Letter to the editor in the Washington Post about passenger railroad service to the Eastern Shore

-- "The Eastern Shore has been beyond the reach of the railroads for too long"

The author calls for passenger railroad service to Maryland's Eastern Shore.

I wrote a couple comments on the letter, but it made me realize I need to update some of my previous writings and extend the argument in a couple areas, given that I first called for a merged passenger railroad system for the multi-state region in 2006.

1. Last October's piece, "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," called for a full statewide plan for railroad passenger service in Maryland. It acknowledged a need to include the Eastern Shore, but not a lot of guidance how to do it.



(Back in the days of interurban service, there was a system that connected Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, but since that railroad went out of business in the late 1920s, connections between Baltimore and Annapolis and Washington and Annapolis atrophied.)



2. The entry includes a historical map link, but I failed to mention that historically, rail service for the Eastern Shore emanated from Philadelphia and Wilmington.

Ideally, planning for a third span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, connecting Annapolis to the Eastern Shore, ought to include railroad services/transit. 

To fully work, it probably should include ferry services, which I didn't mention.

-- "Instead of a third Chesapeake Bay Bridge, why not start out with a fast ferry from Rock Hall to Baltimore?," 2018

Some of the German transport associations, like Hamburg, include ferries, as does London.  The SF Bay, Boston--run by the MBTA, and Puget Sound have extensive ferry systems, as do other cities around the world.

DC could have a ferry system too, although there are big hurdles, because the rivers aren't well-located vis-à-vis the area's office districts and major destinations.

-- "Metrorail shutdown south of AlexandriaNational Airport would have been a good opportunity to promote ferry service," 2019

3. In "The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association" (2017) I outline a multi-regional system for transit planning in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, based on the German transport association model.

-- "One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example" (2015)
-- "Branding's (NOT) all you need for transit," 2018
-- "Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland," Ralph Buehler, John Pucher & Oliver Dümmler, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (2018)

It calls for moving transit planning to the Metropolitan Planning Organizations serving the multi-state area, but because the MPOs haven't shown that they can plan at that scale and with that kind of vision, now I believe that the planning function needs to move to a super-regional transit planning body, functioning like the German model using the scale of how the transport association operates at a multi-state scale in Greater Hamburg (and how transit planning occurs in London or Paris).

4. Preceding the DMVTA piece, in "A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines" (2017), I suggest merging the MARC Penn Line and the VRE Fredericksburg Line is a way to jump start this process of creating a DMV Transport Association and a regional passenger railroad system.


Map by Dan Malouff, BeyondDC

But at the same time, this merger should simultaneously include planning at the start to extend the line northward to Wilmington, Delaware and southward to Richmond.  I said that in the original post, but it needs to be reemphasized given developments in 2019.

WRT Richmond, this leverages the State of Virginia's acquisition of right of way from CSX ("Virginia to build Long Bridge and acquire CSX right of way to expand passenger train service," Washington Post).


WRT service to Wilmington--which would connect to the Philadelphia regional passenger railroad system, this leverages years of on and off planning to extend the MARC Penn Line, and the recent effort by the Maryland State Legislature to move MARC forward beyond the lack of interest in transit by the Executive Branch, although Governor Hogan vetoed the legislation ("Maryland approves plan to expand MARC commuter trains into D.C., Virginia," Post; "Gov. Hogan vetoes MARC expansion bill, Maryland Democrats vow to override," GGW).

Although the legislative initiative wasn't very far ranging, definitely not calling for the creation of a multi-state railroad service or expansion to Delaware.

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Unrelatedly, speaking of water-borne transit, there is the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, a shipping canal also used by pleasurecraft, providing a more direct connection to the Chesapeake Bay from the Ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia.

It wouldn't make sense to use for regular passenger transportation, but Mersey Ferries, part of the transit authority in Greater Liverpool, does offer excursion cruises on the Manchester Ship Canal, which is a way to promote transportation and experience different types of transportation infrastructure more broadly.