Does anyone use the circulator to barhop?
When I asked a couple of weeks ago, a few of you said it stopped working too early, and then others said some South Baltimore people already refer to the purple line as the "Brewer's Art Shuttle."
Take a look at my story this morning. The Baltimore Department of Transportation tells me there actually are a small fraction of circulator riders who use it after 6 p.m.
On Fridays and Saturdays, they are 26 percent of total ridership for the day. In the story, several riders talked about the circulator's benefits (it's free!) and their frustrations with the service (we can't get drunk by midnight!), and how sometimes, if you leave early enough, they can take it to hit 12 different bars in one night and call it the "sparkulator," like some locals did back in January.
DOT officials like Jamie Kendrick and Barry Robinson also commented. And Nate Payer, director of the Transit Riders Action Council, spoke about the importance of expanding the circulator's hours because it would help the city's nightlife industry, especially in neighborhoods like South Baltimore.
The circulator would take out the need for more parking there, he said.
"It will get more business that you otherwise would because there's only so much space that can be allocated for parking," he said, in a quote that didn't make it to print. "It is about the environment to a degree, but what it's really about is increasing economic viability."
The full story is here.
My column about my recent bar crawl using just the circulator (stops included Nevin's, and Peters pour house, among others) is in the paper this Friday.
The Department of Transportation's breakdown of ridership is after the jump:
Data is provided by Baltimore Department of Transportation*:
*As soon as I finished putting my grade school Excel skills to use, I quickly realized this chart should have been snazzier, like this. Will try for more pizzazz next time.
Photo: Parham Farahat uses the Circulator to get to Federal Hill's pubs. (Amy Davis, Baltimore Sun)