Here are MDOT’s 7 possible alternatives for Baltimore’s canceled Red Line

For a project that never actually broke ground, the Baltimore Red Line has had a rather busy afterlife.

In the seven years since its abrupt cancellation by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, the 14-mile proposed east-west rail link between Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital in Southeast Baltimore and the Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicaid Services in the western Baltimore County suburb of Woodlawn has sparked a federal Title VI investigation into its demise, served as a flashpoint for multiple election cycles and inspired both state and federal legislation.

In October 2020, the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Maryland Transit Administration’s (MTA) released the Regional Transit Plan for Central Maryland — a set of goals and initiatives to enhance transit service, boost the economy, and address environmental concerns in Central Maryland over the next 25 years.

It should come as no surprise that the first study to emerge from the plan is a set of seven “alternatives” for an “East-West Corridor released early last month,” some of which look an awful lot like the Red Line.

Here are those alternatives and a little about what they might mean for the future of Baltimore transit.

Alternative 1

This is one of four alternatives that entirely take the form of bus rapid transit. Like most of those alternatives, it actually goes beyond the original imprint of the Red Line by extending even further south on its western end into Howard County, all the way to Ellicott City.

This particular route travels northeast along US 40 through parts of Patapsco Valley State Park and Catonsville (partially in mixed traffic) before meeting up with the original Red Line path at Woodlawn. It keeps to that path without much variation well past the Baltimore City line until Downtown, where it turns at Charles Center and briefly runs north instead of south, before dipping back down and following the original Red Line route from Fells Point to Bayview.

At 22.7 miles, it’s the longest of the seven alternatives. It also contains the most stations, with 39, and runs on its own separated “transit street” along Howard and Baltimore Streets. None of the three alternatives with stops in Howard County use anything other than BRT for that portion, probably because of the prohibitive cost of using rail for an area with significantly lower existing density than that closer in towards Downtown Baltimore.

Alternative 2

Also an all-BRT option, this option largely mirrors Alternative 1 except it’s slightly shorter (18.4 miles long with 36 stations), it travels directly along US 40 avoiding Woodlawn, turns north from the original Red Line route slightly earlier after entering Baltimore City so that it largely skirts Downtown, and avoids the Inner Harbor, Harbor East, Fells Point, and Canton entirely in favor of Johns Hopkins Hospital and areas north of Patterson Park before returning to the original Red Line path from Highlandtown to Bayview.

This is one of a couple different routes where Central Maryland Transportation Alliance Director of Policy & Programs Eric Norton said MDOT might have to make certain choices between residential equity and job access. “North of the park is obviously probably more low-income, more transit-dependent,” Norton said. “And then south of the park along the waterfront is probably a lot wealthier, whiter, more car owners there. But I think you’re making a tradeoff there: the waterfront is a big activity center, there’s jobs and opportunities along there and you do better connecting people from West Baltimore to those opportunities than maybe connecting two struggling parts of the city together. Does that benefit anyone?”

Alternative 3

At 19.1 miles long, with 25 stations, this might just be the strangest of the seven options. That’s not so much because of its actual route, which like Alternatives 1 and 2, travels from Ellicott City to Bayview via Johns Hopkins Hospital, as much as how it travels that route.

With this option, passengers would ride BRT from Ellicott City to the West Baltimore neighborhood of Edmondson Village (again bypassing Woodlawn and its federal job centers), doing so entirely on surface street, then abruptly switch to “Heavy Rail Transit” at Edmondson Village and travel the rest of the way to Bayview utilizing the Metro Subway tunnels between Lexington Market — just north of Downtown — and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The advantages of this alternative include it being the only option to serve neighborhoods northeast of Johns Hopkins Hospital, as well as lower costs from already existing infrastructure built for Baltimore’s oldest running rapid transit line. The downsides include the fact that a combination of BRT and rail within a single line doesn’t have much precedent, at least not in the United States.

Alternative 4

By contrast, this option would consist entirely of light rail transit — mostly on surface streets. The 16.4-mile, 28-station line would run north of Patterson Park, the only one of the three light rail-based alternatives to do so.

Like Alternative 1, it would include a “transit street.” Though unlike that option, it would be limited solely to Baltimore Street. Like the original Red Line concept, its western terminus would be at CMS in Woodlawn but unlike that route, instead of stopping at Bayview, it would continue eastward past that hospital and back over the Baltimore City/County line before terminating in the suburb of Essex. It would also have two short tunnels, one under Cooks Lane in West Baltimore and the other at Highlandtown in East Baltimore.

Alternative 5

This option would have a slightly different length and amount of stations from Alternative 4 (17.1 miles and 33 stations), a different mode (BRT traveling exclusively on surface streets instead of LRT), and would avoid a major West Baltimore employment center that Alternative 4 directly passes — the University of Maryland BioPark.

Otherwise, it generally mirrors that particular option. As with most of the first four alternatives, it would also diverge from the original Red Line plan by turning north of Patterson Park.

Alternative 6

This option is, more or less, the same layout as the Red Line was structured when it was canceled. It starts in Woodlawn at CMS and travels over the County/City line for 14.1 miles across 19 stations before terminating at Bayview. It would travel mostly on surface streets, with the exception of a short tunnel in the far western corner of the city and a much longer tunnel in Downtown, allowing it to stop at the Inner Harbor and most of Southeast Baltimore’s waterfront neighborhoods. Unsurprisingly, this is the alternative that seems to have garnered the most interest from supporters of the original Red Line.

Alternative 7

Finally, this would almost exactly mirror Alternative 6, running for 14.2 miles across 31 stations from Woodlawn to Bayview via the Baltimore waterfront, except it would do so entirely as BRT and entirely on surface streets.

As with the other BRT options, the advantages of this alternative could include lower capital costs and shorter implementation time (MDOT projects $800 million to build Alternative 7 over 5-7 years, vs. $3.8 billion to build Alternative 7 over 7-9 years) but it also contains substantial risks, especially since MDOT lists its BRT alternatives as having “flexible guideways” and many of the routes would run at least partially in mixed traffic, greatly increasing the chances of delays.

When reached for comment, MTA Senior Director for Communications & Marketing Veronica Battisti said in a statement that the alternatives “support the corridor goals of improving and expanding the reach and connectivity of the transit network, prioritizing the needs of existing transit riders and maximizing the economic and environmental benefit of a major transit investment.”

She also highlighted the following points:

• Metro has the fastest travel speed but the fewest stops, and therefore the least number of potential riders within walking distance of a stop; LRT has the second-fastest travel speed and the second most stops and riders within walking distance; BRT has the slowest travel speed, but the most stops and therefore the most potential riders in walking distance of a stop.
• Metro is the most expensive mode to install and operate, LRT is the next most expensive mode, and BRT is the least expensive mode.
• Metro has the longest predicted implementation timeline, LRT has the second-longest implementation timeline, and BRT has the shortest implementation timeline.

People interested in comparing data such as travel time, access, ridership, cost, and more can check out this report from the Regional Transit Plan Corridor.

MDOT is offering a comment period through August 1 and will use the feedback as a base to determine which alternatives will be studied further, and which one will ultimately be selected to apply for funding.