minutes and it was a blessing. Then it became once an hour, then weekends only then discontinued. A one seat, cheaper ride to D.C. is a no brainer. But MTA Maryland would have to foot most if the bill so that will never happen. If MARC at Camden ran daily every half hour it would be more plausible but more expensive and they have to deal with CSX and their bullsh*t as it is.
MARC used to run special train service to Orioles games from Union Station to Camden Yards but discontinued it because the CSX tracks make more money off of freight service and they couldn’t guarantee a connection with the Washington Metro at Union Station before the last train arrives.
MARC and Amtrak provide pretty good coverage as long as you're not arriving later in the evening. The shuttle is horrendously unreliable but if they ran it every 10m and you're travelling at peak hours I'd argue BWI has a better DC connection than Dulles. The Northeast corridor was built for speed and makes the actual train part of the trip quite fast. I'd personally actually prefer a bus service to ease the hours where MARC is infrequent as those are the same hours where traffic is bearable anyway. Since 2020 no WMATA busses serve BWI and this would be a relatively easy way to further improve its connectivity. WMATA needs to focus any rail expansion funding it gets on the the parts of DC that are already dense but poorly served in my opinion, it was already built to serve the suburbs more than trips within the city itself.
I don't see the logic of running into Baltimore - but I absolutely do see the logic of a BWI extension. With identical gauges, if the engineering can be developed to have both 3rd rail and catenary, the Green Line can use the same rails as the Baltimore Light Rail into the terminal. That would allow a good exchange to LR from the Green Line if you really wanted to go on to Baltimore...
The cities are really close and growing together, and if the track goes to BWI, might as well get the ridership benefit from going all the way to Baltimore.
@@DanHominem True - but I think it's best to look at mass transit development as a full system. There currently are 1-stop options for most DC residents to get to Baltimore (Metro to either the Camden or Penn MARC lines to Baltimore). There is no one-stop option for access from DC to BWI however (unless you stop at the BWI station you mentioned, but that actually is a 2-stop option as there is a bus from the station to the terminal). Your proposed Green Line extension to the BWI Terminal - if it were to use the Light Rail fascilities - offers just that - a 1-stop option from anywhere in DC to BWI airport. Functionally this would mean that any resident of DC could get on any of the Metro lines at their home station, and only need to change trains once to get to any of the three metropolitan airport options. That is HUGE. The added cost to get to Baltimore with a branch however is extreme. Remember that this means many more trainsets in addition to the trackage. The only DC residents who would get a transit benefit from that portion are those that live along the portions of the blue and silver lines that do not overlap with orange (those are the only portions of the DC Metro system that do not currently offer a 1-stop option to Baltimore, all other lines and sections do with MARC or Amtrak connections at multiple points on the orange, red, and green lines - providing yellow line service is ultimately expanded back to Greenbelt...
@@NikonF5user The problems with reusing Light Rail for Metrorail are that it's not grade separated (lots of places where it runs on roads, a bad thing for a subway) and the platform is tooo short and there's no room.
Interesting that it’s intercity travel, however I don’t think a subway or any heavy rail transit should have to go that far into another city that has its own heavy rail transit. Then again there the Silver line but still. Ashburn doesn’t have a rail line anyway. That I’m aware of at least. I’ll be too old by the time if it ever comes into fruition. 🙁
DC and Baltimore are two totally different metro areas, butt for some reason you people keep trying to make Baltimore a suburb of DC, it’s two totally different cities, two totally different cultures, I think the mark train is the best way to get up there, and BWI is more of a Baltimore Airport. they added DC name to it to make it more of a household name 🤷🏽
This is insane and this idea needs to stop coming up. Improvements to MARC like frequency, re-electroficatjln, through-running to VA, and rolling stock would be faster, cheaper, and actually serve the needs of the area better.
