A three-decade-long expansion would triple MARC commuter train capacity and is needed to meet growing rider demand, the Maryland Transit Administration claims. But local transportation experts aren?t sold on the MTA?s plan.
At the top of their list of concerns is the financial viability of the project.
“The initiative is commendable, but the big question is where the funding will come from,” said Ken Orski of Urban Mobility Corp., a Washington-based transportation management consultant. “I know of no cases [nationwide] where commuter services are breaking even. They?re all subsidized; it?s a matter of getting the taxpayers to fund the service.”
The MTA plans to increase system capacity from 27,000 seats, now serving an estimated 30,000 riders daily, to 100,000 by 2035 with a series of increases, according to Henry Kay, MTA deputy administrator for planning and engineering.
Kay said the first expansion will occur over the next year and will add two daily trains and a weekend train to the Penn Line, as well as a midday train on the MARC?s Camden line. The project is expected to cost $10 million, including $6 million in upkeep costs, which Kay said has already been budgeted.
The big increase will occur around 2015, when Kay said a major $1 billion improvement project will require large state and federal contributions.
In fiscal 2006 the MARC system recouped about 60 percent of its costs through fares, well in advance of the MTA?s bus system, which sees a return of about 37 percent, he said.
“I think it?s a safe assumption that will continue,” he said. “Your operating costs don?t increase more quickly than your revenue, they increase together. There is an operating cost associated with [the project], but there?s an operating cost increase with transportation no matter how you do it. It?s just a question of how you do it.”
Paul Schonfeld, a professor of civil engineering at University of Maryland, College Park, said increasing MARC capacity to 100,000 seats isn?t as big a jump as it might seem.
“It may sound like a large expansion, but this is a quite large metro area when you consider the Baltimore-Washington area,” he said. “And the overall number of riders per day doesn?t sound that large. They could easily get those number of riders if they expand the system.”
Ultimately, planning too many specifics decades in advance can be risky, said Tom Firey, senior fellow with the Maryland Public Policy Institute, and it will be a long time before the success or failure of the MTA?s plan can be measured.
“No one knows,” Firey said. “It?s going to depend on what the job market does, depends on what the economy does. It?s tough to say what will happen 20 years. Twenty years ago, we were wondering will the city even survive.”
