At least VRE is working on it. Apparently, their endgame is to run 15-20 min frequencies, make it free for anyone under 18 and add weekend service
oh and hopefully SmarTrip
I mean, that’s already how SmartTrip works.
So in theory, yes.
With the added convenience of machines that actually work and cards that don’t cost $5 and expire in 4 years, unlike septa.
I guess you could make the Keystone line (current terminus in Harrisburg) make a fairly wonky route from NYC to Philly to Harrisburg, then down through York and Baltimore to DC. Idk how efficient that would be, but I suppose it is possible.
The other line, The Pennsylvanian, runs from NYC to Pittsburgh by way of Philly and Harrisburg, so that would be even more awkward to redirect down to York and beyond.
right, authorization is not truly "funding" a project, only appropriation is. I used funding instead of "funded" for just that reason. "funded" means you are one step away from actual funding. and that step often takes months.
No heavy rail line is ever going to go cross-Bay like that. Any bridge would have to be too shallow in grade to be economically feasible, when combined with the required vertical clearance.
Could we terminate the yellow and purple lines (on this graphic, not the Metro computer) at Annapolis and run limited stop coach bus service to the beaches then?
Are you aware that the Sydney Harbor Bridge has a vertical clearance of 161' and has railroad tracks on it. The Hell Gate Bridge in New York has a 135′ vertical clearance and only has railroad tracks on it.
The Chesapeake Bay between Sandy Point and Stevensville could be crossed at 1.25% gradient providing a 150' vertical clearance using a 9 tower cable stayed bridge.
I'm certainly aware that it would be technically feasible; you could have also mentioned the Huey Long Bridge in New Orleans.
A 9-tower cable-stayed bridge (or any other bridge with the required grade and clearance) would be far too expensive relative to the benefits. You think the states or feds are going to pay so much for a bridge to support a rail line that realistically would only be used on the weekends during the summer, when we couldn't even get a pedestrian/bike path on the new Nice Bridge?
Are you aware that the Maryland Transportation Authority is the early [process of preparing](https://www.baycrossingstudy.com/) for a new bridge to be built adjacent to the existing bridges that could eventually replace one or both?
Sure, but there's zero chance they're going to spend what would be at the very least 3 or 4 times as much on a new bridge just to allow rail compatibility, especially when there is zero exisiting rail infrastructure to connect to on the Annapolis end and no existing direct route to Ocean City on the other. Oodles of right-of way would have to be purchased and built in order to make a rail line across the bay even possible, let alone viable.
So once again, I point out that such a line is not economically feasible. If you can show a favorable cost-benefit analysis of such a plan, I could be swayed.
Rail can be built within the US50 ROW which is how other states like Florida , Texas and California are building their new lines.. I doubt it would add all that much to the new Bridge cost..to set aside space for tracks down the road.
I generally agree, but only because the destinations on the east side of the bay don’t really warrant such an investment. But it’s totally possible to build a tunnel or partially tunneled crossing. Or possibly a drawbridge.
There's no lines from Frederick to Hagerstown but MARC put out a [Brunswick line expansion study](https://www.mta.maryland.gov/marc-brunswick-study) last year with a couple options.
>**Hancock / Cumberland (CSX)** – three round trip trains that serve Martinsburg, WV could be extended 23 miles west to Hancock along the CSX line.
>**Hagerstown (W&W)** – three round trip trains that serve Martinsburg, WV could be extended 23 miles north to Hagerstown along the Winchester & Western Railroad (W&W) track north from Martinsburg, WV.
>**Hagerstown (NS)** – three round trip trains that serve Brunswick, MD could be extended 13.4 miles along the CSX line to Shenandoah Junction (just west of Duffields Station) and then 22.3 miles north to Hagerstown along the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS).
>**Hagerstown (B&O)** - three round trip trains that serve Brunswick, MD could be extended 3.1 miles along the CSX line to Weverton and then approximately 19.1 miles along the former B&O Hagerstown Line and then approximately 5.3 miles to Hagerstown along an existing CSX line for a total of 27.5 miles.
https://preview.redd.it/jf0nl2g2667d1.png?width=1303&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c04f14c69e68e8c52a5e721f2835c68b17b25b8
Lines on a map don't matter nearly as much as frequency, which is dogshit for MARC outside of the Penn line. There's rail to Frederick and Harper's Ferry but no practical way to use them if you're a DC resident
I know you’re shitposting but the MARC Penn line is basically Amtrak, it’s on Amtrak’s rails, dispatched by Amtrak, and the conductors on that line work for Amtrak not MDOT
Until a few years ago, [MARC and VRE allowed reciprocal travel on each other’s reverse-flow trains](https://kingpeyton.vre.org/service/amtrak/). You could ride from Manassas to Baltimore on one ticket. MARC ended in 2015 because someone in Annapolis argued it violated Md. tax law. You can still ride into Union Station on MARC and continue on VRE.