Since you're doing a WMATA extension to BWI why not all the way to downtown Baltimore to connect to Camden Station and its Metro too? EDIT: Oh, you covered that. Thank you!😊
I just stumbled on this and... ehhhh... it's similar to a lot of other proposals. There's been a few better ones by MTA Maryland, though, and given some experience I have on MARC... well... there's better solutions. The big thing to note is by comparison, MARC on any level is an express service in comparison to Metrorail. Metrorail will be *slower* and MARC will beat it on price and speed. That said, expanding CSX's rail capacity for MARC is better off. This is where you need to get a bigger picture of rail operations. In general: Three tracks DC to Baltimore, freight fly-overs as needed, move Laurel to where there's more room for a proper garage, close Jessup (it's rarely used since Dorsey came in), and get shuttle service from Dorsey to BWI. Alternatively to shuttle service, build a elevated rail shuttle system between Dorsey, the Airport Rental Car Facility, MDOT HQ, Amtrak/MARC BWI, loop through the airport, BWI Business Park Light Rail, and BWI Long-term parking. Truncate Light Rail at the Business Park, and require transfer to said rail shuttle.
Yeah, you are onto the right way to do it. Make the Camden line capable of hourly or better (like 30 or 45 minute) commuter service all day long, tied with a shuttle train (probably automated) to the airport is the right answer. Some cool things they could do would be a cross platform transfer at a re-built Greenbelt station (like Newark Penn connection to PATH - divided platform with fare gates to get to the metro side) with Camden line outside, Metro inside. That'd make a smooth flow from Metro to the commuter line for anyone coming up that way vs via Union station. Jessup is intentionally useless - one train to DC in the AM stops, and one to Baltimore in the evening. Maybe they think someday that area will change and someone will build transit oriented stuff so they don't want to abandon it
@@mgzuck A cross transfer of Greenbelt to MARC won't happen because of the two different payment methods involved. This is subway VS commuter rail, after all. And Jessup... well, it was good back in 1995 but suffered from a small parking lot. When Dorsey opened up near 2000, everyone went to it. Jessup is a shell of it's former self and the parking is more useful for the side park there.
@@qjtvaddict I'm assuming that you're thinking of pulling the MTA Maryland LRT down to handle traffic between the airport and the Amtrak station. If you had ridden the LRT itself, having to haul bags UP into the vehicle and then back DOWN again, you would not have suggested "extend the LRT." Because any solution to that won't come fast enough for anyone's liking.
We just need the green line to extend through beltsville, konterra and Laurel. Then Md needs the purple line to extend to bowie if wmata cross jurisdictions difficulties won’t allow to extend blue or silver. Extension to being is unnecessary.
The metro isn’t for intercity trips, if we want to make Baltimore easier to get to then we should make the penn and Camden lines better.
Agreed. Im just more confident in Metro's ability to actually improve/build things than VRE or MARC.
A drastically improved regional rail system would be a game changer, I think having the metro and commuter agencies split is hindering alot of improvements.
The Camden line is useless it’s better to scrap it may as well create an intercity metro we know that almost nobody rides metros end to end. And it works in India it can work here too so no. Camden line is a failure as is the Brunswick line all passenger lines need to be government owned
@@DanHominemVirginia is going to boost VRE thanks to the ROW they purchased. But you make a good case for maglev intercity service that acts like a de facto express
@@qjtvaddict The WMATA Green Line goes right up the Camden Line to the 495 Beltway so why not extend it all the way into Baltimore with a stop at Camden and a connection to Baltimore's Metro?
EDIT: 485 to 495
@@EdwardM-t8p Because metro vehicles lack the comfort passengers like to have on longer inter-city trips like that. Also, a line that long could be subject to serious delays and that would cascade onto the rest of the metro network that interacts with the Green Line either directly or indirectly.
The state of Maryland owns BWI. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority owns DCA & IAD. Maryland likes to have their own transportation.
Maryland train project wishlist:
- New Bay Bridge built with heavy rail ROW to carry a new MARC line from Union station to Ocean City with stops in Bowie, Annapolis, Kent Island, Easton, Cambridge, Salisbury.
- MARC line connecting Union Station to Lexington Park, generally following Route 5 with stops in Clinton, Waldorf, Hughesville, Charlotte Hall, California.
-Extend the Brunswick line to Hagerstown.
-Silver line to Annapolis via Bowie and Davidsonville
-Orange line to Glen Burnie light rail via Lanham, Bowie State, Waugh Chapel, BWMC.
