Posts about MTA Maryland

At Halethorpe, where MTA reported 1,209 boardings on March 13, 2013, the southbound high platform is complete and will open this week, Johnson said. The high platform will reduce the time each train spends at the station (dwell time), because the floor of the train cars will be at the same level as the platform. Passengers will no longer have to use stairs to get on and off the train. In addition, passengers will be able to use all doors of the train to get on and off.

However, Johnson said that MTA does not expect to adjust the Penn Line schedule to account for the reduced dwell time until the northbound high platform and the footbridge connecting the two platforms are completed in June.

When the overhaul is finished, people who use wheelchairs will be able to ride the train from Halethorpe, because of the high platforms and elevators in the new bridge. All stations on the Penn Line between Washington Union Station and Baltimore Penn Station will be wheelchair-accessible, except West Baltimore.

After this, the next step at Halethorpe might be an $18 million parking garage, said Johnson. Many people who drive to the station park their cars on Southwestern Boulevard (US Route 1) and on nearby neighborhood streets.

As for the 54 new bi-level cars, MTA expects the first of the cars to be in service in November. The cars were delayed by a strike at the factory in Quebec and Federal Railroad Administration-required modifications to the brake rotors. They will be certified to run at 90 mph, but MTA would like to get them certified to run at 125 mph.

MTA will use the first cars to replace the 4 40-year-old Pullman gallery cars currently in service on the Brunswick Line. In the meantime, MTA plans a light overhaul of the air conditioning systems on the gallery cars, to get them through one more summer.

Fairfax Connector	ART	REX
Howard Transit	MTA (Baltimore)	Dash

See more in Hannaher's Lego set on Flickr.

Service improvements in the proposal

MARC's proposal increases service to Montgomery County, which not only contributes an increasing share of current riders but will account for still more in the future through transit-oriented developments around MARC stations.

At least one more train would stop at each of the county's stations except Silver Spring and Rockville, where all trains already stop, and Metropolitan Grove. The additional service would also benefit riders who work in Germantown, Gaithersburg, and Kensington. This is a good and needed change, and MARC should make sure it stays in the final schedule.

Also, the proposal adds a PanTran bus connection to West Virginia for the first daily westbound train. This would increase flexibility for riders from West Virginia stations who might need to go home early.

Finally, the proposal adds a third morning train from West Virginia. The train would leave Martinsburg at 6:00 am, between the two current departures.

West Virginia westbound service changes

In this schedule proposal, westbound train service to West Virginia would begin and end earlier. Instead of the 3 West Virginia-bound trains that currently leave Union Station at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 7:15 pm, there would be 3 trains leaving at 4:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 6:15 pm. The last westbound Brunswick Line train (the current 7:15 pm departure) would end in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg, and West Virginia riders would transfer to a PanTran bus.

MARC says that West Virginia riders have asked for an earlier departure, so the proposed 4:15 pm train might be an improvement. However, a bus transfer would not be a welcome change for riders who now take the last train.

In addition, riders who are not from West Virginia would have longer gaps between evening rush-hour trains because of the shift to earlier West Virginia service. This is because the 4:55 pm West Virginia train would become a 4:45 pm Brunswick train; the 5:15 pm departure would go to West Virginia instead of Frederick; the 5:40 pm departure for Brunswick would become a 5:35 pm departure for Frederick; and the 6:00 pm Brunswick-bound train would become the last West Virginia train, leaving at 6:15 pm.

For Frederick branch riders, the 85-minute gap between the trains leaving Union Station at 3:50 pm and 5:15 pm would increase to a 110-minute gap between trains leaving at 3:45 pm and 5:35 pm.

For Brunswick and Point of Rocks riders, there would be 2 evening rush trains (leaving at 5:15 pm and 6:15 pm) instead of 3 (leaving at 4:55 pm, 5:40 pm, and 6:00 pm).

And for Montgomery County riders, the 20-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:40 pm and 6:00 pm trains would increase to a 40-minute gap between trains leaving at 5:35 pm and 6:15 pm.

The magnitude of these confusing changes, the extra effort of arranging interstate connecting-bus service to the West Virginia stations, and the fact that the previous schedule proposal also had the last westbound train ending in Brunswick, all combine to suggest that ending the last train in Brunswick instead of Martinsburg is very important to MARC. Why?

Does MARC want to reduce service to the West Virginia stations because West Virginia does not contribute to MARC funding? If so, why do both proposed schedules add a third eastbound train from West Virginia?

