Anyone from the Baltimore area? Need public transportation info!!

[trekkie2]

This is not totally off topic and this may save me a ton of money and help keep my semi adult son from moving back home Here is the deal. I have a son who has moved to Olney, he was headed to BWI to catch a plane for a work trip and the engine of his car blew. He managed to catch a later flight, but when he flys home tomorrow he has no way to get home. I am in Colorado and he has no one out there to call. I have been trying to find out about public transportation in that area to give him some help since he has been at meetings all week and have not been able to find anything helpful. He is not old enough to rent a car, and was just going to take a cab (55 miles). He has high functioning autism and that is making the whole thing more complicated. So the point of this long spiel is ...Anyone who lives out there have any info on the transit system?

 

[Perditamarie]

I don't live there....but can someone from his office help out? Will his company reimburse him for all/part of the cost as a business expense.

Anyway, I googled "public transportation fro BWI"...hope that helps a bit!

http://www.google.com/search?q=publ...ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GPEA_en

 

[Floridagal23]

You might want to check if super shuttle will take him home. I've taken it from Dulles into DC, which isn't a huge distance, but you never know. Or, see if a car service can come pick him up?

I'm not sure how the public transit system works.I know the DC metro (wmata.com) has busses and the metro that go into baltimore. You can also take amtrak from BWI (the stop is "BWI" and I'm not sure how you get from bwi amtrak stop to the airport, I am sure there is a shuttle or walking distance).

 

[carissanboys]

The MARC train is the main public transportation for Baltimore. Here's a link:

http://www.mtamaryland.com/services/marc/

I lived near BWI for 6 years, but only took the MARC once (and not to or from the airport) so I'm not really familiar with it.

 

[minnie1928]

I'm not sure how the public transit system works.I know the DC metro (wmata.com) has busses and the metro that go into baltimore. You can also take amtrak from BWI (the stop is "BWI" and I'm not sure how you get from bwi amtrak stop to the airport, I am sure there is a shuttle or walking distance).

I think the amtrak pickup might actually be just to the right of the shuttle bus/satellite parking bus pickup area (which is right outside of where he would pick up his luggage), on the outside of the building.

 

[sherreis]

Here's a shuttle service that a lot of people use:

Super Shuttle

good luck!

 

[buckler]

I don't live up there so this may be totally off but this is my best educated guess at a public transit option. This would be cheaper, but involves several bus/rail transfers and might be overwhelming to someone that isn't used to public transit.

Olney is in Mongomery County. The Montgomery DOT site recommends that people from the county park at Greenbelt and take a bus to go to BWI. Tip about parking at Greenbelt

So I'm guessing the best public transit way would be to travel from BWI to the Greenbelt Metro Station on the B30 bus. Info here:
BWI ground transportation

My next guess was he would need to take the Metro to a stop in Maryland and catch another bus to Olney. You can click on the stations here and see what bus routes serve each station Metro/Bus connections

One option I found was to go from the Greenbelt station to the Rockville station on the Metro. See the trip planner here: WMATA Trip Planner

Exit on the east side of the Rockville station and take the 52 bus from Rockville to Olney with multiple stops he could get off at depending on where he lives. BUT...this bus only operates on weekends.
52 Bus

OR

From Greenbelt go to the Glenmont metro station and connect to the Y9 bus. The Y9 bus is a short walk from the Glenmont station. If you plug in Greenbelt to Olney on the WMATA Trip Planner link above you see the full details of that route.

You could try calling the Montgomery County Dept. of Transportation at 240-777-7433 to see if I'm close to being right on this.

 

[trekkie2]

this is perfect, I knew you guys could save the day!! Now, if I can just get ahold of him to pass along all the good info! The rail system looks great, that should work for him until we can find him a new car. Thanks SO much.

 

[buckler]

Looking at it again I'm thinking the Rockville option isn't all that good. That's a lot of metro stops on the red line and that would take a while. I'd go with the Glenmont option as long as the Y9 would stop close enough to where he lives. I couldn't find out much about the stops on the Y9 because the PDF file of the bus routes wouldn't open for me.

We were just in DC this summer and stayed at a hotel near the Rockville station. A month ago when we were there they had slowed down the red line while they continued investigations from the crash this spring. I don't know if they are still slowing things down, but it added a lot of time to the commute from downtown to Rockville when we traveled that route.

Edited to add: Got the bus PDF to open in IE (it didn't work in Firefox) Here's the link
Maryland Map

You can zoom in and see the street names and see which bus goes closest to his home. There are more bus options than I listed above. The WMATA trip planner will detail them for you. It varies depending on the time he'll be traveling.

 

[trekkie2]

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who answered. You really saved the day and I am so grateful. My son made it back to his house tonight. and buckler your maps and routes really did the trick. He gets to keep his job, I get to keep my couch and he can now navagate his way around the area until he can afford a new car.