Testimony on HB 1117, Plan for All Day MARC Trains
The Action Committee for Transit strongly supports HB1117 requiring the Maryland Transit Administration to develop a plan for expanding commuter rail hours and passenger service on the CSX and Amtrak rail lines in the State served by MARC, and extending service into Northern Virginia.
The bill will add urgency to MTA’s current improvement plan which pushes back all-day service on the under-served Brunswick and Camden lines to well after 2030. Requiring a 10-year implementation plan and the development of information to judge the effectiveness of the investments in MARC will let State and local governments make informed decisions about the desirabilityhttps://www.yourwebhosting.com/controlpanel/FileManager/# of rail investment compared to widening I-270, the B-W Parkway, or other investments.
Throughout the US, expanded commuter rail has provided cost-effective personal mobility at peak hours and off-peak. In our region, VRE’s 2014 System Plan showed that the VRE commuter rail investment plan would be more cost-effective than the major Virginia highway and Metrorail expansion projects undertaken in the last two decades. And ACT’s 2016 proposal to MDOT for improving MARC as an alternative to widening I-270 estimated that adding several daily trains to the Brunswick line and making the attendant track improvements for $100 million would create capacity equivalent to an added lane in each direction
It is especially important and timely to study MARC service to Northern Virginia since the District of Columbia is working on the planning and environmental review of building a second rail bridge across the Potomac to accommodate more VRE trains, increased CSX freight traffic, and potentially extended MARC service. Extending MARC trains to Northern Virginia would improve transit options for Marylanders working in Northern Virginia by eliminating a transfer to Metro to reach the Pentagon or Crystal City, and increase the value of the MARC service.