But it was very interesting to look over their proposals for the Columbia town center, to add density and better public transportation over the next 30 years — or perhaps more. The whole plan may need some reworking in the light of the Great Recession. Retail may have maxed out around 2007 or 2008, and we will never again fill so many stores. Time will tell.

Meanwhile others here want the Yellow Line from the north through downtown Baltimore. That could make the stretch to Columbia a Phase 2, maybe allowing someone to figure out a way to make the connection between Baltimore and Columbia faster than the current proposal.

5,500 additional apartments and condominiums, 4.3 million square feet of new offices, 1.25 million square feet of retail space and over a 1000 hotel rooms is in legislation to be added over the next 30 years to Columbia. Legislation is also on the table to possibly add small amounts of housing to the village centers will create more urbanized residential dwelling. Columbia will keep its open space but there are major development plans from Blandair Park, to Symphony Woods, current location of the Mall, Merriweather for large concerts and events and expansion of Gateway office park make Columbia a wise choice.

I do agree an hour and 15 minutes to Baltimore is horrible and should try to be around 40-45 minutes. Though when BRAC is at its peak next decade bringing 600,000 to a million more people to Maryland rapidly and the development in Baltimore and Columbia continues, traffic will be a nightmare. Silver Spring and Bethesda have Metro Stops to help people get to and from work. Columbia will be more densely populated than those cities. With population and density of the time the Yellow line will be built this makes perfect sense.

Also as a Black man born and raised in Columbia to working middle-class parents the locations the stops will be are in Diverse demographic areas such as Guilford, Owen Brown, and by the Mall. Columbia is one of the most diverse cities in the state and residents who do live in public housing have trouble working in Baltimore or other locations even in Columbia due to lack of access to decent public transportation.

I would say look at the development plans of all the cities in the state and that is how transportation should be determined in a smart growth way. The proposed development for Columbia is attached of course subject to change could be less though there will be development. http://www.columbia-md.com/MasterPlan/draft.aspx

Now the Green line extension within the city is important. And the Yellow line extension up to Towson and even reconnecting with the Blue line would be nice. And the line to Columbia is a poor idea by light rail. But a Yellow line at least to the city border and an expanded Green line to serve East Baltimore and of course the completion of the Red line will finally give us a system that connects all general areas of the city. The Charles St. corridor (and neighboring Howard, St. Paul, Calvert, Maryland) has plenty of opportunity for infill and more importantly, a much greater potential for it than does North Broadway. A better connected Baltimore will help all areas of the city.

The WMATA system for Washington was not designed to improve DC neighborhoods, that was the fortunate unintended consequence of having neighborhoods near downtown that were also served by the transit system, a system that was designed for suburbanites to be able to get to their jobs in the city. (29 stations at the core of the city cover a roughly 15 mile square and serve both business districts and neighborhoods, and provide a relatively high density of station service.)

Baltimore needs its own transportation plan. It’s clear that the CMTA doesn’t have Baltimore’s interest as foremost. I understand their reasoning about connecting key jobs clusters. (But as some of these comments point out, maybe rail service could do that better. Similarly, I notice a CSX track that serves the White Marsh area, but isn’t used for passenger service.)

At the same time, only by massively improving connectivity within the city via fixed rail transit service can Baltimore seriously propel neighborhood revitalization forward.

E.g., Matthew mentions choice riders for transit, well we also have choice “riders” for residential location decisions. If there is more, better transit within the city, more residents will come in, more opportunities for infill development will exist, etc. Now, that may faze some people concerned primarily about transit and equity, because that will mean the influx of more residents with higher incomes and other differences, leading to clashes and use of the G (gentrification) word.

OTOH, it happens that I am taking a one year appointment for a planning job in Baltimore County (not on transit), and there is no question that better connections between the Towson corridor and central Baltimore are necessary. (The blue line followed an existing rail line and therefore bypasses Towson. I do wonder about the possibility of creating an infill station and a good Circulator bus service to provide Greater Towson with service.)

