It has been two months since the Maryland Transit Administration instituted a new schedule for the Brunswick MARC line, and officials are now asking for rider feedback.
The changes were needed because ridership has doubled since 2002, the last time the Brunswick line schedule had a significant revision, according to Joe Sviatko, a spokesman for MTA. The old schedule no longer reflected the amount of time needed to load and unload passengers.
If the Brunswick line trains’ on-time performance in August is any indication, the changes did what MTA intended.
Last month, 97 percent of trains were on time, compared with 85 percent in August 2011.
It is too soon, however, to draw any conclusions about the changes, MTA spokesman Terry Owens said.
“This is an ongoing, fluid process. That’s part of the reason for the survey,” he said. “We want to hear from our customers to make sure they don’t have any outstanding issues that we can try to address in some way.”
Even before MTA offered the survey, some positive feedback came in from Montgomery County riders, who got additional stops at local stations with the schedule change, Owens said. Some West Virginia riders, who lost an express train in the switch, have reported being unhappy with the schedule, he said.
“It’s been mixed, but we expect to have a much better handle on what people think about the service once this survey comes back,” Owens said.
In the months before the change, the MTA held several well-attended public meetings to let riders express their concerns. Even the final schedule proposal, which had less extreme changes for Frederick County stops than the two previous drafts, had some riders worried.
For the Brunswick, Frederick, Monocacy and Point of Rocks stations, no train comes more than 20 minutes before or after the previous schedule’s stop time.
Morning trains to Washington saw no change greater than 12 minutes. The first train that picks up passengers from the Frederick and Monocacy stations, P890, now arrives 12 minutes earlier at both stops.
In the afternoon, the biggest change is that the P877 train to West Virginia stops 19 minutes later in Point of Rocks.
Wayne Zahn, of Frederick, takes that train.
“It hasn’t affected me too much,” he said.
The train he takes out of Silver Spring leaves there 10 minutes earlier and arrives at its destination 20 minutes later than it used to, meaning time comes out of his workday that he has to make up, and he gets home later than before.
Zahn said he and many of his fellow riders preferred the old schedule, but he doesn’t expect the MTA to take that into consideration.
“It seems like they still keep ignoring (riders) out here,” he said.
Zahn agrees that the train has been more punctual since the change, however.
Steve Laverty, of Brunswick, said his commute was lengthened on both ends by 10 to 15 minutes.
“I haven’t heard one person who has been happy with the change in schedule,” he said.
He guesses that Frederick County and West Virginia riders weren’t considered as much as Montgomery County MARC users.
The new schedule has little impact on Suzanne Carroll, who takes a train to Rockville out of the Monocacy Station in Frederick. One of the previously discussed options, she said, would have meant getting home a half-hour later. Now, she gets home just a few minutes later.
“It messes me up a little bit when I get down here in the morning to Rockville because I have to get a different bus,” said Wanda Moore-Jackson, who also rides from Frederick to Rockville. But after two months, that’s “water under the bridge,” she said.
Both Carroll and Moore-Jackson reported hearing “mumbling” on the Rockville platform from West Virginia riders who don’t like the changes.
“It was impossible to make everybody happy,” Carroll said.
An email sent to riders in June stated that schedule adjustments would be made as necessary after 90 to 120 days of “real-time operational experience.”