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Originally Posted by james777
Good advice. I would also advise her to stay off all public transportation except for Amtrak, MARC, and taxi cabs.
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Originally Posted by ogre
I want to ask about this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't MARC the commuter rail? This advice suggests that taxis would be the only safe option for moving around inside the city itself. Others posting here have suggested that the light rail/bus/subway are reasonably safe if you take good street smarts precautions.
It could get expensive getting around in town only via taxi cab, but we are talking here about a city with a high crime rate, and a suburban kid who's never spent much time in any city at all in her life. If it's really especially dangerous to use municipal transit in Baltimore, this is something that would be helpful to know. If the usual street smarts plus avoiding public transit at certain hours would keep one reasonably safe, this would be good to know as well, given the expense of taking taxis everywhere.
Speaking of public transit, this thread is an example of how City Data can help with useful suggestions. You can get some good suggestions here that you've never heard of before or thought of yourself.
I've spent plenty of time in cities, and I know from observation, and commonly given safety advice, that on light rail and subway trains you want to stay out of nearly-empty cars, and avoid riding in the rear car or toward the back of any car. Bus Man's earlier advice to stay in the middle of the car--more populated than the ends, and you can't be blocked off from other riders as readily as you can at either end--makes good sense, but was the first time I'd ever heard that suggestion. I had never thought of it myself either, but thanks to picking up the advice on this thread, I've passed the advice along to my niece.
Again, thanks to everyone who's posted here. Lots of helpful advice.
Yes, MARC is the commuter rail service for Maryland, bringing commuters into and out of Baltimore and Washington, DC. It is clean, safe, reasonably priced, and quite a pleasant ride. It is the best train service that I have ever experienced in this country, and I have ridden the Acela a few times. However, I usually go for the lowest priced tickets on Amtrak. Below is a link to a booklet that should tell you everything about MARC that you need to know. Scroll down to page 11 and there is a map of all three lines with all of their stops listed.
Yes, it could get expensive getting around the city only in taxicabs, but it will be cheaper than Uber or Lyft. For a suburban kid who has never spent much time in a city in her life, cabs are the only method of transportation in Baltimore that I would recommend. Others will have differing views. Also, a lot of good walking can be had around that section of the city (MICA campus and Bolton Hill down to State Center, across to U of M Hospital Midtown Campus and into Mount Vernon, around the U of Baltimore campus, south to the big library on Cathedral Street, and on down to the Harbor), but tell her to keep her walks to daylight hours and always with friends.
Quote:
Originally Posted by james777
Good advice. I would also advise her to stay off all public transportation except for Amtrak, MARC, and taxi cabs.
Yes, MARC is the commuter rail service for Maryland, bringing commuters into and out of Baltimore and Washington, DC. It is clean, safe, reasonably priced, and quite a pleasant ride. It is the best train service that I have ever experienced in this country, and I have ridden the Acela a few times. However, I usually go for the lowest priced tickets on Amtrak. Below is a link to a booklet that should tell you everything about MARC that you need to know. Scroll down to page 11 and there is a map of all three lines with all of their stops listed.
Yes, it could get expensive getting around the city only in taxicabs, but it will be cheaper than Uber or Lyft. For a suburban kid who has never spent much time in a city in her life, cabs are the only method of transportation in Baltimore that I would recommend. Others will have differing views. Also, a lot of good walking can be had around that section of the city (MICA campus and Bolton Hill down to State Center, across to U of M Hospital Midtown Campus and into Mount Vernon, around the U of Baltimore campus, south to the big library on Cathedral Street, and on down to the Harbor), but tell her to keep her walks to daylight hours and always with friends.
MARC has come a LOOOONG way.. Back when O'Malley was Governor. MARC was famous for what us passengers called MARC MELTDOWN. In the summer when temps got into the upper 90s.. they would institute speed restrictions which caused delays. It technically was not MARC fault because the tracks are controlled by Amtrak on the Penn Line and CSX on the Camden Line. But many MARC locomotives would break down and trains would get cancelled which would cause overcrowding and standing conditions on the subsequent trains.. People would miss their stops because they couldnt wade through the cars and some cars the AC would break. It all came to a head when a train broke down during rush hour going north in between Union Station and New Carrollton. Those folks were stranded on a train without AC for well over an hour and eventually the passengers staged a munity and forced the conductors to open the windows and even let them off train.. Shut down the NEC. I was on the train behind this one which ended up being the "rescue" train and watched these passengers board.. They were drenched in sweat and most of the seated passengers gave up their seats to them because of what they had been through.. News choppers circled the scene and several ambos and to come out and treat people for heat exhaustion..The sad part was the passengers stated that several Amtrak trains and even another MARC passed this train while it was stranded until the passengers jumped off onto the tracks and shut down the NEC.
The very next day.. Gov O Malley and the big wigs at state transportation rode the train up and down the line and got a earful from passengers on the conditions on the trains... Gov O Malley pledged a bunch of money and things got upgraded and are much better now.. but the politicos read the tea leaves.. MARC passengers are very active MD Voters.. so ..govern yourself accordingly...LOL. Today the locomotives are mostly new and more resilient.. but there was a time when Amtrak and Marc changed their policy and would not pass a broken train and would try to push or transfer the passengers if it was during extreme heat.. They even had spare locomotives at various points along the line that could be pulled into service... As I said .. I dont think that is needed now given the new and upgraded equipment.
These fares are for bus, Metro, and Light Rail. MARC and Commuter Bus (the latter of which your niece will almost certainly never need to ride) have different structures.
If she's going to take just one or two one-way rides in any given day, it's probably easiest to just pay with cash. Have the money already taken out of her purse and ready to insert into the farebox when she boards the bus. Currently the fare is $1.90, but it's vastly easier to just stick two one-dollar bills into the farebox and consider the extra dime as a donation to the MTA.