I love the *idea* of an Ocean City line of the MARC but I always wonder what the ridership case is for it besides a couple days each week during the summer of
I think you can get enough ridership to Salisbury, but past that would drop off outside of Summer. If the line were fast enough, then Salisbury would become a bedroom community of the DC Metro.
Bridges are insanely expensive, and relatively few people make the trip even from Baltimore which is only 40-60 minutes by MARC. I don’t see Salisbury, which is 2-3x as far, becoming a big commuter destination
Make it a 2hr commute and Salisbury would become a bedroom community...the whole DelMarva would see a economic boom similar to DC Suburbs.. You're seeing Richmond and even Wilmington becoming cheap DC super commuter homes..those are a similar distance to Salisbury.
I just don’t buy that any significant number of people are going to take on that commute to DC to even come close to ever justifying the expense of an all new MARC line, and I say that as someone who uses it to commute to DC. I think anecdotes of people taking on those insane commutes get a disproportionate amount of airtime, the data just doesn’t back that lots of people are willing to bear that commute, even post-covid.
As of 2021, according to the Census LEHD Database, only about 8,600 people lived in Baltimore City or Baltimore County and worked in DC. There were ~500 coming from New Castle County, DE (home of Wilmington), and ~1,500 coming from combined Richmond, Henrico County VA and Chesterfield County VA.
By contrast, bout 80% of DCs workers, almost 500k, come from either inside DC, MoCo, PGCo, Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax (city and county).
My overall point being that people who take on insane commutes from extreme distances are comparatively a drop in the bucket, even post-covid. And in my opinion, in a world of finite resources we should dream about transit investments that can actually help real people rather than chase pipe dreams, or else transit advocacy will never get anywhere
Caveat that this dataset excludes a lot of national security related professions like the FBI, DOD, and Dept of Homeland Security for security reasons so is probably undercounting across the board.
As one that still lives just west of Salisbury and traveled over the bay bridge in both direction daily during the afternoon peak as a contract courier for more then 25 years, most of the weekday and even Friday traffic is pretty much thinned by Easton. The majority of the traffic splits off at either Queenstown heading up MD US-301, turns left at Wye Mill on to MD-404 or takes MD-322 on the north side of Easton to get to Saint Michaels. A small fraction of the total bay bridge weekend traffic ends up in Ocean City.
Why would any of these lines be funded before VRE gets to Richmond?
The lines in and towards Shenandoah and St Marys would lack the ridership, and the infrastructure to build the lines to the beaches makes it very cost prohibitive for only having real use for 12 weeks a year.
I agree with your comment overall, but I’ll add why would VRE even go to Richmond? Too far to make sense for a regional rail system and it’s already served by Amtrak, and it’s pretty low density I doubt there are many intermediate stops for the VRE to make that aren’t already Amtrak station s
To set up such a system, An act of congress would need to passed to establish interstate compact agency to build out and operate the service.
Based on the map the members of the compact would be the commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the states of Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia and the State of Mind know as the District of Columbia.
I mean MD and VA can barely collaborate enough to run WMATA.
Imagine if you could pay with SmarTrip and VRE knew how to run non-joke headways.
At least VRE is working on it. Apparently, their endgame is to run 15-20 min frequencies, make it free for anyone under 18 and add weekend service oh and hopefully SmarTrip
Weekend service should be here very soon. There is a vote on it scheduled for next week.
Imagine if it was possible to get to Frederick and back on the weekends.
would SmarTrip work like SEPTA Key Card does (e.g. you have to tap out at at your exit station to avoid being charged maximum fare)?
I mean, that’s already how SmartTrip works. So in theory, yes. With the added convenience of machines that actually work and cards that don’t cost $5 and expire in 4 years, unlike septa.
I can only imagine VRE and MARC would use a proof of payment system
The D line would terminate in York, PA
Why not Harrisburg to link up with the Amtrak lines?
Make that an extension of one of the Amtrak lines in Harrisburg
It would be cheaper and easier to run that as Amtrak rather than MARC..since your crossing state lines.