-Blue line loop through national harbor to Springfield across the Wilson bridge.
-Green line to BWI as you mention
-Red line extensions to Germantown and Olney
-New metro line connecting Rockville to Reston as an alternative option to cross the Potomac.
-WMATA takes control of light rail and Baltimore subway, then adds 3 subway lines crossing Baltimore and numerous street level light rails on Baltimore’s wider avenues.
-New Key Bridge with light rail ROW
Let a man dream of a traffic free Maryland
Waldort and Ocean City right of ways would be huge. Through-running between MARC and VRE, too. Imagine having regular regional rail service from Baltimore to Fredericksburg!
Yes to all of this! I'd even add service from Baltimore west to Cumberland with intermediate stops in Carroll County, Frederick, Hagerstown and Frostburg.
Given that the MTA is a state run agency, I feel that WMATA taking control of it would lead to lower prioritization of Baltimore area services. The current MTA should definitely be spun off into its own regional quasi-governmental agency pretty much identical to WMATA and the two could be operated as sister agencies.
@@brran1 ooh a northern MARC branch would be wonderful.
I do think that Baltimore and DC should have one large interconnected transit system. Whether it is all WMATA or jointly managed, I suppose it could work either way, but I think the cities are close enough together that the systems shouldn’t be completely cut off from each other.
Did you account for bathroom breaks for the operators on the Silver line with a route from Ashburn to Annapolis via Davidsonville ? Also why in the hell would they built a metro to through Davidsonville the density drops like a rock after crossing 301, if anything the Orange line should be the one going to Annapolis even then it makes zero sense to build anything past 301
How much do you think these fares should be ?
Orange line to Glen Burnie after going past Crofton you get a wall of green space there is no way in hell they would pay for this and second it would be to long.
Red Line to Germantown yes, Olney no there is nothing around there and they would not recoup the money spent for decades, maybe yes to going to Leisure World or Norbeck though.
Metro from Rockville to Reston; Virginia, Maryland, WMATA, Montgomery County & Fairfax County will laugh you out of the room for suggesting that.
Marc to Ocean City will never happen, the furtest you will get is Easton or Denton no one is going to build a 100 miles of rail to nowhere through a bunch of farmland. The only way this gets built is if CSX wants anew rail yard over there.
Marc to Lexington Park that will get built as far as LaPlata.
Why something realistic like
MARC to Newark, Hagerstown, Cumberland, LaPlata and electrifiying all of MARC or building all the plans for the Baltimore Metro
@@DanHominem Why would you be a line to Ocean City there is nothing between Oueenstown and Ocean City. Second would it be going along 50 or going through Delaware ?
Let's connect Annapolis too. Why not?
An even more outrageous airport trip then BWI to Reagan National would be the Green line from BMI to L'Enfant Plaza and transfer to the silver line to go to Dulles.
Sounds like something Spirit Airline would call a standard layover lol
A few things that should have been done or noted
1) Upgrade Fort Totten so that it could also be a Marc Station
2) The right of way along Green Line branch is owned by CSX until you get near the Brentwood Post Office in DC so there is no hanging on to it as they don't own it.
3) If the route is going anywhere near Arundel Mills it has to go to the mall otherwise its dumb ass hell. That station alone will probably generate enough revenue to pay for itself.
4) The route should once leaving Laurel should go straight along 198 until it reaches 32 and 175 and then along that. This way you get a station in a new area with development where you could basically design it from the start with Metro in mind, get a station at Fort Meade and Severn and then Arundel Mills. You would get many traips by themselves just between Laurel, Fort Meade, Severn & Arundel Mills.
5) The train does not need to enter BWI from the BW Parkway. The Airport owns a lot of land, if coming from Arundel Mills it could use Route 100 and then cross Dorsey Road at some point and go underneath the runways and then have the stop where the Garage or parking lot is and then on to Baltimore without needing a wye or loop.
6) After leaving BWI it would make way more sense to use Washington Blvd to go to Baltimore than Camden Line. Stations do not have to be in the exact same spot as Marc Stations. They should be where there are people.
