As a resident of Mt Vernon, the Circulator has changed my relationship with the city. Previously, there was no convenient way to travel downtown, to Federal Hill, or to Harbor East without walking the whole way or inconveniently walking all the way over to the metro stop at State Center. I now feel that large portions of the city are easily at my disposal.Friends of mine in the neighborhood have expressed similar feelings. I used it to commute to the Inner Harbor everyday until I recently changed jobs, and still use it at least twice per week. The complaints about the CCC are understandable, but overall the service is reliable and easy to use. In my opinion, this blog has been overly harsh and unappreciative of the service, especially compared to the high opinion it has amongst residents in my neighborhood.

Being a resident of Federal Hill, I was very excited when the CCC Purple Line opened. I thought that it would allow for me to get to other parts of the city that I wouldn't necessarily be able to go without having to drive or pay expensive cab fares. I've realized that if you have no time restraints then the CCC is ok. If you are any time restraint, it's terrible. The GPS tracker and the Next Bus countdown are never accurate. I've waited at the West Steet stop for over 40 minutes on multiple occasions when the website says the next bus is four minutes away. It's caused to me to be late or have to cancel plans on different occasions. Overall, I get very frustrated by the CCC and think that they have a lot of work to do to make it a viable source of public transportation. Until that happens, (if it ever does) I think the CCC is a waste of our tax dollars and would rather see that money spent in different areas.

I like the CCC, but it is ironic how it mostly services more affluent areas, and therefore people with more income get to ride for free. Just an observation.....

This service is a wonderful boon for the city! I'm also a Mt Vernon resident and it has made the rest of the city so much more accessible. I definitely think the service should be continued and expanded. Public transportation (especially when it is free) is a great asset to any large city.

As with any new project, there are going to be some kinks to work through, and growing pains to overcome. Overall, the Circulator has been a great addition to the city and will only improve over time. The experiences of the past year (such as your Artscape criticism) will only help to inform transportation officials in their future planning for accommodating such events.

Now if we could just get the Orange Line re-routed to serve Pigtown and its growing Main Street district directly....

The CCC is designed to get people who have money to spend it downtown without having to worry about driving and/or parking. It's also fully paid for through parking taxes. So I don't have a problem with it serving "affluent" areas because that was the whole idea!

The city is in a budget deficit and they start a free bus service. They want to lay off employees so they add another line to the service. They give themselves raises on the back of the citizens taxes go up. This is a joke service. They are wasting tax payer money. They are increasing taxes on every front and they want to stop vital public services just so they can get there raise and start a free bus service. Keep enjoying your free bus service when they stop your trash, cut your police, close your fire houses and close your pools for a free bus service.

I love the Circulator, especially the Purple Line. Jumping on and off in Station North, Mt. Vernon, downtown, and Federal Hill has become a frequent occurrence - unlike with normal MTA service which I don't take frequently enough to merit a pass. I wish the Green Line would get going, though I think we could get away with an Orange Line that went further east (say, to Patterson Park). I think the Hopkins Hospital area is already served well enough by their shuttles and the subway.

It's nice to ride free, but it's a shame that this revenue stream is being spent on redundant bus service. Nicer MTA buses are starting to appear and in theory the MTA system could be made as visitor-friendly as the Charmulator.

The CCC is frustrating in that it does well just long enough for you start to expect it and then it flops for a week. They also have some boneheaded scheduling like taking buses out of service at rush hour so that buses become less frequent and more crowded right when the highest number of people are coming to use them. As far as people complaining they overlap MTA - MTA won't even stop at the last 8 stops inbound due to overcrowding. This means if you live within a mile or two of downtown you can sit at, say a #10 stop, and watch bus after bus go by.

The Circulator is another monumental waste of tax payers dollars.

Our politician were duped once again by go-green propaganda initiatives. The so-called "green "Circulator Bus costs more to purchase, more to operate, and is less efficient than a conventional bus.

The city should shut down the service ASAP. We can't afford it, nor should the taxpayer provide an additional free bus service - the current bus service is already subsidized heavily.

I used it last summer while visiting the city. Took along a colleague who just moved to Baltimore to show him the town. It was nice. We rode the Purple Line from downtown up to Mount Vernon Square, where we visited the Walters Art Gallery, entry to which was also free. A very pleasant visit to Central Baltimore.

I've used the CCC Orange Line twice with varying degrees of success. The first time I didn't get to ride the CCC because the driver had been assaulted by a rider with pepper spray and who the driver had managed to punch before the assailant got away. The bus was shut down, and no other buses on the line were coming by either, so I had to walk the rest of the way over to Camden Yards in some stifling summer heat. This incident actually made the news the following day. The second time I rode it, no incidents occurred and it was a nice ride across town (again to get to Camden Yards), however, the countdown at the stop was off by a few minutes.

Personally, I wish that city leaders or the MTA or whoever is in charge of the CCC would invest the money spent on the CCC into a east-west subway line as opposed to a bus line that is reliant on traffic always flowing smoothly on Lombard and Pratt Streets.

I take the CCC everyday and my experience has been very positive so far. I rely on their GPS tracker in their website so that I minimize my waiting time at the bus stop and in the last 3 months it has only failed just one time. On one hand it saves me money as I no longer have to pay for parking or gas, and on the other is one car less in the streets that was contributing to congestion and pollution. I like to see my taxes paying for something that finally makes sense!