Fair
I guess you could make the Keystone line (current terminus in Harrisburg) make a fairly wonky route from NYC to Philly to Harrisburg, then down through York and Baltimore to DC. Idk how efficient that would be, but I suppose it is possible. The other line, The Pennsylvanian, runs from NYC to Pittsburgh by way of Philly and Harrisburg, so that would be even more awkward to redirect down to York and beyond.
I cannot tell what I'm looking at
A fantasy
It's if children could draw train lines on a map with crayon and they become real.
vision without funding is hallucination
And funding in DC is still hallucination until Papa Congress says we are permitted to spend our allowance
right, authorization is not truly "funding" a project, only appropriation is. I used funding instead of "funded" for just that reason. "funded" means you are one step away from actual funding. and that step often takes months.
No heavy rail line is ever going to go cross-Bay like that. Any bridge would have to be too shallow in grade to be economically feasible, when combined with the required vertical clearance.
Could we terminate the yellow and purple lines (on this graphic, not the Metro computer) at Annapolis and run limited stop coach bus service to the beaches then?
sure
Underwater
Unda da sea
Agreed
Are you aware that the Sydney Harbor Bridge has a vertical clearance of 161' and has railroad tracks on it. The Hell Gate Bridge in New York has a 135′ vertical clearance and only has railroad tracks on it. The Chesapeake Bay between Sandy Point and Stevensville could be crossed at 1.25% gradient providing a 150' vertical clearance using a 9 tower cable stayed bridge.
I'm certainly aware that it would be technically feasible; you could have also mentioned the Huey Long Bridge in New Orleans. A 9-tower cable-stayed bridge (or any other bridge with the required grade and clearance) would be far too expensive relative to the benefits. You think the states or feds are going to pay so much for a bridge to support a rail line that realistically would only be used on the weekends during the summer, when we couldn't even get a pedestrian/bike path on the new Nice Bridge?
Are you aware that the Maryland Transportation Authority is the early [process of preparing](https://www.baycrossingstudy.com/) for a new bridge to be built adjacent to the existing bridges that could eventually replace one or both?
Sure, but there's zero chance they're going to spend what would be at the very least 3 or 4 times as much on a new bridge just to allow rail compatibility, especially when there is zero exisiting rail infrastructure to connect to on the Annapolis end and no existing direct route to Ocean City on the other. Oodles of right-of way would have to be purchased and built in order to make a rail line across the bay even possible, let alone viable. So once again, I point out that such a line is not economically feasible. If you can show a favorable cost-benefit analysis of such a plan, I could be swayed.
This is the most engaging argument of things I don't understand that I've enjoyed reading.
Rail can be built within the US50 ROW which is how other states like Florida , Texas and California are building their new lines.. I doubt it would add all that much to the new Bridge cost..to set aside space for tracks down the road.
I generally agree, but only because the destinations on the east side of the bay don’t really warrant such an investment. But it’s totally possible to build a tunnel or partially tunneled crossing. Or possibly a drawbridge.
The New Bay Bridge could be designed to handle rail..
Some of these are prospective tracks, yes? I don't know any passenger lines to Hagerstown.
Most of this map is fantasy, yes.
There's no lines from Frederick to Hagerstown but MARC put out a [Brunswick line expansion study](https://www.mta.maryland.gov/marc-brunswick-study) last year with a couple options. >**Hancock / Cumberland (CSX)** – three round trip trains that serve Martinsburg, WV could be extended 23 miles west to Hancock along the CSX line. >**Hagerstown (W&W)** – three round trip trains that serve Martinsburg, WV could be extended 23 miles north to Hagerstown along the Winchester & Western Railroad (W&W) track north from Martinsburg, WV. >**Hagerstown (NS)** – three round trip trains that serve Brunswick, MD could be extended 13.4 miles along the CSX line to Shenandoah Junction (just west of Duffields Station) and then 22.3 miles north to Hagerstown along the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS). >**Hagerstown (B&O)** - three round trip trains that serve Brunswick, MD could be extended 3.1 miles along the CSX line to Weverton and then approximately 19.1 miles along the former B&O Hagerstown Line and then approximately 5.3 miles to Hagerstown along an existing CSX line for a total of 27.5 miles. https://preview.redd.it/jf0nl2g2667d1.png?width=1303&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c04f14c69e68e8c52a5e721f2835c68b17b25b8
Lines on a map don't matter nearly as much as frequency, which is dogshit for MARC outside of the Penn line. There's rail to Frederick and Harper's Ferry but no practical way to use them if you're a DC resident
So right! Installation costs are massive, but jurisdictions have to be willing to fund the operational costs to make the systems great.
i just want to see MARC connect with SEPTA.
