MTA ICC Commuter Bus Service Coming

[mrpete]

From today's Sun:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.icc09dec09,0,1330262.story

[rideonrulez]

Good catch Pete. I happened to get a peep of the route ideas earlier this year and was not impressed at all. I'll see if I can dig up the post where we talked about this before.

UPDATE: http://forums.dctransit.info/index.php?topic=17.0

[WMAveteran]

Excellent news item.  I live in Gaithersburg and fly from BWI Thurgood Marshall on occasion. The airport service would save me a lot of money by not having to pay $8.00 a day at the economy lots since you can park at Gaithersburg Park and Ride for free.  Now if only they would plan to operate the service more than 3 or 4 times a day and also 7 days a week.

[Scrabbleship]

My take on the routes

Gaithersburg/Fort Meade: I know everyone's solution is to put more money into MARC for access, however I would think the trip time to do Shady Grove-Union + MARC to Fort Meade would be quite a bit longer than this route. I think it might be too soon to tell since the BRAC relocations are more than a year away and the number of commuters from northern Montgomery is unknown.

Gaithersburg/College Park: This really should be a WMATA route as it is fully in WMATA territory and to be honest a limited on the C8 corridor would work a lot better than going so out of the way especially since a lot of the traffic would be going to the FDA and they have the shuttles from College Park/22 from Silver Spring as it is.
On a tangent, I wonder if MTA would allow Shuttle-UM to use the ICC for their route to the Colleges at Shady Grove. It might be less congested than the current 495 to 270 routing.

Bethesda/Columbia via Rockville: I can kind of see this since the "in-between" points (NIH, NRC, etc.) might drive a bit of ridership, however it puts the riders getting on at Bethesda at a disadvantage because they have to work their way up which eats into time. I'd love to see the schedules on this since I wonder if timewise it would beat the J2/3/4-to-915/929 combo; perhaps some 915/929 runs should start at Bethesda or Medical Center rather than terminating at Silver Spring.

Gaithersburg/BWI: This route might have quite a bit of potential. As it stands, getting to BWI from western Montgomery County (outside the Beltway) via transit takes someone totally out of their way. This would serve as a good alternative and I think the existence of the ICC, period, will be a boon to BWI in terms of traffic from western Montgomery where Dulles is closer but is a similar bear to get to. Only problem is if the MTA would screw up on the scope of service.

I wonder if MTA has a monopoly on bus service on the ICC. There are some other ideas that would make sense if someone else could operate them.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Gaithersburg-BWI has a lot of potential in my mind and I hope it is not just a rush hour route when all is said and done (I can see the others ending up that way).  I've had people pick up or drop off at Greenbelt as a "compromise" between driving all the way to BWI and using transit all the way, but Gaithersburg is far more convenient in my mind from where my family lives than Greenbelt.

[Tritransit Area]

Where is this Gaithersburg P&R?  What transit routes serve it?

[btconet]

I know one thing, if it skips Shady Grove, I will beat my head against a brick wall.

[WMAveteran]

The Gaithersburg P&R is on Quince Orchard Road at I-270. It is served by the J7/J9 I-270 express operating between Lakeforest Transit Center and Bethesda.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Shady Grove seems like a logical terminal for it considering the route of the ICC, or would it continue up to Lakeforest? 

[rideonrulez]

I know one thing, if it skips Shady Grove, I will beat my head against a brick wall.

Its the MTA Maryland planning this so I would not be suprised if they DID skip Shady Grove. :-)

Actually the Park & Ride there refering to (believe it or not) was Metropolitan Grove MARC Station. There were no plans for it to go to Lakeforest. Now if that plan has changed who knows.

[btconet]

Sigh, and there's plenty of brick walls here!

First - I REALLY tire at the notion of commuter services revolving strictly around Park and Rides and picking up folks in suits who drive.  I would think there are lots of young folks lacking cars just entering the workforce who may well be able to use commuter services and who quickly find that they're centered around Park and Rides that are not easily accessible except by car.  All this winds up doing is encouraging them to get a car at their earliest convenience, and ruins potential good transit habits from developing. 

I have no problem with Park and Rides, but think they should be combined with circulator travel, making the Park and Ride the last pick up spot before the highway.  People who don't use a car at all are rewarded by having the best choices of seats, while the dedicated Park & Ride folks have the same trip time they would otherwise, and a little subtle encouragement to board earlier.

Making your hub Metropolitan Grove and bypassing populus areas and genuine transit hubs like Lake Forest and Shady Grove is VERY shortsighted to me.

Next matter I'm scared to even ask about is the schedule.  While I'm hopeful but not too expectant of midday or weekend service, I would at least HOPE the service runs through Shady Grove and may even have some timed connections to allow 991 riders to realistically connect to it.

[NewFlyer9736BCT]

Its the MTA Maryland planning this so I would not be suprised if they DID skip Shady Grove. :-)

I still think there's a chance it will go into Shady Grove (at least I hope there is)...the route 991 goes there, sometimes it doesn't even stop there, it will continue on to Rock Spring.

and I agree with btconet, if these routes take into effect, they better serve areas of high transit presence like Shady Grove Station (even if they're not the first stop, at least have the routes pass by there)

[Scrabbleship]

Wouldn't any bus going from Metropolitan Grove onto the ICC have to pass Shady Grove anyways? And wouldn't it be a bit out of the way for the Bethesda/Columbia route to skip the ICC, go all the way up there, then come back down?

I would put money on that these buses serve Shady Grove. Maybe they would begin at Metropolitan Grove to get the crowd in Gaithersburg proper, but I think MTA is a little too smart to not avoid the Metro connection.

[mrpete]

http://www.bpw.state.md.us/static_files/meetings/12-16-2009.pdf

MD Board of Public Works approved a contract with MCI for 18 coaches on December 16, 2009. To be delivered by August '10. $9,082,386.

[mrpete]

Hearings coming up:

http://mta.maryland.gov/services/commuterbus/schedulesSystemMaps/ICC_ad_clr.pdf