7) It makes zero sense to end at Camden Station where there are no other rail connections; and you would have to take a bus to get anywhere it should stop at Camden but not be the terminal. If anything it should continue to Penn Station, John Hopkins University Metro Station, Bayview Station (if it ever gets built).
This is just... Perfect ✨
FWIW, it's not a bad idea to extend Metro to Baltimore, and your proposal looks darn good IMO...it's most likely not the BEST idea in regards to overall practicalities. The Camden (as well as Brunswick) line for MARC is like the red headed stepchild compared to the uber popular Penn as far as service frequencies go. I think that's where one should start for improving rail travel connections between Baltimore and DC, and then do the rapid transit method.
They cant improve it because its owned by CSX; CSX would rather have the line shutdown than increase service on the line.
they need to stop building these long ass metro lines and build some legitimate regional rail. it should be regional rail to dulles instead of the silver line, same with the red line to Gaithersburg. Who would realistically use a low speed limited metro with frequent stops to go to Baltimore. all the areas in between are largely sprawling suburbs with no walking or cycling precense and complete car dependency. the only real use case is for airport workers and some lower income commuters, which is great, but it doesn't justify the billions it would cost. We could probably uber black all the airport workers to the airport for less. IMO. Good vid tho
Thank-you someone finally said it. At the very least there should be a circular area radiating from Rockville, Aspen Hill, Konterra, Six Flags, Clinton, Fort Belvior, Burke, Fairfax City, Wolf Trap, Great Falls and back to Rockvile. Anything inside of that gets Metrorail anything outside gets MARC or VRE or one major metro station to the nearest population center per line that acts as a hub in places like Dulles Airport, Centreville, Woodbridge, Bowie, Laurel and Gaithersburg and thats it.
Long express metros ARE regional rail. You add express tracks and have express trains do the long trips. And as for walking JUST ADD THE INFRASTRUCTURE ITS NOT HARD IS USA SO INEPT AND STUPID IT CANT DO THE BARE MINIMUM
How about we stop trying to run passenger trains on tracks clogged with freight. It’s lazy and incompetent CSX IS USING THE TRACKS no space stop trying. THE MARC has an average speed that is 33 mph far less than the top speed of WMATA which is designed for 75 mph speeds. The Camden line is useless there’s a hard limit on trains per day rendering the Brunswick and Camden lines useless
@@qjtvaddict The wmata average speed is 33mph and the MARC average speed on the Penn Line is 44mph. Both are slow but Marc top speeds are 120 supposedly. Silver line and red line express service would also be great if they don't wanna make a separate RR service.
I was recently in Ireland and the Dart was absolutely fantastic, was a branch system, and was all diesel. Would love to see that in DC, hard to determine what the main corridor would be though.
The only problem is that that will require a transfer, which is not that different from what we have for BWI right now. Oftentimes, people flying would have bags, and an unnecessary transfer would discourage people from using the Metro (or any railroad, to be honest) for the added inconvenience. Also, regional rail services tend to be a lot more expensive, unreliable, and infrequent than metro lines.
It's an interesting idea in a world with infinite resources and political will. I really appreciate the detail of your approach, looking at specific alignments and elevation changes, you definitely went way above and beyond crayoning in my opinion, haha. But, I disagree with the concept overall.
A few critiques: you disregard the Penn Line as "out of the way" and being on a bad alignment, allowing you to compare your proposal to the Camden Line. Despite the slightly circuitous route, the Penn Line is definitely the stronger competitor than the Camden Line. Since it runs on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor tracks, its a simple funding issue to add more frequency there. Between MARC Penn Line and Amtrak, there are 52 trains leaving DC and stopping at BWI on northbound trips tomorrow! That's already a really good level of service! In the same vein, I think the length of time of this trip makes it impractical. Even with the circuitous route, a MARC Penn Line train making all stops takes 35 minutes, and Amtrak generally 20-25. I don't see a downtown-to-BWI trip along this route taking less than an hour, probably a bit more. That length of trip is going to be a major negative for most riders.
In terms of the intermediary service, I don't think the level of development justifies it. From 30,000 feet on google earth, areas like Laurel and Annapolis Junction look like decent sized towns, but realistically if you've seen them in person, they're just near-continual strip malls with lots of suburban single family homes behind them, which will be mostly park-and-ride style stations. Maybe it sparks future development and rezoning, but I don't see this as a priority area for new Metro service when there are so many much denser destinations in DC that are ripe for development.
