I'm not fundamentally opposed to transit and have lived in other cities with better options so I understand the value proposition. My issue is to be financially worth it you'd need to have more ridership than could be realistically served by running frequent bus service to that area and/or a significant decrease in ridership time. For the ridership numbers, the models are generous in terms of projections vs reality to try to get federal funding. The current models for the central MD transit plan were created pre-covid as far as I can tell. There's no reality where they will come anywhere close unless the state of MD bans all car traffic or the remote work trend dies off overnight.

Regarding ridership time, looking at the North/South alternatives, the projected decrease in "transit ridership time" is a max of 14 minutes between Towson & Downtown. The MTA shared in public meetings they already eliminated the heavy rail choice as too expensive/least projected ridership so that 14 minute savings is out. The next best is 11 minutes for partially mixed traffic light rail. The current time to get between Towson Town Center & Light/Pratt on the Red Bus Line is 45 minutes. The best light rail option would bring it down to a projected 34 minutes. This is before traffic studies are done and as we've seen with mixed traffic in the current light rail, I'm skeptical it'll work even that well. To make that same trip in a car is 20 minutes. You're not enticing new ridership with those kinds of numbers. Projected ridership times mentioned can be found on the 3rd row here: https://rtpcorridors.com/images/ns-documents/RTP_North-South_Corridor_Study_MOEs_2022-08-31.pdf

My two cents is the MTA need to take a step back and look at why all their other Baltimore transit lines struggle. Even pre-COVID, the light rail stops are in the middle of nowhere and do not save time due to being in mixed traffic so you get the worst of limited local ridership and limited commuter ridership. Penn Station isn't connected to any of the job centers, so the MARC train doesn't get used as a commuter rail coming from north/northeast of the city. As we're discussing in this thread, the subway has it's own problems with ridership.

In light of the uncertainty around what the working landscape looks now and into the future, IMO it'd be best to focus on testing options like BRT in the most dense city bus lines before taking on prestige projects. Prove out line concepts in the lowest cost & flexible option before taking on major investments based off faulty modeling. Expand those line out to further & less dense areas on the edge of the city as they start working in the core. If the goal is to look at suburban access to the city core to get cars off the road, they should be looking at commuter rail lines such as the MARC which go further out and have limited stops but actually connect them to downtown. The current north/south transit plan looks like more of the same mixed traffic light rail setup that hasn't worked.

MTA Data shows major ridership decreases across the board compared to 2019 pre-covid numbers. As of July, it was 63% of 2019 ridership. For the Subway specifically, it took a major hit "Metro Subway ridership standing at 612,000 in February 2020, compared to 122,000 in February 2022.": https://thedailyrecord.com/2022/07/08/mta-ridership-numbers-still-struggling-to-return-to-pre-pandemic-levels/

At least in the near term, remote work is here to stay. I doubt these numbers recover to 2019 levels for at least a decade, if ever. It's crazy to me the MTA are talking about new light rail lines when there may not be any ridership to support the investment over existing bus lines. There's no way the projected ridership models from the North-South Corridor study are even close to accurate post-COVID: https://rtpcorridors.com/northsouth/alternatives