As seen in Urbanite June 2009 Issue
Spec ial Spon Sor ed Section
FREE RIDE
Looking for a better way to get
around downtown?
Starting late this summer, the
city’s new fleet of hybrid buses
will be going your way.
A brand-new transportation system is coming to the
downtown area late this summer 2009. To better connect
Baltimore residents, workers, businesses, and visitors, twentyone hybrid EcoSaver IV buses will circulate on three downtown
routes, seven days a week—with no fare or boarding fee.
The circulator routes will run south to north from the Inner
Harbor Visitor Center to Penn Station, and east to west from
Harbor East to the B&O Railroad Museum. With buses arriving
approximately every ten minutes, the circulator system is
planned to connect with Amtrak, MARC, Light Rail, Metro
Subway, MTA bus lines, two water connectors (Maritime Park
to Tide Point and Canton Waterfront Park to Tide Point), and
parking garages located on the fringes of downtown.
Each new EcoSaver IV bus uses hybrid technology,
cutting greenhouse gas emissions by half. As part of
Mayor Sheila Dixon’s vision for a “Cleaner, Greener, Healthier,
and Safer Baltimore,” the downtown circulator joins
other transit-related initiatives—including building
more bike lanes and on-street bicycle parking,
developing the Jones Falls Trail, and repairing city
streets through Operation Orange Cone.
The backbone of any great city is transportation.
By expanding and increasing the effectiveness of
Baltimore’s current and future transportation routes,
these programs will be able to enrich the city across
the board—by promoting business, tourism, and
overall community involvement.
For proposed downtown routes
and more information, visit
www.yournameyourride.com.
20
urbanite june 09
S p e c i a l S po nS o r e d S e cti o n
Mayor Sheila Dixon talks about how
the downtown circulator fits in with
a cleaner and greener Baltimore.
Q: What will visitors,
residents, workers, and
others in Baltimore see
unfolding within the next
couple of months?
A: We’re excited. For close to
two years, we’ve felt it was
important to come up with
a way for visitors as well as
residents to get around in the
downtown area. We want to
show them that we can get
them out of the car and make
it easy to get from Point A to
Point B.
Connecting to the circulator will help you to look at
an alternative, whether it’s
Light Rail or Metro subway or
the MARC train from D.C. We
have now an increase of tourists
coming to the city, and we
want to help try to make it
easier for them.
Q: How long did it take to
get this part of your “Cleaner,
Greener, Healthier, and Safer
Baltimore” initiative to shift
from your dream to a reality?
A: We started this effort in spring
2007, and in a little bit more than
two years, the concept came to
reality.
Q: How will the circulator
help Baltimore residents and
those who work in the city?
A: By taking public transportation
and connecting to the circulator,
you can save on gas and wear
and tear on your car. We hope
that people who might not
normally take the Light Rail or
subway might say, ‘Hey, I’m going
to park my car and try it out,’
when they find out that they can
hop on this free bus once they
get into the city. Because of the
routes that we designed within
the new system, you could save
time in your commute and save
money on parking. The circulator
will also help businesses that run
within the line.
Q: Baltimore will be the
first city in the nation with
a hybrid shuttle fleet. How
does the presence of this
fleet fit into the City’s other
sustainability initiatives?
A: One huge initiative that we
are working on is a community
compact. We are about to design
the Red Line [a 14-mile east-west
transit line running from the
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical
Center to Woodlawn]. We’ve
been working on it now for the
past year and a half. It’s been a
long-term initiative, but when
it’s finished, we will have another
great mode of transportation to
connect with the circulator.
The water connector is
another connecting piece: If you
live in Locust Point, you can take
the water connector to one point
and then get on the circulator to
get down to the B&O Railroad
Museum or go down to Canton.
Hopefully, people will start taking
the circulator and thinking about
other ways to get around than
just getting in the car. We’d like
to reduce the number of singleoccupant vehicles that go into the
downtown area. This service has
that potential.
The circulator also will help
us in achieving another goal. We’d
like to make downtown more
pedestrian-friendly—particularly
by pulling vehicles off the road.
All of this is wrapped around the
environment, and making it better
and safer in the downtown area.
Baltimore City Department of Transportation
Director Al Foxx explains how the circulator
works.
Q: How were the three
circulator routes and two
water connector routes
determined?
A: The routes that we picked
needed to go where we had the
greatest potential to decrease
congestion and where the
parking opportunities were.
Before we finalized the three
routes, we talked to businesses,
parking authorities, and other
stakeholders and community
leaders. We wanted to have the
connectivity between parking
venues, tourists, and businesses
to get to one another.
Q: Will the EcoSaver IV hybrid
buses on the circulator lines
replace the buses currently
running with the MTA?
A: No, they will not. This circula-
tor service will supplement the
MTA. The MTA does a good job
getting people to the downtown
area. Once people are in the
downtown area, we want them
to be able to get around.
Q: The City estimates that
the average annual operating
cost for the three proposed
circulator routes will be
approximately $5 million.
How does this operating cost
match up to similar bus lines
that other cities are currently
running?
A: We went to other municipalities that run a similar service and
looked at their costs, and $5 million is pretty much in line. We did
a comparative analysis to make
sure that we were in line with
what the norm was.