Again, I really like your approach. I would love to see you tackle a concept inside DC, like maybe an Orange-Line realignment that makes it truly distinct from the SV/BL and not just a branch of that main trunk line.
Thank you for the well thought criticism! There are a few reasons I brought up this route that I probably should have went into more detail on, but it mostly revolves around Baltimore and DC becoming more intergrated over time and the large amount of development in that area.
Beyond Laurel, I do see the route becoming less and less useful, and honestly drastically improved MARC service on Camden and Penn would also be a great idea as well. I would love to see a DC RER type service.
Metro to Brandywine or Waldorf would be beyond worth it. It would relieve that bottleneck on branch ave when it drops from 3 lanes to 2 lanes and back to 3 when entering Brandywine. The station could be right around that Carmax. Waldorf station possibly around St. Charles Towne Center.
Totally agree..it would make more sense to include Charles county in the loop
Nice video. Question for you. What if both Metro and MTA allowed the use of both of their fare cards on both systems? Metro fares in Baltimore and Charm City fares in DC. Both would be used on the Marc and VRE. The VRE and the Marc would now operate like a subway on the weekends. For example, I would be happy to go to Lexington Market in Baltimore from Benning Road Station and being charged one fare then having to transfer and pay a separate fare to get to Baltimore. I would love for some of these options to be implemented but it would take forever for the money to get approved and then the construction to begin. We don’t want another grey line to Dulles debacle or Silver Spring delays.
This would be great, but unlikely. Right now, Baltimore's system does actually accept SmarTrip, but only cash fares. (No passes) Even places like NYC struggle with fare intergration. IMO, MDOT, WMATA, VRE and MARC need to work on a truly regional transit organization, but thats just wishful thinking. Though there are rumors of a MARC and VRE merger or at least a high level of cooperation
@@DanHominemThey did, I used my SmartTrip card on the Baltimore Light Rail for payment because it was essentially the same thing as the MTA Charm Card.
Now I use the MTA Charm Pass app in Baltimore and to ride MARC.
I thought of another northern green line alignment that would run this way:
North using the CSX alignment you described to Laurel Race Track station, then turn east with a new station in Maryland City. After this, the line would swing north at 295 with a new stop at 295/175 serving Jessup and Ft. Meade area commuters. After this, the train would continue north then turn right to follow Arundel Mills Blvd to a new station at the forested parcel (likely used for catchment) at Arundel Mills Blvd and Ridge Road. After this, there would be an additional stop at the BWI Rental Car Center, a transfer stop at BWI Amtrak, and then the terminus at a new joint BWI Light Rail/Metrorail station. From there, folks can switch to the light rail for the trip into Baltimore.
This would capture multiple job areas with higher residential density as well as providing multiple transfer options and a stop right at the airport. WMATA could even zone the last three stops for a special rate (like TfL does for Heathrow).
I think this is close to the route Metro has proposed a few times.
Interesting route! I never thought about having a branch to BWI, but it makes a lot of sense!
As someone who lives in Baltimore, I sorta like this idea! One thing though, I think that terminating neither at Penn nor at Camden seem to be a particularly good idea. While Baltimore probably shouldn't be called a 'sprawling' city, it is kind of large in area (with more uniform, continuous density, instead of having a significantly denser 'downtown core', at least not as much as most other American cities), and unfortunately, I don't think we have particularly good transit coverage. ;( But that brings me some 'crazier' ideas on how the downtown BAL part of this line, for example, staying on the i-95 corridor and cross the harbor :) (I think we definitely need MORE cross-harbor transportation options here, especially in the form of rail transit), serving certain 'transit deserts', such as port Covington, Harbor East, and even Fells Point. (The first 2 are actually some of the hottest 'new developments' in recent years).
Although I do have to agree that the ultimate solution for a more integrated BAL-WAS transit line, or even an BWI transit line, would be a more 'express metro' style operation for Marc, especially Camden line. Just looked at the map and darn you're right, this line is way closer to density than this section of the NEC. And yet the Camden line's operation is so bad that I haven't even taken it, after living here for literally 2+ years...