Or does CSX want MARC trains off their tracks earlier? The last train now deadheads back to Brunswick after its 9:14 pm stop in Martinsburg. Storing the train in Martinsburg would get it off earlier. But ending the train in Brunswick at 8:58 pm, as MARC now proposes, would get it off earlier still.

Other issues

There are 3 other big issues: the end of the super-express, the absence of new trains, and the non-restoral of daily service for the first westbound train.

First, the proposed schedule would end westbound-service on the historic
super-express, which now leaves Union Station at 4:55 pm and stops only in Silver Spring, Rockville, Point of Rocks, Brunswick, and the 3 West Virginia stations. MARC explains that "with growing ridership in Montgomery County, we can no longer skip these stops when the demand exists."

Second, the proposed schedule does not add to the Brunswick Line's current 18 daily trains. MARC explains that CSX will not allow MARC to add trains until the State of Maryland builds a third track. However, MARC has nonetheless asked CSX for permission to add 1 morning and 1 evening train. CSX might even agree, given federal and state funding of CSX's National Gateway Project.

Third, the proposed schedule does not restore daily service for the first westbound train. This Brunswick-bound train currently leaves Union Station at 1:45 pm on Fridays only. Daily service ended in 2009 when the Maryland Transit Administration cut service due to budget shortfalls.

What now?

MARC has stated that "[t]here is no target date for implementation—we want to first gather further feedback from our customers."

As they did the last time, MARC has set up an on-line survey for people to comment on the proposal.

MARC will also hold "town hall" meetings in Charles Town on Saturday, May 19; Rockville on Tuesday, May 22; and Frederick on Wednesday, May 23.

In addition, MARC staff will be at Brunswick Line stations to gather feedback in the afternoons/evenings between May 1 and May 17. MTA will send out e-mail alerts with specific stations, dates, and times.

The original plan: This design, the "locally preferred alternative," calls for lowering the floor of the tunnel to make room for an elevated CCT above the Purple Line. The Purple Line station would sit under the Apex Building, adjacent to the planned elevator connection to the Red Line.

Don't keep the trail in the tunnel: Another option would be to create a new trail alignment through Elm Street Park and along Bethesda Avenue. The tunnel would not have to be lowered, and the Purple Line would run alone in the tunnel. The station would be located in the same spot as in the original plan.

Don't put the Purple Line in the tunnel: The Purple Line could terminate east of the eastern end of the tunnel, letting the trail to remain in the tunnel. Passengers transferring to the Red Line would have to walk approximately ¼ mile to get to the new southern entrance to the Bethesda Metro.

Tear down and rebuild the Air Rights Building: Tearing down the Air Rights Building, above the tunnel, would make it possible to create a wider tunnel and fit the trail and train station side-by-side. It would require a slightly longer walk for transferring passengers than the original plan. It would also cost a lot of money to purchase and demolish the Air Rights Building on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue.

Have a narrower Purple Line through the tunnel: Several alternatives looked at using single track or gauntlet track in the tunnel. Station locations included placement in the original location or farther west in the Woodmont Plaza.

The County Council's Transportation and Environment Committee will discuss this issue on March 1.

The findings are disappointing to those of us hoped to escape making a very hard decision. All of the new alternatives for keeping the trail in the tunnel would either seriously degrade the level of service and operational capabilities of the Purple Line, or have an unreasonable cost.

The MTA draft report could do a bit more to persuade everyone by giving more details about why they rejected some alternatives. For example, the report says that operational models showed that the reduced transitway width alternatives didn't work, especially since the Bethesda station will be the end of the line.

But the report gives no information on the method and assumptions behind the simulations. It would be easier to accept the conclusions if they made those available for review. In any case, the MTA is likely right about this. I can find no examples of successful single-track operations for a terminal station with a short headway.

As much as I wish it were otherwise, we are back to the hard choice: either spend a now-estimated $50.9 million and take considerable construction risk to keep the trail in the tunnel in an overhead structure, or develop the alternative surface route across Wisconsin Avenue.

The right choice is to develop the surface route to the fullest extent possible. $50.9 million is simply too much money to spend to avoid one at-grade crossing for the trail. That cost will double the total cost of rebuilding the CCT, putting the whole trail project at much higher risk of being abandoned in these very difficult budget times.

