More about getting to-from Baltimore with a bike via public transit

Bikes on Metrobus. (Photo by Stephanie K. Kuykendal For The Washington Post)

Jerry Lawler writes--

A friend forwarded your blog entry about attending Artscape. I've often wanted to bike in DC and never know there was a way to get there by public transportation until now. What bus do you take from BWI to the DC metro? Do they allow bikes at all times? Any details you can give me would be appreciated. There are a few of us here who bike regularly. About 200 or so go to the annual bike to work day but Baltimore could do MUCH more. The downtown streets are downright hazardous.

Richard Layman respond

All WMATA buses, just like MTA buses, are outfitted with bike racks. As you must know, that means a bus has the capacity to carry only two bikes at a time.

I was a bit worried because the bus that goes to and from the airport is configured differently inside, so I confirmed that the bus had a bike rack a couple days before. The first person I talked with opined that if the bus didn't have a rack, depending on usage, maybe I could take the bike inside the bus. But the bus does have the normal rack.** (Thanks to people at WMATA's bus scheduling department as well as the Supervisor of Landover Bus Operations for answering my questions.)

The bus is the B30. It has two stops at terminals at the Airport, and a third stop at the BWI Business District Light Rail stop. Like the bus to Dulles, this WMATA bus has a special higher fare of $3.

According to MTA, the only times you can't take a bike on Light Rail is on days when the Orioles play. I don't know if they might allow some time windows where you could take a bike onto the Light Rail trains.

WMATA allows bikes on buses at all times (on the outside mounted racks). But on the subway, you cannot take bikes during the hours of 7-10 a.m. and 4-7 p.m.

WRT your point about doing more for bike advocacy locally. I mentioned what I did to a colleague and she suggested that at Penn Station, there could be a bike rental facility. Note that DC is planning to do this at Union Station. See this blog entry, "Bicycle Services @ Union Station -- A Planning Meeting Tonight," from last Wednesday). That's something you can take up in Baltimore...
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** I did worry a bit about writing this up, because the bike carrying capacity of the B30 is limited.