I think to BWI would be great along the alignment closer to 295 since the green line is already on the north/western side of it and east of us 1. A great distance between both would really great and serving laurel is a must. Also improving Marc in that area and all over the state is a must, especially since they’ve been talking about extending it into northern va and to Philly
P.S. Annapolis Junction has a MARC Camden Line station - seems logical to meet that station and make a connection site...
The connection site itself is not going to be station friendly most likely, but Halethorpe is quite close!
this is actually a genius idea I think. Why beg at the heals of CSX to have more Camden line service when we could (theoretically) build our own tracks on the existing right of way and run our own service that way? I think Maryland actually toyed with a similar idea as a light rail project back in the early 2000s.
The Camden line has been one of my biggest disappointments since I moved to Baltimore 3 years ago. It's alignment is so eminently practical, yet it ends up being nearly useless because they hardly run any actual trains on the damn thing. I have friends who chose to live in Laurel because it's halfway between DC and Baltimore and they needed access to both. A commuter line between the two would be lifechanging, and even though one technically exists, it's nearly impossible to use owing to its abysmal schedule, so they still have to maintain and drive two cars through DC/Baltimore rush hour traffic every day...
No need for BWI branch extend the light rail to connect to the green line
I think its doable.
A wild futuristic fantasy would be that it would possibly go underground somewhere around the football stadium, link up with the existing subway line and run out to Owings Mills!
a Metro extension would be better than nothing. However, I find that WMATA should be focused on staying in the beltway. The silver line out from Tysons should have been VRE, not Metro. I think that service enhancements on the Penn and Camden lines of MARC, including using NEC track and purchase of right-of-way would be the best use of MARC.
In a perfect world I would love to see VRE run from Richmond, through DC, and end in New Carrolton and have MARC run from their current termini, adding a branch to Annapolis, and ending in Alexandria. Move toward true regional rail with VRE and MARC
Isn't the VRE supposed to go to Alexandria?
I've been saying for a decade now that DC Metro's green line needs to be extended along 295 and meet up with Baltimore's subway line at Lexington Market. I like a lot of your station and routing suggestions. I think the Metro expansion would help address daily traffic problems on 95 and 295 much better than adding additional lanes since that'll just make 495, 100, and 32 worse. The closer stations are are big employers (National Business Park), Arundel Mills, and townhouse communities the better. Move the people from where they live to where they work and shop.
I don't really care if subways, traditional rail, monorails, or light rails are used to connect DC, Baltimore, and all the points of interest in between. I just care about traffic being reduced on 100 and 295. If I could take a train or bus to and from work every day reliably, then I'd choose that over sitting in the same daily traffic jams. No such train or bus does the route I need to take.
I have a suggestion for the Branch to BWI, would a Wye make sense? I looked at it and it seems like if you were to simply branch off to BWI then flip the switch and continue onwards
Maybe? I think a branch would work better for a few reasons. First, Baltimore is already connected to BWI directly by the LRT, and a branch would also allow a more direct Dc to Baltimore trip.
@@DanHominem Why not have it come from a differation direction should that all trains could stop at BWI and ones going to Baltimore could continue. Perhaps have a 4 track station where two tracks are meant for trains continuing to Baltimore and the other tracks for going toward DC
This was something I thought about way back in 1977 😮 I work at BWI the number of people who ask me how to get to Greenbelt is crazy. B30 has been down since The Virus 😮
If you could get anything built along the BW Parkway land I’d LOVE to see it, they refuse to do ANY development along that highway, doubtful they’d change. They want that thing to look as it has all my life with NO change.
I'd like to see a WMATA to Annapolis video!
That ironically makes more sense as a MARC extension
@qjtvaddict Main issue there is there is no rail to Annapolis already, so itll require original contruction either way. But thst long of a distance, "commuter" rail makes more sense, especially with the lack of sensity.
DC needs a Philly or Chicago scale commuter rail honestly
It would probably look like two decades behind schedule, and four billion dollars over budget.