Also, the elevated trail will involve a narrow switchback to climb above the tracks, and then run in a cage above the tracks. This will not be attractive to most trail riders, and certainly not inviting enough to justify spending $50.9 million.

There is also too much risk that digging under the APEX building will destabilize the entire building. The Silver Spring transit center turned into a fiasco because engineers underestimated the risk of a construction method. Nobody wants another mess like that along the future CCT in Bethesda.

Most likely, the council will decide against taking on the cost and risk that comes with keeping the CCT in the Bethesda tunnel. The political blowback from this decision will be intense; some of that has already started in the comments to the Washington Post's story about this report.

"Save the Trail" advocate Pam Browning and others are advocating for a third option: kill the Purple Line. But they have the tunnel vision that comes with thinking that CCT means "Chevy Chase's Trail." They care little about whether the CCT is ever completed into downtown Silver Spring, and would have us obsess about one trail crossing at Wisconsin Avenue while overlooking the many other at-grade crossings east of Bethesda that will be eliminated as a part of the Purple Line project.

A version of this article originally ran at Silver Spring Trails.

	Schedule data			Real-time data
	Public GTFS	Shapes in GTFS	On Google	Tracking	Tracking API
Metrorail	Here		and Bing		Custom
Metrobus		Most1	and Bing		Custom
Circulator (DC)	WMATA2		WMATA2		Nextbus
ART (Arlington)	Here		In process		Connexionz
DASH (Alexandria)	Via email only3
Ride On (Montgomery)	Old?4				More info
The Bus (Prince George's)					Nextbus
MTA (Maryland) commuter bus	Here
MARC	Confusingly5			Here
Fairfax (County) Connector
CUE (Fairfax City)					Nextbus
Loudoun County Transit				Text/email alerts
PRTC
VRE	Unofficial6			Mix of GPS & manual7

¹ WMATA's GTFS file contains most Metrobus routes, but some paths cut diagonally across the grid over some long sections such as freeway or bridge segments of routes.

² Circulator route and schedule data is included as part of the WMATA GTFS feed. However, there are some quality issues such as route names.

³ DASH feed is not publicly available, but officials can provide it via email.

⁴ Ride On's feed no longer appears to be on their website. GTFS Data Exchange has cached a version from December 2010 which was apparently posted in a news release.

⁵ MARC lines are listed in the MTA Maryland feed as lines 300, 301, and 302, which doesn't very easily differentiate them for someone unfamiliar with their GTFS feed.

⁶ Someone not affiliated with VRE created a GTFS file in 2009, but it hasn't been updated since and VRE does not offer an official one.

⁷ VRE has a page with train status which lists some trains' positions through GPS and some from manual reports from the conductor.

What the columns mean

Creating public GTFS feeds (the 1st column) allows someone who's written an app to easily incorporate schedule and route data for a transit agency. GTFS has emerged as a national standard for representing transit feeds, and there's tremendous value in having as many agencies as possible support the same standard. That way, if someone writes an app in Chicago, they can make it work in Denver, Albany, or Miami at the same time.

Most of the transit agencies' feeds including the paths that the vehicles take, but some do not, like DASH. The 2nd column shows this information. Feeds without paths are still usable, but apps that visualize routes, like Transit Near Me, end up showing unsightly diagonal lines cutting across city blocks.

Agencies can also sign a contract with Google to have their routes and schedules on Google Maps. The 3rd column shows agencies which have done this. Some agencies put out their data files, but aren't willing to sign this contract because of indemnification or other clauses which Google unfortunately insists upon. On the flip side, some agencies sign up with Google but then don't publish the GTFS feed publicly.

The agency might provide it to those who ask, or might not, but this dissuades app creators from including this agency, and makes it harder for them to get regular updates. Every agency should strive to host a public and up-to-date GTFS feed on their site so that anyone building apps can easily incorporate that agency's services into the tool.

The other type of open data is real-time locations or predictions. To make this possible, agencies first have to deploy AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) technology on their buses or trains (the 4th column). The main obstacle is that this is somewhat expensive; a physical device has to go into each vehicle, and those devices then need some amount of maintenance over time.

Once an agency has tracking, it's relatively simple to offer a computer interface for apps to access and tell riders about this information (the 5th column). Most of the agencies with tracking offer such an interface, but while Ride On, MARC, and Loudoun Transit all have public tracking sites that provide some services to riders, but no way for other apps to tap into the information those sites contain.

