MTA Launches New Bus Routes Around Baltimore Suburbs

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Today marks the start of Governor Larry Hogan's makeover of the Maryland Transit Administration's bus routes.

Four new express routes now link suburbs to suburbs, WJZ's Alex DeMetrick reports.

A straight line might be the shortest distance between two points, but that's not the trip customers said they were getting.

"And they said, 'Listen, we're in White Marsh and we want to go to Towson, I don't want to go downtown, switch off to another bus and come back up,'" says Paul Comfort, MTA administrator.

So MTA launched new routes -- two linking Owings Mills, Towson and White Marsh, one linking Pikesville and BWI, and one linking Columbia and Harbor East.

"So these are routes that will hopefully get people where they want to go," Comfort says. "Link them to where the jobs are today."

The Hogan administration says too many bus routes follow old street car lines into the heart of Baltimore.

"This is Governor Hogan's transformative process of taking transit into the 21st century," said James Ports Jr.,Maryland's Deputy Secretary for Operations.

It will take at least 90 days to gauge ridership on the new routes, but even on this first day, there's interest.

"So right now is three buses which I need to come see my doctor at White Marsh here," says rider Leila Vitespic. "No I can just use one of them."

That cuts her travel time in half, at $2.10 per ride.

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