MARC EXPRESS and THE BWI RAIL STATION AREA
“At 23 minutes to Union Station, this MARC Express Service could take the station, and the surrounding constituencies and communities, to a whole new level. The affects could be transformational on not just the Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport, but also the surrounding BWI Business District, and the greater Northern Anne Arundel communities beyond.”
One of the four proposed stops on the MARC Express Service would be the BWI Rail Station. And although this website is focused primarily on the HUB West Baltimore area, it would be a glaring omission if it wasn’t pointed out that what’s good for West Baltimore in this case - MARC Express Service - would be potentially great for northern Anne Arundel County, BWI Airport and BWI Rail Station area.
Although BWI rail station is already the second busiest station in Maryland (after Baltimore Penn), and the 13th busiest in the Amtrak system, the addition of a regular 23-minute express service to the station would represent an entirely new way of thinking about the area. At those trip times, BWI and northern Anne Arundel County become, in reality, part and parcel of downtown Washington, more convenient than Bethesda even, and closer in terms of time by train than many of the stations in the DC metro system. The effects - on the airport, on the walkable TOD radius, and on the communities a short car-ride beyond - would be transformational.
MARC Express travel times on this order would not only make BWI the most convenient airport to the eastern half of Washington, including Capitol Hill, but it would also make BWI closer to Washington’s Union Station than even the highly developed Arlington Corridor (below), on the DC Metro’s Orange Line. The level of development there - a poster-child of Northern Virginia’s economic power - would be a shining example of what’s possible for BWI and Northern Anne Arundel County with that level of accessibility.
Northern Virginia’s Arlington Corridor - all longer in time from Union Station by DC’s metro system than BWI Rail Station would be by MARC Express. Could this level of development be a model for the BWI Area of northern Anne Arundel County?
A 10-minute drive radius shows just how much of Northern Anne Arundel County (and some parts of Howard County and Baltimore City) would be in the nearly half-hour trip window to downtown Washington - again, a remarkable level of commutability.
The 10-minute drive radius around the BWI Rail Station.
And the equally attractive TOD zone closer in, with available development space, much of it zoned commercial or industrial, would be likely even more attractive.
The same type of relative affordability as West Baltimore would drive similar growth in the communities around the station.
And if a new modern, reconfigured BWI Rail Station were constructed (as was conceptualized in the 2012 image below), one with rapid direct connections to the airport terminal, and one that had all four Penn Line tracks in use, that rail station could quickly become the dynamic center of a new thriving commercial and residential hub - one with unparalleled access not only to the heart of a great economic engine (Washington), but to virtually any location in the country accessible by air.
Reconfiguring the BWI Rail Station to bring the third track into service could add as much as 30% more capacity to Amtrak and MARC’s Penn Line - more than enough capacity to run an additive full MARC Express service (14 trains a day, each way, every workday). A federal Environmental Impact Statement is already completed and approved for the project. It just needs funding.
For a closer look at what would be involved in getting that third track in service, have a look at the BWI Section of the Roadmap Report, starting on p.31.