Monday, December 29, 2008

MTA Announces MARC Cuts

As I reported before, due to a severe budgetary situation, MTA Maryland had proposed cuts to MARC Commuter Rail service despite ridership being higher than it has been in years. The actual cuts have proven not to be as bad as the original proposal, but even this proposal is disappointing for a region with growing commuter rail ridership.

I've listed the proposed cuts to MARC service below:

Overall Service:
  • No service will be offered on federal holidays
  • No service will be offered on the Friday after Thanksgiving
  • No service will be offered on December 26
  • The 10-Trip ticket will be discontinued
Penn Line:
  • Train #447 (9:30p departure; Balt.->Wash.) is cancelled
  • Train #448 (11:00p departure; Wash.->Balt.) is cancelled
  • Local stop Train #410, will depart Washington 15 minutes later at 8:30a
  • Limited stop Train #412 (8:45a Wash. departure) is cancelled
Camden Line:
  • The midday bus from Odenton (Penn Line) to Laurel will be discontinued

Brunswick Line:
  • Train #871 (1:45p departure; Wash.->Bruns.) is cancelled Monday - Thursday. Service will continue to operate as scheduled on Fridays
  • As a condition of retaining two trains to West Virginia stations, passengers boarding at Harpers Ferry, Duffields, and Martinsburg will pay an additional fare. For a one-way ticket, the fare will increase by $2 at each of these stations. Weekly and monthly tickets will increase by $20 and $80, respectively

2 comments:

Davemurphy said...

This is why transit oriented development doesn't occur around MARC stations. Well, it's one of the reasons, anyway. Absurd.

Caro said...

I guess it could be worse, but this still sucks... I mean, wasn't it just over a year ago that people were talking about expanding to some limited MARC service on weekends? Sad.