Even so, I think green line extensions should occur and Baltimore City should move them forward, by creating a massive urban renewal district, and selling bonds against future property tax revenue increases, just as how Portland funded the creation of the Yellow (Interstate) MAX line.

Additionally, the number of stops in Columbia is quite dense, and I don’t think is supportable. They are also better served locally by an express bus. Downtown Columbia to downtown Baltimore is also better served by a rapid transit bus. If you get the travel time from Baltimore to Columbia down to 45 minutes, I think you’d have something better.

I look forward to more transit options between Columbia and Baltimore.

it seems reasonable to me to build the yellow line to columbia for equity in that you want to cover all parts of the region and classes. most of the lines built so far have served inner city communities in Baltimore which is great. But the MTA needs the political support of the entire region which is paying into the system anyway through taxes. i agree about the need to serve inner city neighborhoods with better transit especially since they are largely transit dependent but i think it is reasonable to have some suburban lines to ensure that the transit system serves a range of people in the region and not just the poor. transit needs the political support of the middle and upper classes since it receives a lot of tax money from them and in a place like baltimore i understand transit is mostly seen as something for the poor, and that is unhealthy for the transit agency and regional commuters. yes theres less transit need for suburban communters but there is political need. and some of these lines will bring inner city residents out to suburban jobs.

The question is essentially this: When expanding a transit system, is it preferable to a) attract new riders to the system (and out of cars) by appealing to “choice” riders, or b) enhance the level of service for existing riders, many of whom may well be transit-dependent and thus riding the bus or train anyway?

In Portland, which doesn’t have the racial dynamics of Baltimore, there is nonetheless a conflict between transit advocates who want to expand the various parts of the rail system (MAX and the Streetcar; WES has few defenders), and those who would rather forgo such capital-intensive projects and instead spend money on faster and more comprehensive bus service. When you factor in “transit oriented development”–building transit to serve presently-undeveloped areas with the intent of generating infill (often upscale), many bus patrons in town get openly hostile to Tri-Mets aggressive plans to expand MAX well beyond its current state. (The Green Line opens this weekend, of course).

A complicating factor, of course, is that Tri-Met’s operating budget is significantly dependent on payroll tax revenue–a source of income that is not particularly stable, and is outside the agency’s control. As no mode of transit “makes money” overall; new services often require cuts elsewhere, and it’s easy for bus riders to blame the reduced frequency on their favorite line on the train.

I did read the report, and I think that my article reflects it — noting specifically that, as you pointed out in your comment, the CMTA believes that the Yellow Line would spur more transit-oriented development than the Green would. That said, I am skeptical of your group’s conclusions, namely that it makes sense to spend money helping increase sprawl through transit-oriented development in the far suburbs — notably, with the route between BWI and Columbia. I strongly believe that inner city, infill growth is more effective in the long-term in producing the kind of livable communities for which we should be fighting, and that’s why I pointed to the northern section of the Yellow Line and the inner-city extension of the Green Line as the priorities here. The route to Columbia is unlikely to produce those types of neighborhoods, despite what your report concludes. The same can be said for the Green Line extension past White Marsh.

In terms of my discussion of motivations, I’d like to point out that there is no reason to conclude that simply because the head of an organization is black, he will choose to advocate what is best for the black community — the same could be said for members of the white, hispanic, or asian communities. Indeed, it’s hard to deny that the Green Line will serve predominantly black communities while the Yellow Line’s southern route will not. It’s a matter of choice — the CMTA argues that “choice riders” should be attracted to promote the “culture of transit.” I would argue that inner-city, transit-dependent people living in dense neighborhoods should be adequately served first before moving on to suburban communities. Perhaps the motivation behind the choices was not race or class, but the decision to push one route ahead of another most certainly will affect separate races and classes quite differently.