The Purple Line of the Charm City Circulator shuttle service opened Monday, ferrying passengers — for free — between Ostend Street in South Baltimore and Penn Station.
The hybrid electric buses, which are funded by increases in city parking taxes, will operate at 10-minute intervals along the north-south corridor, the second of three shuttle routes to open.
Ted Walls, a Federal Hill accountant whose office is along the Purple route, was excited about the opening. "I go back and forth to different businesses and law firms downtown so it'll help me," he said while riding the bus.
Business owners "couldn't be happier," said Sonny Morstein of Morstein's Jewelers, president of the Federal Hill Business Association. He thinks the service will bring more people from the Inner Harbor who may have had a hard time crossing Key Highway in the past. "Every great city has great transportation," he said.
The new route intersects with the east-west Orange Line, which opened in January to connect Hollins Market and Harbor East. A Green Line connecting City Hall, Fells Point and Johns Hopkins Hospital is also scheduled to begin this year.
All three are intended to reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse-gas emissions by encouraging more people to park on the outskirts of downtown.
Residents of neighborhoods along the Purple route, such as Mount Vernon and Federal Hill, also can use the free buses and transfer between lines to reach other communities. The shuttles connect to other public transit systems, including the light rail and MARC trains.
Elected officials joined transportation, tourism, business and neighborhood leaders Monday morning at Cross Street Market to launch the new route. "It's a great way to explore Baltimore," said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
The service starts at 6:30 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on weekends from April through October. It will continue until 9 p.m., except on Fridays and Saturdays, when it operates until midnight. The buses will stop running at 8 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays the rest of the year.
Some of the Purple route's stops are at existing Maryland Transit Administration bus stops, but others are new, which should help the service stay on schedule, according to city transportation director Alfred H. Foxx. "I want [riders] to be able to feel confident that all they have to do is wait 10 minutes."
Originally, the route extended only as far south as Montgomery Street, according to Jane Seebold, executive director of Federal Hill Main Street Inc., a nonprofit that represents business and residential interests. But now it goes down to Ostend Street, bringing riders closer to the heart of the business district, as well as the West Street Garage, she said. The hope is that the service will attract some people who may have avoided Federal Hill in the past because of concerns about parking.
"Those people won't have to think twice about it," Seebold said.
Barry Werner, an owner of Scarborough Fair Bed & Breakfast, hopes the new route will help to lure more visitors during slow business months in the hottest part of the summer and coldest part of winter. Visitors like Baltimore because it's a walkable city, he said, but "people don't want to walk around in that weather."
Cape Cod residents Muffy and Jack Richards took the Orange Line to see the Baltimore Orioles- Boston Red Sox game Sunday night and were using the Purple Line to sightsee. "The routes really go by all the stops for tourists like us," Muffy Richards said while on the bus.
But passengers won't be able to ride indefinitely. They will only be allowed to make one full loop before being told to disembark, said Kathy Chopper, a city transportation spokeswoman.