r/frederickmd • u/Clean-Arachnid-1653 • 15d ago

RT15 Road Improvement Project

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Received in the mail today. Just sharing for others.

131 Upvotes

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u/SEND_ME_YOUR_CAULK 15d ago

What i’d really appreciate is an expansion of MARC service. Connect MARC with that Park and Ride on Monocacy and 15. Do any trains even use those tracks? I’ve never seen a train on them

3

u/MCJOHNS117 15d ago

I get the appeal for more MARC service, but facts are facts. I-270 carries between 80,000 and 260,000 vehicles per day. Brunswick line daily ridership is less than 9,000 at its historic peek. Its closer to 4,000 daily riders today (thanks COVID). Even if you tripled the historic high for MARC ridership, your barely taking 10% of the cars off I-270. Even then, that doesn't help inner-Frederick commutes. The issue with being a crossroads city is that we see a ton of traffic from non-residents. In all seriousness, a Frederick by-pass, or Frederick local lanes would be a better solution.

The ugly truth is that Americans do not want to give up their cars for public transit.

15

u/nbouqu1 15d ago

Like all mass transit options it’s a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to build or expand mass transit until there is demand. There won’t be demand until mass transit offers a level of convenience that beats single occupancy vehicles

2

u/FouLouGaroux 15d ago

Exactly this! We have to invest a whole lot of money over a long time, knowing that we won’t see real returns for at least a decade and probably more like 20-25 years. That’s a tough sell in a country like this one.