Love them or hate them, if you drive downtown, you’ve seen Baltimore’s red “BUS ONLY” lanes.
The city installed the lanes, a form of tactical transit, a year and a half ago as part of Baltimore’s bus network redesign. The idea was to give buses priority over cars along parts of Pratt, Lombard, Fayette, St. Paul, Guilford, Charles and Gay streets to improve commute times.
The city is renewing its contract with RMA Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation to operate the Charm City Circulator for another three months, said Department of Transportation spokesman German Vigil, and the popular online bus system’s app is back online.
Baltimore’s dedicated bus lanes were supposed to move buses through traffic faster, boost the city’s sluggish public transit system, improve bus on-time performance–and maybe even increase ridership.
One year after Gov. Larry Hogan’s much-heralded $135 million bus system redesign, BaltimoreLink bus ridership is down and on-time performance for both LocalLink and CityLink high-frequency buses is below MTA goals.
The police budget, city school police, and subsidies for developers were front and center at Wednesday’s mayoral forum at West Baltimore’s Union Baptist Church– as candidates answered questions focusing on criminal justice and human rights.
