Prince George's eyes Green Line to Fort Meade
The Greater Greater Washington blog reports that Prince George's County has added to its master plan a proposal to extend the Washington Metro Green Line to Fort Meade. This would be big news for Baltimore and even bigger for Howard and Anne Arundel counties.
Currently, the Washington Metro comes no closer to Baltimore than Greenbelt -- a destination that's difficult to reach on weekday mornings without slogging through fierce congestion on Interstate 95 and the Capital Beltway.
The proposal being batted around in Prince George's would take the Green Line as far north as Route 32 near Savage before it would curve east toward Fort Meade and Odenton. That would make it a lot easier to get to Washington via Metro without getting mixed up in traffic jams.
The one thing that's striking about the proposal is how close it would come to Baltimore's light rail system without actually linking up to it. That is something that may need to be addressed jointly by the Maryland Transit Administration and WMATA. A robust, seven-day-a-week connection between the cities would be a tremendous advance for car-free mobility in the region. At the very least, as an interim measure if the MTA lags, it could allow the B30 bus from BWI to run much more frequent connections to the Metro by terminating at the nearest Green Line station.
A wild card in this plan would be how it would affect service on the MARC Camden Line. Is it possible the Green Line and Camden Line could meet at Savage or Laurel on weekends or off-peak times? That could be an even faster connection than light rail.
Fascinating possibilities. We should all live long enough to see what results.
Comments
Having the green line extended to Fort Meade would be great! It would be easier to get to DC on weekend without driving. On days the Marc melts down, Marc riders could drive to Fort Meade and take metro to DC.
Posted by: L | November 3, 2009 6:23 PM
`While baltimore builds the redline to no where Dc builds the green line to one of the job centers of the future- Ft Meade. If you are relocating to work at NSA, DSA or space intel, will you live near the new green line or near the disfunctional MARC station? Maybe the redline advocates can find you a job, part-time, at one of the two or three conventions coming to Baltimore annually. A great transit plan- redline to where the jobs are leaving and a disfunctional MARC system to where the jobs will be. Baltimore is beautiful!
Posted by: telecommutenow | November 3, 2009 7:41 PM
I would think that investing in turning MARC into Regional Rail that runs weekends like the Philly system, as opposed to expanding the Green Line to Ft. Meade, would be a better option.
The Odenton MARC stop could have a frequent shuttle service onto base, possibly.
I just think an expansion of the Green Line that far would be a heck of a commute from Washington, and it would make more sense to expand MARC.
Posted by: Jed | November 4, 2009 4:21 PM
Washingtion and Baltmore have grown so big in the last 20 years that I think it would be a good idea for some of the light rail lines in Baltmore to link up with the light rail lines that are planned to run along the purple line and I270 that would make a super Light Rail and streetcar system.
Also the Washingiton Metro and Baltmore's Subway heavy Rail Metro should link up to one another by way of heavy rail to become a super Metro system.
Posted by: Ocean Railroader | November 8, 2009 10:34 AM
Second the idea to expand MARC on "traditional rail" rather than using heavy subway (WMATA Metrorail). For the distances we're talking about (Greenbelt to Jessup), I think traditional ("heavy") rail would be better than subway. Such a service could start tomorrow using the existing two tracks (much to CSX's chagrin, I'm sure), with future public-private expansion of the CSX right of way to three and four tracks. Diesel multiple units (DMUs) could be used initially, with the possibility for future overhead electrification. There are existing cross-platform transfers between the Green Line and MARC at Greenbelt and College Park. Oh yeah, and let's not forget: between MTA/MARC and WMATA/Metrorail, the former is probably the lesser of the two evils.
Posted by: Six-ft-Six | November 8, 2009 4:39 PM