One can also use the machines to buy a ticket in a subway station. The machines are located next to the attendant's booth, so there's not much risk in using them. On the Light Rail, one cannot buy a ticket on the train but rather must buy a ticket at the machine at each station before boarding.
If she is going to take more than two rides in a given day (and remember, transferring from one bus to another one counts as two rides) then she should buy a day pass. A single day pass is valid on bus, Metro, and Light Rail.
It doesn't sound likely that your niece is going to ride the MTA all that often. If she finds that she uses it on an occasional basis, she might want to get a stored-value Charm Card.
This is the closest I've been able to find. It's geographically accurate but it does not list the exact locations of individual bus stops. In general, they are located at every block or every other block, and marked by signs.
Note that not every stop is listed. If you enlarge the main system map, you'll see other bus routes within a few blocks of the campus as well. Information about each of them can be found at the links here:
Is the Charm City Circulator still in service.. I used it a couple times years ago when I was going to events downtown from Penn.. I havent needed it during COVID as I work mostly from home
Is the Charm City Circulator still in service.. I used it a couple times years ago when I was going to events downtown from Penn.. I havent needed it during COVID as I work mostly from home
Actually, I can answer that question, from research about Baltimore, and information people have provided. The answer is yes:
The hours are limited to daytime and early evening. I wouldn't know whether these have always been the hours, but, at present, within the hours of 7:00AM-8:00PM, yes, the Circulator is still operating.
I want to ask about this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't MARC the commuter rail? This advice suggests that taxis would be the only safe option for moving around inside the city itself. Others posting here have suggested that the light rail/bus/subway are reasonably safe if you take good street smarts precautions.
OP, thanks for coming back and updating us with how your niece is doing. I'm glad things are going well and I hope that they'll continue to do so.
I'm going to echo James 777's and Woodland's comments and say that, yes, the MARC train is a safe and generally reliable means of transportation. I honestly don't recall ever hearing about any kind of crime incidents on the trains. I suspect this is due to (1) it serves a largely higher-income professional crowd, and (2) there are conductors on board the trains who can keep an eye out on things.
I do recall the "MARC Meltdowns" of years gone by. Haven't heard about those in so long that I had actually forgotten about them. Thankfully, I never got caught in one. I ride MARC only sporadically, like when I have a business meeting in Washington. I do recall that I rode the train back from DC one time without incident, but a later train, it might have even been the next one after mine, broke down and ended up disrupting service on the entire line for the rest of the afternoon. As I said at the time, I'm glad that I flowed through the pipeline before that particular clog developed!
All that said, MARC is a regional commuter system, not a local transit option. Other than to go to the airport, it is useless for traveling within the immediate Baltimore area itself.
OP, thanks for coming back and updating us with how your niece is doing. I'm glad things are going well and I hope that they'll continue to do so.
I'm going to echo James 777's and Woodland's comments and say that, yes, the MARC train is a safe and generally reliable means of transportation. I honestly don't recall ever hearing about any kind of crime incidents on the trains. I suspect this is due to (1) it serves a largely higher-income professional crowd, and (2) there are conductors on board the trains who can keep an eye out on things.
I do recall the "MARC Meltdowns" of years gone by. Haven't heard about those in so long that I had actually forgotten about them. Thankfully, I never got caught in one. I ride MARC only sporadically, like when I have a business meeting in Washington. I do recall that I rode the train back from DC one time without incident, but a later train, it might have even been the next one after mine, broke down and ended up disrupting service on the entire line for the rest of the afternoon. As I said at the time, I'm glad that I flowed through the pipeline before that particular clog developed!
All that said, MARC is a regional commuter system, not a local transit option. Other than to go to the airport, it is useless for traveling within the immediate Baltimore area itself.
As an aside... the "MTA Marc Expansion Plan" is looking at adding station to Charles St/ Johns Hopkins Homewood, East Baltimore/JHU on Broadway and at Bayview.. The Bayview and the Charles St one are on the Camden line which currently ends at Camden Yards but with the improvements to the Howard St tunnel underway it will open up these two areas for stations which could be a real boom to the central and east side in terms of DC bound people who may want to reside in cheaper Baltimore and go down to DC periodically. I think since the state is putting in some money CSX has to work with Marc on it.. The East Baltimore/JHU station is on the Penn Line but also the NEC which is Amtrak. The benefit here is that MTA could pay Amtrak to stop a Regional Train or two here which could benefit JHU in a similar manner as PA does with North Philadelphia Amtrak Station which may benefit Temple' Univ Med campus.
To your point.. it still more of a regional service and likely not benefit someone trying to go from one side of town to the other like you can on Septa Regional Rail in Philadelphia...
As an aside... the "MTA Marc Expansion Plan" is looking at adding station to Charles St/ Johns Hopkins Homewood, East Baltimore/JHU on Broadway and at Bayview.. The Bayview and the Charles St one are on the Camden line which currently ends at Camden Yards but with the improvements to the Howard St tunnel underway it will open up these two areas for stations which could be a real boom to the central and east side in terms of DC bound people who may want to reside in cheaper Baltimore and go down to DC periodically. I think since the state is putting in some money CSX has to work with Marc on it.. The East Baltimore/JHU station is on the Penn Line but also the NEC which is Amtrak. The benefit here is that MTA could pay Amtrak to stop a Regional Train or two here which could benefit JHU in a similar manner as PA does with North Philadelphia Amtrak Station which may benefit Temple' Univ Med campus.
To your point.. it still more of a regional service and likely not benefit someone trying to go from one side of town to the other like you can on Septa Regional Rail in Philadelphia...
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