Rider group faults BaltimoreLink

Buses come less often than MTA reports, job access dropped, report contends

BaltimoreLink, Gov. Larry Hogan’s overhaul of the Maryland Transit Administration regional bus system, has fallen short of delivering the “transformational” transit he promised, according to an analysis released Thursday by a rider advocacy group.

The route redesign gave slightly more residents access to high-frequency transit and high-opportunity jobs, the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance wrote in a 46-page report. But in its analysis, buses did not come as often as the MTA reports and overall access to jobs dropped slightly.

The transportation alliance criticized the MTA for not tracking average trip time — improving which had been one goal of the overhaul — andchangingthewayitclassifies “on-time,” which the group said made it difficult to tell whether the bus system had become more reliable in the past year.

“BaltimoreLink was an opportunity to improve the MTA’s performance,” the report said. “We offer this report based on the principle from business management that you can’t improve what you can’t measure.”

MTA Administrator Kevin Quinn said he had read the report and was glad the alliance recognized the increase in high-frequency service. But he disagreed that the change to the agency’s on-time measurements meant reliability couldn’t be evaluated.

When BaltimoreLink launched, the agency expanded its definition of “on time” from within five minutes of the scheduled time to within seven minutes — the standard used by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

The MTA used the new definition to calculate that its previous on-time rate had been 59.5 percent. Using that same measure, LocalLink buses now arrive and depart on time about 68 percent of the time, and the high-frequency CityLink buses arrive within their promised 10- to 15minute intervals 73 percent of the time, according to the agency.

“Our old numbers and our new numbers are apples-to-apples comparisons,” Quinn said.

The buses still fall short of their top goal: a systemwide on-time rate of 80 percent.

To document bus arrival times, transportation alliance staff and volunteers stood at bus stops for one to two hours in June and August of 2017, and again in May of this year, according to the report.

Using the MTA’s newmetrics, they found that 60 percent, not 68 percent, of the LocalLink buses arrived on time, and that fewer than a third, not nearly threequarters, of CityLink buses arrived on time in May, the report said.

Quinn argued that the MTA’s numbers are more accurate than a sample taken by people standing at bus stops, because the agency tracks it with real-time GPS devices.

“Our data is based on GPS technology and is not somewhat of a random sampling,” he said.

But standing at a bus stop is how riders evaluate the system every day, argued Brian O’Malley, president of the alliance.

“I actually wonder if that’s the difference between what people experience and what the MTA reports,” he said.

Funding was another concern the report raised. MTA capital funding is scheduled for a 58 percent cut from the 2019 fiscal year to the 2023 fiscal year, it said.

Quinn said that’s because the agency spent significantly more than usual in the 2018 fiscal year on the Purple Line, MARC locomotives and positive train control, a renovation of the Kirk Bus Division, a light rail overhaul and new Metro cars.