I work near BWI as well and was in the office on Wednesday when they shut everything down. I hiked down the streets in the blizzard to the BWI terminal so I could eat and hopefully catch the first train north once service was restored, but it never was. There were about 5-10 of us in the same situation, mostly airport employees but a few from nearby. In the end, I spent the night in the terminal and then walked back to work on Thursday since the trains were still down. By the time I was ready to leave, the 17 and light rail were online again.

There was very little communiation from the MTA throughout the night. I asked one MTA employee who was trying to clear the BWI station if there was any news. He just said that there was too much snow, the trains weren't working, and they'd have to try again the next day.

I can't speak to the MTA's light rail communication or lack thereof, though as a frequent MARC rider I've always found their train updates helpful. But this was such a monumental storm -- rather two storms back to back -- that I can understand how everything and everyone was thrown for a loop.

Speaking of Loops, I wonder if Mr. Chicago can tell me when the last time was that Chicago had 58 inches of snow in five days? With Cat 1 hurricane (according to NWS) wind gusts? In a place used to only 18 inches of snow per season, let alone per night?

If he's been taking the light rail regularly for the past 6 months, then he must like it; otherwise, why wouldn't he use another means of transportation? But we get hit with a storm of historic proportions, by anyone's standards, and all he can say is how lousy the light rail is.

I grow weary of asking fellow citizens to be reasonable and to quit making outrageous demands. While I'm proud of and humbled by the work of city employees throughout this whole mess, I'm also ashamed of so many other people's behavior.

Horrendous MTA commute this morning ... 2.5 hours from Waverly to Social Security ... waited over 1 hour for a No. 40 "Quick Bus" at Charles and Fayette.

The reason I'm leaving Baltimore is the transit.

From Frank Bonincontri, a Marylander now living in Wisconsin, reprinting excerpt from Frank Roylance's weather blog (link below):

I am in disbelief of how people seem to be “demanding” their streets be plowed down to the pavement . . .

The roads are ALWAYS bad. Marylanders need to understand this; after a storm, the snow is plowed but there still remains another layer on top. NO MATTER WHAT. It then becomes a “road on top of the road” and even has its own potholes! The snow gets plowed, but the slush and low temps do not allow it to melt 100%. We drive on roads like this for months. My street has been like this for about a month along with the majority of all side streets. Major highways are always priority, then secondary county highways, then residential. They do get plowed in a timely manner, and are usually well prepared fleetwise.

. . .

During winter, I typically see about 8-20 cars that slid off the highway and now occupy the ditch and are buried in snow. Tractor trailers are no exception . . . .

http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/2010/02/so_far_this_winter_6_feet_7_in.html

While listening to the radio early this AM, I heard an MTA spokesman initially say light rail was running every 20 min (my thought: isn't that normal?, so I knew something was up). Next go round, he said every 30 min. Now I knew something was up. You can always take the interval MTA says and double it to get the realistic estimate. It would really help if there were indicators of some kind at each station to let riders know when the next train is expected to arrive.

The light rail stations have public address systems. Why doesn't the MTA utilize these? Are they broken at most stops?

I was riding the subway the past few days to get to work, and at no point were there any station updates about how frequently the trains were running or any service updates.

It's like they don't care about the people riding the system.

In Pittsburgh, where they normally get a hullava lot more snow than we do and are prepared for it, still having problems today after getting far LESS snow than we just did:

City reports snow-removal progress
Friday, February 12, 2010
By Ben Geier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10043/1035394-100.stm#ixzz0fN196KYU

It doesn't mater if there was 10' of snow on the ground or a clear 70 degree day. The MTA doesn't communicate period. Has anybody ever read the mission statement for the MTA? That has to be the biggest joke.

WAWWWW WAWWW WAWWW. "My street wasn't plowed!" "My commute was too long!" "My bus didn't come!" "My car slid into somebody else's (of course, it was their fault, not mine)!" "Nobody from MTA communicated with me!"

