Update: During the course of reporting this story an MTA bus operator tested positive for the coronavirus. As a result, some bus routes will temporarily experience service impacts, which include delays. We will keep you posted on any new developments.

It’s been all of two weeks since Maryland declared a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but the coronavirus has already significantly changed how public transit is operates and is used in and around Baltimore City.

Faced with a disease whose spread seems to thrive on the density inherent to its vehicles, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) has attempted to reduce the risks the coronavirus poses to its Baltimore-area riders in three different ways: more cleaning, rear door boarding on buses, and a reduction in the frequency of some routes.

More cleaning

First off, the MTA has, to quote the “Coronavirus Updates” page it set up last week, “proactively initiated an enhanced daily wipe-down of bus, rail, and paratransit vehicles to include disinfecting areas with high passenger touchpoints.”

One of the highest “passenger touchpoints” on any bus is right up front near the driver’s seat, which is why passengers on MTA buses are now being encouraged to either show their Charmcards (the MTA’s answer to WMATA’s SmarTrip cards) or use the CharmPass app the agency introduced last year instead of paper farecards.

More importantly, it’s also why both the MTA and the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BDOT), which runs the city’s Circulator routes, have instituted a much more significant change to their buses: rear-door boarding.

A chain separates bus operators from passengers. Image by the author.

Rear passenger entry

Instead of getting on board at the front of the bus, passengers now board near the end of the bus, giving new meaning to the longtime communal cry of Baltimore bus riders whenever someone tries to exit at the front: “BACK DOOR!”

Most buses also have chains attached to poles to block off the driver’s area from the passengers’ area (A change likely also made in response to a March 14 incident where a passenger shot and seriously wounded an MTA bus driver he was arguing with in Southwest Baltimore). Since this includes the farebox and card reader, the result of this change has been to effectively make MTA bus travel free.

Reduction in bus frequency and (proposed) route cuts

That’s not to say every single one of the MTA’s coronavirus changes has gone off without a hitch, however. Originally, in an effort to help restrict use of public transit only to “essential” workers like hospital employees, pharmacists, grocery store workers, and first responders, the MTA announced last March 17 that it was suspending service on over 20 different local bus routes, as well as reducing the frequency of the remaining routes, all commuter bus routes, both Light Rail and Metro Subway, and all three MARC lines.

The frequency reductions have held without much incident, unlike similar suspensions announced by WMATA for Metrobus a week later. The MTA’s proposed cuts, however, were met with instant outcry from riders and transit advocates alike.

Much of that outcry came from the MTA’s Citizens Advisory Council and two prominent transit advocacy groups, Bikemore and the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, both of whom pointed out that eliminating so many routes all at once and simultaneously decreasing their frequency might have the unintended side effect of actually increasing the crowding on the agency’s buses as “necessary” workers like nurses and hospital technicians get funneled on to a much smaller amount of buses for a much smaller amount of routes.

So while the frequencies for most MTA buses and trains have decreased, the bus route eliminations only lasted a few hours before the MTA scrapped them a day before they would have gone into effect.

What’s next for MTA and riders?

Since then, Baltimore transit seems to have adjusted to the coronavirus shutdown fairly well or at least about as well as a sudden massive decline in ridership brought on by a deadly pandemic could be handled.

The two complicating factors going forward for public transit, both in Baltimore and elsewhere, would appear to be tamping down false rumors and funding. Despite the MTA’s decision not to go forward with eliminating several of its bus routes at this time, a number of rumors that such cuts were imminent, compounded by Governor Larry Hogan’s pleas to Marylanders to practice social distancing and not use public transit unless absolutely necessary, have repeatedly popped up on social media like Twitter and two popular local Facebook groups, Baltimore City Voters and Baltimore Transit.

Moderators on these pages have regularly moved to debunk and remove such rumors. The MTA itself also clarified the implications of Hogan’s message in a series of tweets last week including this one.

... to provide care for family members, and other similar destinations. By reducing unnecessary travel, transit becomes safer for those who depend on it, especially essential healthcare workers, and for those who operate it. — MTA Maryland (@mtamaryland) March 19, 2020

Just how much the burgeoning international economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 will affect the already underfunded budget of the MTA and its parent agency, the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) going forward, though, remains to be seen.

Especially after the Transit Safety and Investment Act, which would have funded most of the agency’s years-long maintenance backlog, passed through the House of Delegates but failed to even get a committee vote in the State Senate during the Maryland General Assembly’s abbreviated final week of a shortened session. The shortest session since 1861.

Most of the organizations which pressed for the bill’s passage, plan to do so again if and when the General Assembly reconvenes for a special session later this May.

And that bill, more than anything else MDOT or any other agency is doing right now, may very well hold the key to Maryland public transit being able to emerge from the current chaos of the coronavirus crisis.