Trains magazine, a publication that provides in-depth coverage of the passenger and freight railroad industries, recently used federal transit data to rate America's commuter rail systems. Maryland's MARC commuter rail received a failing F grade, ranking it as one of the nation's worst. In contrast, Virginia Railway Express earned a B.
The magazine noted that MARC service expanded during the 1990s, and that the state made great effort to update train equipment during the gubernatorial terms of William Donald Schaefer and Parris Glendening. This century, the picture has turned far bleaker for Maryland rail commuters.
Trains found MARC ridership dropped 64% between 2018 and 2023. MARC now has the worst cost efficiency, and the poorest mechanical reliability record of any medium size commuter railroad in the country. In other words, Maryland is at rock bottom in commuter rail service. The magazine summed up its analysis of MARC by saying, "it's tough to find a silver lining."
Reporter John Friedmann described the criteria and data utilized in the magazine's survey as follows: Each railroad was graded on the same five criteria. Efficiency was calculated by the operating cost per passenger mile. Utilization, or how much do passengers utilize the network, was measured by the number of passenger miles per route mile. Growth was determined by a comparison of 2018 ridership versus 2023 ridership. Relevance was measured by number of rail trips per area resident. And reliability was rated by the number of mechanical failures per train mile.
All data was compiled from the Federal Transit Administration's National Transit Database.
Not surprisingly, the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad in New York earned an A grade in the survey. So did commuter systems in Salt Lake City and Denver, railroads that aren't discussed as often as their more famous counterparts like the MBTA, Metra, and SEPTA, all of which scored below the Utah and Colorado lines in this survey - but far higher than our beleagured MARC. Can it get any worse for Maryland? Yes! Beyond a massive structural budget deficit forecast, any Purple Line financial losses will siphon even more money from MARC over the coming decades.
9 comments:
What! I thought that commuter rail, and soon to be light rail, projects iare candy cane fields and chocolate rivers. Before the councils mouthpiece runs their mouth about how 10B dollars is better than adding a couple of busses, know that the Baltimore Sun is reporting on an internal audit showing a 8.1B deficit so it's going to get a lot worse in MD. Just check the latest property tax increase of 12.2%, which BTW exceeds the cap voted on by citizens but overridden by a unanimous vote by the council.
The first thing I would argue about in this article from the alleged facts is this; "Trains found MARC ridership dropped 64% between 2018 and 2023". Was the author or the data analyst asleep during this time period. The entire country and this area (served by commuter rail) was under the effects of the pandemic, virtually no one was commuting to work, thus far fewer passenger than normal. Second, in the Maryland transit budget Governor Hogan was committed to the Purple lines development, and the addition of a Red line to the Baltimore subway system, thus diverting funds from capital budget issues like maintenance. I find this article very questionable.
I can’t find this article on Trains Magazine’s website. In which issue is this article, and what is the title?
Can confirm. Going to an O's game over the Summer, the worthless employee couldn't even tell what time the train was leaving nor which track. Zero help, and they are always behind or cancelling scheduled commutes, but MARC does provide a service and in spite of it's track record (pun intended) it's the best or economical way to get into Baltimore either downtown or up to Penn Station.
F for Futuristic?
Bitching about no money being spent over the years to maintain the MARC system and then complaining about needing to invest to actually make this system perform better is truly the essence of this blog in a nutshell.
10:56: The author of the article stressed that the impact of the pandemic affected all rail systems, and was factored equally into the study. For example, VRE also declined in ridership, but still earned a B under the criteria applied.
11:13: November 2025
3:18: I've always been strongly in favor of MARC funding and am on the record on this for about two decades.
Post a Comment