Why extend the Green Line?? There’s already have MARC trains from Baltimore going to New Carrollton/Orange Line…why not just extend that line?
Why are your station sites all so big? Every station does not need a parking lot. Annapolis Junction, in particular does not need one because it's a destination, not an origin. (People don't leave their car at work to take the Metro home.) I'm also confused by Arundel Mall. Malls are not trip attractors. The other Dorchester station is better because it's closer to housing.
My approach to this was along the lines of "what would actually end up being built after political shenanigans and planning" and came to the conclusion that almost evey station would end up being a P&R for better or worse.
Ideally, a station with a direct connection to or under Arundel Mills would be best imo.
It would be nice since the B30 no longer exists. In used to take it because it ran every 30 minutes and it was a blessing. Then it became once an hour, then weekends only then discontinued. A one seat, cheaper ride to D.C. is a no brainer. But MTA Maryland would have to foot most if the bill so that will never happen. If MARC at Camden ran daily every half hour it would be more plausible but more expensive and they have to deal with CSX and their bullsh*t as it is.
MARC used to run special train service to Orioles games from Union Station to Camden Yards but discontinued it because the CSX tracks make more money off of freight service and they couldn’t guarantee a connection with the Washington Metro at Union Station before the last train arrives.
MARC and Amtrak provide pretty good coverage as long as you're not arriving later in the evening. The shuttle is horrendously unreliable but if they ran it every 10m and you're travelling at peak hours I'd argue BWI has a better DC connection than Dulles. The Northeast corridor was built for speed and makes the actual train part of the trip quite fast. I'd personally actually prefer a bus service to ease the hours where MARC is infrequent as those are the same hours where traffic is bearable anyway. Since 2020 no WMATA busses serve BWI and this would be a relatively easy way to further improve its connectivity.
WMATA needs to focus any rail expansion funding it gets on the the parts of DC that are already dense but poorly served in my opinion, it was already built to serve the suburbs more than trips within the city itself.
What program did you use?
Google Earth Pro
I’d like to see an AirTrain link from BWI-Marshal Airport to the BWI rail station.
I don't see the logic of running into Baltimore - but I absolutely do see the logic of a BWI extension. With identical gauges, if the engineering can be developed to have both 3rd rail and catenary, the Green Line can use the same rails as the Baltimore Light Rail into the terminal. That would allow a good exchange to LR from the Green Line if you really wanted to go on to Baltimore...
The cities are really close and growing together, and if the track goes to BWI, might as well get the ridership benefit from going all the way to Baltimore.
@@DanHominem True - but I think it's best to look at mass transit development as a full system. There currently are 1-stop options for most DC residents to get to Baltimore (Metro to either the Camden or Penn MARC lines to Baltimore). There is no one-stop option for access from DC to BWI however (unless you stop at the BWI station you mentioned, but that actually is a 2-stop option as there is a bus from the station to the terminal). Your proposed Green Line extension to the BWI Terminal - if it were to use the Light Rail fascilities - offers just that - a 1-stop option from anywhere in DC to BWI airport. Functionally this would mean that any resident of DC could get on any of the Metro lines at their home station, and only need to change trains once to get to any of the three metropolitan airport options. That is HUGE. The added cost to get to Baltimore with a branch however is extreme. Remember that this means many more trainsets in addition to the trackage. The only DC residents who would get a transit benefit from that portion are those that live along the portions of the blue and silver lines that do not overlap with orange (those are the only portions of the DC Metro system that do not currently offer a 1-stop option to Baltimore, all other lines and sections do with MARC or Amtrak connections at multiple points on the orange, red, and green lines - providing yellow line service is ultimately expanded back to Greenbelt...
@@NikonF5user The problems with reusing Light Rail for Metrorail are that it's not grade separated (lots of places where it runs on roads, a bad thing for a subway) and the platform is tooo short and there's no room.
What software did you use to map this out?
Google Earth Pro, the final map was made in Inkscape
What If CSX or NS does not want WMATA on their lines or right of way?
It already is from College Park to Greenbelt.
@@DanHominem That doesnt mean they want more of it; they dont want Amtrak on it so why would they want to deal with someone else.
