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I have been an active member of the Transit Riders League and now the Transit Riders Action Council. I have also been a board member of both. The TRL is an activity of Citizens Planning and Housing Association. TRAC is independent. We broke away from TRL because we want to be able to take positions that are not necessarily in conformity with the directives of CPHA.
One of the issues that divided us from CPHA was that of bus shelters. TRL wanted to support them, but could not because another activity of CPHA opposed any type of billboards.
I have not been to many TRAC meetings because I'm also very active in the WordPerfect Baltimore Users Group and both organizations met at the same time. Finally I requested WP BUG to change their meeting date and they agreed.
Many people consider me old fashioned because I use the best word processor on the market. Most people think that WordPerfect is dead and/or obsolete. I'm routinely doing things with WordPerfect that I cannot do with Word. At work I have to use Word and I'm very frustrated.
I'm sharing with you my notes of the meeting. If you live in the Baltimore area, you should be supporting the Transit Riders Action Council, even if you do not ride public transportation. These notes are not official. They are strictly personal but being shared with my readers.
When I arrived at the meeting, Mr. Rich Solli of MTA Marketing was finishing up his presentation. We were discussing maps. we say that any time you have rail, you should show every transfer point. Nate asked if there is any information available at the stations when one gets off a train and there is nobody there.
The question of trip planners was also raised. Mr. Solli said that we had one until four years ago but we were sending too many people the wrong way. Then Google came out with Google Transit. Our system is more complicated that some. We are planning to have a Beta trip planner by the end of the month.
We also talked about hearings and meetings coming up.Somebody mentioned that in Greece there is a trackless trolley which can go two miles beyond the wires.
We also want to reach out to the greater Baltimore community. An on-line project was suggested and Steve said that he can help with the writing. In Baltimore County there are flyers telling how to get to each library by MTA.
Somebody asked if we can get a grant to do a newsletter. We have a fund raising goal and we raised just under half of it. We also learned that the League for People with Disabilities prints and mails things.
The MTA has pulled many of the light rail trains out of service to check the wheels. They are being proactive in this.
MTA is purchasing 27 brand new diesel locomotives. Our diesels are at least ten years old.
We also talked a little about some of the bus route changes. Most people do not seem to like trhe changes.
I am under the impression that MTA might be getting away from clock-face scheduling. By this it means that a bus will come to a specific stop at the same time of each hour. The problem with this is that it wastes resources because it requires extra vehicles to work. They wil be using AVL and GPS to figure out what is the real running time on the buses.
Baltimore has one of the highet fare box recovery rate in the country.
MTA wants limited service on the 14 and they are looking at bringing back the 210 and there might be a limited bus parallel to the 8 and this would be the 48.
For Legislative Affairs Saul is starting to program net years legislation. He will not be working on a regional rail plan.
Doc Cheatam of the NAACP si interested ingetting together with groups on the Red Line. We need to preapre a document on the problems of the process to be submitted to the Red Line Conference.
State-wide long range planning bill is another which Saul wants to plar around and a cell phone ban for bus drivrs is another. The union opposed a law.
Saul read the slate of candidates. Dr. Christopher Fields is running for President, Nate Payr for Vice President, and Fr. Dn Michael Bishop for Recording Secretary. There are other slots also.
Howard County is buying new hybrid buses. They are the leaders. Baltimore County put the extnesion of the Green Line into Middle River as a priority. We should be advocating for sidewalks and shelters for as many bus stops as possible.
There were several maps available. I took several bus maps to be distributed at church and at work.
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