What agencies can do

Agencies with red X's on this chart can start thinking about how to provide schedule and/or real-time open data. Creating GTFS files isn't extremely difficult, though it does require some staff time to actually do it. For agencies that use scheduling software, the manufacturers of that software often offer modules to export data as GTFS as well.

Some GTFS feeds could benefit from quality fixes. For example, WMATA's Metrorail GTFS file doesn't show the specific paths trains take, and paths are missing for a few bus routes. The "Transparent Metro Data Sets" Application Programming Interface (API), a special interface WMATA created to offer access to much of its data, does include the correct paths. But many people develop apps to access GTFS files for multiple cities. It's much less likely they will put in extra development effort to specifically pull just these route shapes from this unique API.

The Circulator's routes are part of the WMATA GTFS feed, which makes things even easier for apps than having to download a separate feed. One problem is that the route names are all cryptic: there's "DCDGR" for the Dupont-Georgetown-Rosslyn Circulator, or "DC98" for the route which replaced the former 98 bus. Those are fine for internal systems inside the agencies, but they aren't very clear to riders.

Agencies which have provided their data to Google but don't offer the feeds publicly (like DASH, Ride On, and MARC) should post those feeds on their websites and publicly link to the feeds. They are already creating the GTFS files for Google, so it's a trivial step to also let others download the same files.

WMATA also has much of the route data for other local bus systems in the region as well, which it uses in its trip planner. Agencies which don't have GTFS files can give WMATA permission to include their data in its GTFS feed, as the Circulator does.

Agencies with AVL systems already on their vehicles should set up APIs to give apps access to the locations or predictions, and agencies without AVL can work toward getting the budget necessary to deploy AVL.

What others can do

Transit industry associations and vendors which sell technology to transit agencies can all encourage open data to be part of any contract. Vendors can encourage agencies to open their data and provide services to do so, and associations can encourage agencies to ask their vendors for these services.

The industry can also help move toward a clear standard for bus tracking. GTFS has become a standard for schedule and route data because large numbers of agencies went ahead and offered GTFS files. But there is not yet a consensus around what format to use to offer real-time predictions.

WMATA built its own API which provides the data in a certain format. Circulator, The Bus, and CUE all use Nextbus for tracking, which has its own API. ART uses another service, Connexionz. This unfortunately means that anyone building a real-time application and wants to incorporate multiple services has to support at least 3 different APIs.

There are efforts to create such standards, like GTFS-Realtime, but this hasn't realized the same widespread adoption as GTFS, nor has any other standard.

It's still possible to build apps without a standard, and the Mobility Lab's real-time screen project does connect to all 3 different systems in our region. But that requires extra work, not just for the Mobility Lab but for every other app creator who wants to offer predictions for multiple transit agencies.

The easier we make it to build apps, the more we'll get. Ultimately, it would be great for one standard to emerge, and for the various vendors like Nextbus to agree to all offer data to apps in that same standard format.

Update: Commenter intermodal commuter pointed out the real-time status page for VRE. It combines some train positions from GPS and some from manual reports from conductors. There is not an API to access the data. I've corrected the chart.

Update 2: Commenter Adam noted that MARC is actually contained in the MTA Maryland GTFS file, but listed only as routes 300, 301, and 302, which we didn't realize were not commuter buses upon examining the feed. But you can see the MARC lines on Transit Near Me (for example, center around Union Station).

Also, ACCS Web Manager Joe Chapline posted a status update about ART's efforts to get into Google Transit; according to Chapline, this was delayed for a time due to contract issues, and now is awaiting action by the Google legal department, which I know from past personal experience is often understaffed and backlogged.

But these delays are not caused by the current schedule, and this new schedule will not solve the problems.

The winners in the new schedule are riders who board at the Brunswick and Point of Rocks stations. They will have more limited-stop trains and comparatively shorter trips. Of the 12 trains that serve Brunswick, 5 will have fewer stops under the plan and just 1 will be making more stops. Even with the schedule's increased time for loading passengers, 5 trains will still have travel times that are up to 10% shorter than in the current schedule.

MARC's Brunswick Line. Map from MTA Maryland.

There are two likely reasons for MARC's decision to benefit these riders. First, Brunswick and Point of Rocks are two of MARC's busiest Brunswick Line stations, with riders from Virginia and West Virginia as well as Maryland. Second, MARC places primary importance on "overall speed of service", i.e., getting the trains from origin to final destination as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, the losers in the new schedule are riders boarding at stations in Montgomery County and at the Monocacy and Frederick stops. They will face reduced train access and longer train rides in return for the improvements at Brunswick and Point of Rocks.

