Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Public transportation, that doesn't exist in Maryland, does it?

A few months back (when gas was an arm and a leg) I was talking to a co-worker about my newly purchased hybrid vehicle.  The conversation turned to public transportation and he asked me if I would consider public transportation to get to/from work (I must warn you this co-worker lives in Baltimore and is not familiar with suburban life).  I'm not against it, I rode on public transportation when I worked in DC.  I told him I didn't think that there was any form of public transportation that I could take to work. He then introduced me to the public transportation tab on Google Maps.

What I found was somewhat surprising.  By car my commute is roughly 14 miles and will take, on good days, approximately 22 minutes.  Now, onto the surprising part, public transportation to and from my office does actually exist.  Further examination though shows me that public transportation is definitely not a word in Maryland's vocabulary.

Google Maps tells me that I would have to walk a short distance to a bus pickup location.  Then I would get on a bus that takes me into Baltimore.  Once in Baltimore, I would have to get on the Light Rail that would take me back towards BWI airport.  Once at the Light Rail station I would have to take another bus and then finally I would have to walk another short distance to get to work.  This whole public transportation ordeal would take approximately 2 hours.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for public transportation, but for suburbanites that only commute a short distance, the state of Maryland needs to do a better job.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I can't believe that a county with over 100,000 people in it has no public transportation to the AIRPORT!? Wow, well good on you for getting a hybrid and lets hope that public transit becomes more than a myth in Maryland over these next few years.

abuian said...

Google Maps doesn't show everything! Not that it necessarily gets much better, but the Howard Transit buses are another option, including the silver route, which runs from the Mall to BWI. Personally, I've never found that they run often enough or early enough to be of much use, but then, I'm one of those sad minions who have to trek more than 30 miles each way to work.