MDOT MTA sees bicycling as an important transportation option and a way to help extend the reach of transit by filling the first mile/last mile gaps. As such the MTA is undertaking a variety of different efforts on Bike to Work Day (B2WD) in order to better support and thank our riders that ride a bicycle to transit.

MTA will host a Bike to Work Day Pit Stop at Penn Station from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. on Friday, May 19, 2017 to thank the 60+ riders that bike to Penn Station on a daily basis. There will be a table in the central plaza near the Man/Woman statue with snacks, drinks, t-shirts and other goodies for riders who register at https://b2wd2017.eventbrite.com/. MTA’s Administrator, Paul Comfort, will be riding from the Pit Stop to the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (SHA) and to Baltimore’s City Hall that morning with some key MTA staff.

The MARC Bike Cars will be running on five southbound and five northbound Penn Line trains and one eastbound and one westbound train on the Brunswick Line from Frederick on Friday, May 19. The train numbers and scheduled times for departure at each station are listed below. The Bike Cars hold up to 24 bicycles and 40 passengers and are on all Weekend MARC Penn Line trains. Starting sometime later this year MARC will start introducing two vertical bicycle racks on MARC passenger cars and will continue adding those until the entire fleet has been equipped.

The MTA will also have Bike-n-Ride displays at five Bike to Work Day locations around the Baltimore Region to help riders learn how to use the bike racks located on all of the MTA’s local buses and also on many other locally operated bus systems around the state. These bike racks allow users to combine bicycling and bus service to reach more destinations than are possible by bicycling or transit on their own. Many riders are nervous about how to use the rack or that it would delay service for the buses and so we’ve developed the Bike-n-Ride displays so that people can test out the use of the rack in a less stressful environment.

Bike-n-Ride displays will be at the Towson, Catonsville, SHA, City Hall, and Pier V B2WD Pit Stops. More information about those locations can be found at http://www.baltometro.org/be-involved/transportation-options/bike/bike-to-work-day. Zipcar (http://www.zipcar.com/) is helping MTA distribute these around to the various locations and a limited number of Zipcar bike lights will be available at the Towson, Penn Station, SHA, City Hall, and Pier V B2WD Pit Stops. MTA will also have staff at the Frederick Bike to Work Day event (https://www.facebook.com/events/1917342168484404/).

MTA is also working with the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT) to install Baltimore Bike Share (https://www.bmorebikeshare.com/) docks at MTA rail stations around downtown Baltimore, with Bike Share docks at six Metro Subway, Light Rail, and/or MARC stations this spring (Penn Station, Mt. Royal, State Center, Charles Center, Camden Station, and Johns Hopkins Hospital), although not all of them will be installed by B2WD.

MTA is also working on a variety of other investments to improve bicycling and transit as part of Governor Hogan’s BaltimoreLink project starting June 18, 2017. Bike racks are being added at a variety of MARC, Metro Subway, and Light Rail stations around Maryland and shared bus/bike lanes on streets throughout downtown Baltimore. These are being done in conjunction with a restructuring of the MTA’s bus routes and other investments to improve the conditions for bus transfers. More information about BaltimoreLink are available at http://baltimorelink.com/.

Bike to Work Day Central Maryland is coordinated by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) and supported by a wide variety of sponsors and volunteers from around the region. There are nearly 40 Pit Stops around the region with one in Carroll County, two in Howard County, three in Baltimore County, four in Harford County, eight in Anne Arundel County, and twenty one in Baltimore City.