Build new tracks simple
I can’t imagine csx sharing lines with a subway system
Just FYI: the B30 bus has been discontinued. 😢
Interesting that it’s intercity travel, however I don’t think a subway or any heavy rail transit should have to go that far into another city that has its own heavy rail transit. Then again there the Silver line but still. Ashburn doesn’t have a rail line anyway. That I’m aware of at least. I’ll be too old by the time if it ever comes into fruition. 🙁
Extend the Blue Line to Bowie and extend The Green Line to Columbia northbound and Brandywine Md southbound
DC and Baltimore are two totally different metro areas, butt for some reason you people keep trying to make Baltimore a suburb of DC, it’s two totally different cities, two totally different cultures, I think the mark train is the best way to get up there, and BWI is more of a Baltimore Airport. they added DC name to it to make it more of a household name 🤷🏽
This is insane and this idea needs to stop coming up. Improvements to MARC like frequency, re-electroficatjln, through-running to VA, and rolling stock would be faster, cheaper, and actually serve the needs of the area better.
"Greenline/ metro" doesnt make sense to baltimore/bwi. Regional rail would be good with 30 min frequencies.
Since you're doing a WMATA extension to BWI why not all the way to downtown Baltimore to connect to Camden Station and its Metro too?
EDIT: Oh, you covered that. Thank you!😊
Very cool!
I might go to the orange line to Baltimore Penn station on metro 😊 and back 😮😊❤
16:17 - route Maryland 175 ?
19:11 - Route I-195 .. between BWI airport and UMBC college
I just stumbled on this and... ehhhh... it's similar to a lot of other proposals. There's been a few better ones by MTA Maryland, though, and given some experience I have on MARC... well... there's better solutions. The big thing to note is by comparison, MARC on any level is an express service in comparison to Metrorail. Metrorail will be *slower* and MARC will beat it on price and speed.
That said, expanding CSX's rail capacity for MARC is better off. This is where you need to get a bigger picture of rail operations. In general: Three tracks DC to Baltimore, freight fly-overs as needed, move Laurel to where there's more room for a proper garage, close Jessup (it's rarely used since Dorsey came in), and get shuttle service from Dorsey to BWI.
Alternatively to shuttle service, build a elevated rail shuttle system between Dorsey, the Airport Rental Car Facility, MDOT HQ, Amtrak/MARC BWI, loop through the airport, BWI Business Park Light Rail, and BWI Long-term parking. Truncate Light Rail at the Business Park, and require transfer to said rail shuttle.
Yeah, you are onto the right way to do it. Make the Camden line capable of hourly or better (like 30 or 45 minute) commuter service all day long, tied with a shuttle train (probably automated) to the airport is the right answer. Some cool things they could do would be a cross platform transfer at a re-built Greenbelt station (like Newark Penn connection to PATH - divided platform with fare gates to get to the metro side) with Camden line outside, Metro inside. That'd make a smooth flow from Metro to the commuter line for anyone coming up that way vs via Union station.
Jessup is intentionally useless - one train to DC in the AM stops, and one to Baltimore in the evening. Maybe they think someday that area will change and someone will build transit oriented stuff so they don't want to abandon it
@@mgzuck A cross transfer of Greenbelt to MARC won't happen because of the two different payment methods involved. This is subway VS commuter rail, after all.
And Jessup... well, it was good back in 1995 but suffered from a small parking lot. When Dorsey opened up near 2000, everyone went to it. Jessup is a shell of it's former self and the parking is more useful for the side park there.
Serves different areas
Just boost by the LRT more shuttles not needed
@@qjtvaddict I'm assuming that you're thinking of pulling the MTA Maryland LRT down to handle traffic between the airport and the Amtrak station. If you had ridden the LRT itself, having to haul bags UP into the vehicle and then back DOWN again, you would not have suggested "extend the LRT." Because any solution to that won't come fast enough for anyone's liking.
Impossible the metro doesn’t go to Baltimore.
Wrong repeal NEPA and build again
We just need the green line to extend through beltsville, konterra and Laurel. Then Md needs the purple line to extend to bowie if wmata cross jurisdictions difficulties won’t allow to extend blue or silver. Extension to being is unnecessary.