Good grief, people, you have a roof over your head -- a warm roof since thanks to utility crews most people lost no power -- food in the larder, a job to go to at all, unlike so many thousands around the country, city workers who have been busting their asses for a week straight, many unable to go home to their families while you and yours were munching popcorn in front of a TV and complaining.

Do you know how many people around the world wish that was all they had to worry about -- commuting delays?? Hello???

Can we please count our blessings and stop griping?

Hey Lisa Someone -

I just moved here from Chicago, too. And let me tell you that that city invests the $$ in getting people moving again.

The state of the transit system is another matter. Baltimore's mass transit is inadequate, to say the least. I have not owned a car since 1992, and finally gave in after living here for 3 weeks. I lived in Chicago for 10 years, and had two kids in that time period, without needing a car. That's because the system as a whole is better, AND they keep the buses and the El running in conditions that would cripple Baltimore for days. I still couldn't get to work today because there was no bus line that would get me to Penn Station!

Lisa,

I've been commuting on MTA buses and the Light Rail for over a decade now, and the past two years I've spent commuting Baltimore-Washington via the MARC. I understand and agree that people's expectations are often unrealistic, but I can assure you that the difference between riding the MARC and the MTA buses, Light Rail, or Metro is akin to taking a walk through Manhattan instead of Mogadishu.

The fact of the matter is that the MTA simply DOES NOT communicate with riders on its other services, nor does its administration seem to concern itself much with their needs. I've always been impressed by MARC's reliable system of service updates via text messages; I've signed up for this service for the Light Rail as well. On my way home one evening last spring I found myself waiting over an hour at the UB/Mt. Royal station for a train. Did the MTA send out a text update? No. Was there an update during this time on the MTA's web site? No. Was an announcement made over the station's PA system? No. Unfortunately I've found that this type of experience is all too common, with inexplicable delays of 30-60 minutes occuring around once a month.

To add another anecdotal report of MTA's bungling of our most recent storms, my partner found herself in a situation nearly identical to Ms. Avery's trying to get to work on Monday morning. Thankfully, after an hour and a half of waiting, she was able to give it up and walk home to warm up.

I fear that a large part of the disparity in transit in Baltimore can be attributed to a prevailing mindset that public transportation either exists or is dominated by the poor, less fortunate, or the criminal. The MTA can do its part to dispel that myth by working harder to provide reliable, safe transit services and actually communicating with its riders when things do go wrong.

Mr. Powell, understood. Modibo-person-who-didn't-leave-his-real-name, understood as well.

My husband walked to work this morning -- 4 miles -- after waiting for a bus that never came. He joked about it when he got there. I telecommuted, something many other people can also do but choose not to (obviously not everyone can -- I get it).

I'm a huge supporter of public transportation. But maybe the reason it doesn't get enough support overall is because so many people who are afraid to leave their precious cars behind are always screaming about "no more taxes!"

I don't expect us all to agree on everything. But I do expect citizens to make a good faith effort in extraordinary circumstances like we've had. And as I've said till I'm blue in the face, Chicago also would've had problems with this monumental snow -- hell, it DID have problems this week with the little bit it got!

I really agree that people have something to complain about when it comes to the MTA and the public transit around Baltimore. Lately (not counting the snow storms) I have seen an improvement in the frequency of some of the major bus lines like the #3 and #8, but in general the buses are not reliable. This is a real issue for people who don't have any other option for getting to work, to the doctor, to school, etc. There is no reason I should have to wait an hour and a half outside in the rain for a bus that should be coming every 30 mins.

It's easy for people who don't rely on the public transit to say "stop complaining and count your blessings," but for those of us who have no other options, we have the right to complain and demand better service.

Having been a commuter on both the light rail and the MARC, my experience has been that the light rail is much less reliable, even in good weather. This is somewhat to be expected, since in Baltimore the light rail runs along city streets and thus is subject to unpredictable delays.

