Save a Tree, Take a Train to Base

As the federal employees commuting to Fort Meade each day grow in number, they are being encouraged to find alternative ways of getting to work. Today, Odenton Patch examines one of the “greenest” options for getting to work: rail service.

Thousands of people commute into Washington, D.C. and Baltimore on the MARC Penn Line each day, and it’s possible to use the train to get to work at Fort Meade as well.  It’s not the most direct way to arrive on base, nor is it the cheapest, but it will free you from the reliance on your car.

Officials from Fort Meade and Anne Arundel County are pushing for MARC train usage as part of a transportation demand management plan designed to reduce the number of cars passing through the installation gates and clogging nearby roadways.

For those unfamiliar with using MARC, be aware that there’s no rail station right at Fort Meade. The easiest thing to do is to take the Penn Line to the Odenton station, then pick up a free shuttle from the station to the installation. The schedule of the shuttle is designed to allow passengers to be picked up and dropped off with little wait time.

MARC recently to allow for more capacity during morning and evening rush hours, and this is good news for Fort Meade workers.

The schedule change freed up about 1,000 seats during peak time, and anecdotally, riders report that seats have been easier to find. It’s also important to note that riders traveling north on the Penn Line are not competing for seats with the thousands of commuters who travel into Washington each morning.

Any MARC rider will tell you that most of the time, riding the train is far more relaxing than taking the car. You can read, take a nap, or get a head start on work, and most trains have quiet cars that allow you to avoid the din of chatty passengers. A monthly pass on the Penn Line costs  $125, but if you’re a government worker, your fare may be completely reimbursable.

Whether MARC saves you time or not will depend on where you come from. A ride from Union Station to Odenton takes about 30 minutes, but taking the shuttle from the MARC station to Fort Meade will add some time. A shuttle ride from the MARC station to the headquarters of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), for instance, takes between 15 and 18 minutes. There is also the issue of getting on the MARC train in the first place each morning. For those DISA workers who still reside in Northern Virginia, getting to Union Station in Washington might require a Metro ride across town, or even a ride on the Virginia Railway Express. Commuters from Baltimore must make their way to Penn Station.

Officials acknowledge these “extra steps” could be a deterrent for some commuters.

“Anytime you add a stop or do this or that, you lose people,” said Bert Rice, director of transformation at Fort Meade. “Anytime you have changes, you reduce the number of people commuting that way, so you really want to think it through and make it as easy as you possibly can.”

There are a couple of other rail options for Fort Meade commuters. Those workers who don’t live along the MARC Penn Line can take the Camden Line to the Savage MARC station, where they can pick up a free shuttle to the base or the new Intercounty Connector Bus.

Metro riders who work for DISA can also hop on a special van traveling in between the Greenbelt Metro station and Fort Meade.

Rice said there has also been some interest in having a shuttle back and forth from the light rail station in Linthicum, though nothing is in place. 

For more information on commuting options to Fort Meade, go to meaderide.com.

Editor's note: This is Part II in a series examining commuting options to Fort Meade. On Monday, we examined to the installation. On Wednesday in Part III of the series, we will examine carpools and vanpool options.