In Montgomery County, Kensington will lose 1 train in each direction. Garrett Park will lose 2 outbound trains. Barnesville will lose 1 inbound train. Metropolitan Grove will lose 2 inbound trains and 1 outbound train. And Boyds and Dickerson will have gaps of 90 minutes between trains.

The most probable reason for this worsening of service is, again, MARC's belief that access to service is less important than speed of service.

Service at most of these stations is already marginal. For many current riders, losing service will mean that taking the train is no longer a viable option. This will lead to a death spiral of lower ridership and reduced service, ending finally in closing the stations altogether.

The decision to reduce service at Metropolitan Grove is especially baffling. Metropolitan Grove is one of the few stations in Montgomery County with a lot of unused parking. And, because the parking lots at Germantown are full, Montgomery County has actually been encouraging riders to board at Metropolitan Grove, the next stop.

As for the Frederick branch, there will be fewer limited-stops trains and longer trips—the opposite of the schedule's effect on Brunswick and Point of Rocks. Of the 6 trains serving Frederick, 4 will have more stops and just 1 will make fewer stops. Travel times on the Frederick trains will be up to 12% longer.

While Frederick and Monocacy currently serve fewer riders than Brunswick and Point of Rocks, this is surely related to the fact that the Frederick service has less than half the number of trains.

In addition, MARC's decision to favor riders from Brunswick and Point of Rocks over riders from Frederick and Monocacy is at odds with state transportation policy. Congestion on I-270 is so bad that in 2009, the state of Maryland proposed spending up to $3.8 billion on highway widening between Germantown and Frederick. Improving MARC service to Frederick is an obvious way of reducing traffic on I-270. But instead, the new MARC schedule worsens it.

Service to West Virginia also has its winners and losers. Earlier commuters will gain a morning train, leaving Martinsburg at 5:00 am, and an extension of the first daily afternoon train to West Virginia. But later commuters are clear losers, with West Virginia service for the last evening train canceled, and departure of West Virginia's new last train delayed from 5:40 pm to 6:15 pm at Union Station.

Do the majority of West Virginia riders want these changes? Who knows? Certainly not MARC, which is only now asking for information from West Virginia riders, after announcing the new schedule.

So what happens next?

MARC has decided not to hold public hearings or to create a public record.

Instead, they will have a series of "Meet-the-MARC-Management" events at selected MARC stations in the afternoon. The first of these meetings will be tonight at the Rockville station.

Meetings will follow at other stations over the next few weeks: Silver Spring on December 7, Monocacy on December 8, Union Station on December 13, Brunswick on December 14, Germantown on December 20, and Barnesville on January 4.

Given that the first event comes only 5 days after MARC's announcement, this is an ambitious timetable.

It also remains to be seen whether MARC commuters on their way home, during the holiday season, will have the time or inclination to stop and tell the MARC managers their opinion of the new schedule. And MARC riders who dislike the schedule may doubt that their feedback will change the minds of the very people who came up with the schedule in the first place.

MARC will hold further "town hall" events in Brunswick on January 3, Kensington on January 5, and Charles Town, West Virginia, on January 7. These meetings are supposed to provide an opportunity for community members, interest groups, government officials, and elected representatives to have their say.

If you can't attend one of these events, there are other ways to provide your feedback. MARC is hosting an online comment form. You can also e-mail comments to the general MARC address of marc@mta.maryland.gov, and CC your local officials.

Yes, the Brunswick Line contends with substantial operational and fiscal constraints. And its true that no public transit schedule can make everybody happy. But this is no excuse for a schedule that's practically guaranteed to make things worse, not better, for large numbers of the riders it's meant to serve. MARC should honor its commitments to all Brunswick Line riders by withdrawing this schedule.

The open houses will run from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM at these locations:

• Tuesday, November 1, 2011
  University of Maryland
  Adele H. Stamp Student Union, Prince George's Room
  College Park, MD 20742
• Wednesday, November 2, 2011
  National 4-H Youth Conference Center
  7100 Connecticut Avenue
  Chevy Chase, MD 20815
• Monday, November 7, 2011
  Silver Spring Civic Building
  One Veterans Place
  Silver Spring, MD 20910
• Thursday, November 10, 2011
  Beacon Heights Elementary School
  6929 Furman Parkway
  Riverdale, MD 20737