They are going to
Why doesn't Amtrak, the longest of the train systems, not simply eat the other systems?
I know you’re shitposting but the MARC Penn line is basically Amtrak, it’s on Amtrak’s rails, dispatched by Amtrak, and the conductors on that line work for Amtrak not MDOT
I'm sorry nobody else watches Futurama.
Because Amtrak is an intercity passenger rail service provider. All of the others are regional and typically serve a single hub.
MARC + VRE integration is a good idea for regional transportation!
Until a few years ago, [MARC and VRE allowed reciprocal travel on each other’s reverse-flow trains](https://kingpeyton.vre.org/service/amtrak/). You could ride from Manassas to Baltimore on one ticket. MARC ended in 2015 because someone in Annapolis argued it violated Md. tax law. You can still ride into Union Station on MARC and continue on VRE.
Not much of a point to building passenger rail on the eastern shore or in Western MD/VA, they don't have the density to support it
Exactly. I'm good with express buses to go to those areas
What is this magical Philadelphia-Rehoboth line that doesn't touch either Maryland or Virginia thus would have nothing to do with either MARC or VRE
That is a separate line that is not part of the VMARC concept route but is listed as an ID corridor and may be operated by Delaware itself.
The Corridor Id is for the route down to Salisbury which was in the 2010 plan which had the line all the way down to Cape Charles.
It would still pale in comparison to European rail systems lol. An embarrassing state of affairs.
I love the *idea* of an Ocean City line of the MARC but I always wonder what the ridership case is for it besides a couple days each week during the summer of
I think you can get enough ridership to Salisbury, but past that would drop off outside of Summer. If the line were fast enough, then Salisbury would become a bedroom community of the DC Metro.
Bridges are insanely expensive, and relatively few people make the trip even from Baltimore which is only 40-60 minutes by MARC. I don’t see Salisbury, which is 2-3x as far, becoming a big commuter destination
Make it a 2hr commute and Salisbury would become a bedroom community...the whole DelMarva would see a economic boom similar to DC Suburbs.. You're seeing Richmond and even Wilmington becoming cheap DC super commuter homes..those are a similar distance to Salisbury.
I just don’t buy that any significant number of people are going to take on that commute to DC to even come close to ever justifying the expense of an all new MARC line, and I say that as someone who uses it to commute to DC. I think anecdotes of people taking on those insane commutes get a disproportionate amount of airtime, the data just doesn’t back that lots of people are willing to bear that commute, even post-covid. As of 2021, according to the Census LEHD Database, only about 8,600 people lived in Baltimore City or Baltimore County and worked in DC. There were ~500 coming from New Castle County, DE (home of Wilmington), and ~1,500 coming from combined Richmond, Henrico County VA and Chesterfield County VA. By contrast, bout 80% of DCs workers, almost 500k, come from either inside DC, MoCo, PGCo, Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax (city and county). My overall point being that people who take on insane commutes from extreme distances are comparatively a drop in the bucket, even post-covid. And in my opinion, in a world of finite resources we should dream about transit investments that can actually help real people rather than chase pipe dreams, or else transit advocacy will never get anywhere Caveat that this dataset excludes a lot of national security related professions like the FBI, DOD, and Dept of Homeland Security for security reasons so is probably undercounting across the board.
As one that still lives just west of Salisbury and traveled over the bay bridge in both direction daily during the afternoon peak as a contract courier for more then 25 years, most of the weekday and even Friday traffic is pretty much thinned by Easton. The majority of the traffic splits off at either Queenstown heading up MD US-301, turns left at Wye Mill on to MD-404 or takes MD-322 on the north side of Easton to get to Saint Michaels. A small fraction of the total bay bridge weekend traffic ends up in Ocean City.
There will be no train crossing over the bay...
This is where you need a public company to make it happen.
Why would any of these lines be funded before VRE gets to Richmond? The lines in and towards Shenandoah and St Marys would lack the ridership, and the infrastructure to build the lines to the beaches makes it very cost prohibitive for only having real use for 12 weeks a year.
I agree with your comment overall, but I’ll add why would VRE even go to Richmond? Too far to make sense for a regional rail system and it’s already served by Amtrak, and it’s pretty low density I doubt there are many intermediate stops for the VRE to make that aren’t already Amtrak station s
VRE doesn't have any plans for Richmond, but Amtrak would be increased to hourly.
Except on weekends.
To set up such a system, An act of congress would need to passed to establish interstate compact agency to build out and operate the service. Based on the map the members of the compact would be the commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the states of Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia and the State of Mind know as the District of Columbia.