But there are clearly people who depend on this service, including a large number who commute from in and around Baltimore to hospitality jobs near the airport. I am sure that many of these people do not have the luxury of finding "another means of transportation" as Ms. Simeone suggests. I would conjecture that most people who commute on the light rail are not doing it because they "like it".

It might be asking too much for the light rail to reach the level of reliability of the MARC, but there are simple ways that the experience of light rail commuting could be improved, including providing more adequate shelters and seating for people waiting for the train, improving the ticketing machines, having adequate sidewalks in and around stations, etc. (My old commute from the BWI Business District stop would have been improved significantly if there hadn't always been airport parking shuttles idling in the adjacent parking lot constantly spewing fumes at commuters waiting for their trains.)

Then perhaps the time to have this discussion is when the MTA is up and running like normal, not when it's crippled and limping from a once-in-a-lifetime snow storm.

As I said, I support public transportation, I use it, I depend on it. I understand that people need it to get around.

Just wondering how readers think MTA workers are getting to where they need to go? Don't they also have to dig out their cars, navigate roads, get to their posts? Or should they just levitate in?

Thankyou, Lisa Simeone, for your great attitude! I've never been on this site before, and am glad you are posting. Someone wrote that Pittsburgh has "a lot more snow" and yet is prepared. Well, our customary snowfall is only 18" for a season, not 35-50 in one week. And we've got over 7000 lane miles to plow, plus the lightrail. With the money we have, the workers we have, and the equipment we have, I think MTA is doing as best (or better) than can be reasonably expected. This is a wonderful city with exceptional people -- let's be thankful.

MTA has room for improvement. There are three issues that need to be addressed.

1) is the perception of the MTA local bus service. Commuters who own cars, but work downtown would rather take their car and pay for parking than take the local buses because they believe them to be war grounds populated by the criminal.

In the words of one commuter, "A white woman can't ride the __ bus at night." Well, I'm a white woman and I take that bus every night to get home from work. So the commuter's words are blatantly false. I've met some very nice people that are regulars on my bus line who go out of their way to add smiles and pleasant conversation to my day. I am grateful for each and every one of them.

2) lack of communication/service to the riders. Here's is where MTA has one of its worst hurdles. It is acceptable for a bus to be 20 minutes or more late, and up to 10 minutes early. This is according to the MTA complaint line operator I spoke with during such occasions. (Which happen often.) Instead of adhering to the schedules and designating specific time points where, if early, the bus waits until the specified departure time, or if late, the bus uses the padding on the time point to reach the next destination at a more acceptable time, the MTA just plods along with their broken system.

Cities like Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon, and Tokyo, Japan, do this and their buses/trains are on time and experience very little customer complaint due to late or missing buses. If the MTA were to institute a policy like this, many of the complaints I personally have with the service would disappear.

3) lack of logical transfer points. MTA has a major opportunity to change their practices here. Having a main transfer point at metro centers (John's Hopkins Hospital, Charles Center/First Mariner Arena, Mondomin, BWI, Timonium Light Rail, Towson Towne Center, Owings Mills Metro Station, Patapsco Park and Ride) for local buses, trains, Light Rail, MARC, and other services (like Mega Bus) would be better than hodge-podging lines to wind downtown only to miss these main centers by blocks, if not miles.

I've suggested adding a loop train service that follows 695 which connects with the 40 Quick bus/Hopinks, Martin State airport at the MARC train stop in Essex, the White Marsh Park and Ride (megabus), Towson Town Center and/or Timonium Light Rail, Owings Mills Metro Station, Security Square Mall, BWI, Greyhound Ctr, and Camden Yards. The loop would go both ways, connecting outlying areas with downtown, other outlying transfer points, and each transportation system (MARC, MTA Bus/Subway, Light Rail, and Amtrak, and even Mega Bus) Local buses would re-route/add stop points at the nearest metro center effectively connecting every point in Baltimore and beyond.