Carol Minardo can always tell when a bus is on her street.
Houses shake from the vibration of the rumbling behemoths. The air is thick with acrid diesel fumes and the cracked street shows the wear of the passing tonnage.
Only in the middle of the night -- between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. -- is Ms. Minardo spared from the onslaught. No buses run along Liberty Parkway in Dundalk during that golden hour.
She is angry that so many bus drivers choose to exceed the street's 25 mph speed limit. She is frustrated that the dozens of buses that pass each day -- sometimes spaced only a minute or two apart -- set such an unrelenting pace.
Ms. Minardo is particularly enraged that the buses are running virtually empty. Rarely does she see more than a handful of passengers inside.
"They can't continue to put heavy, big buses on a residential street," she says. "The buses are empty, empty, empty. Why do they have to run empty buses?"
Ms. Minardo is not alone in her complaints. Many of her neighbors feel much the same way, a point even officials at the Mass Transit Administration concede.
"If we went door to door, most of the people would tell us they don't appreciate the buses," says Morris L. Wilson, the MTA's manager of planning and scheduling.
But that alone should not diminish service to the Dundalk neighborhood, MTA officials insist. The 1.5-mile strip of Liberty Parkway between Dunglow Road and Dundalk Avenue is served by one of Baltimore's busiest bus lines, the No. 20 linking downtown to Dundalk Community College.
The MTA operates 58 buses on that route each day. They run mostly empty along Liberty Parkway because the neighborhood is at the beginning of the line, Mr. Wilson says.
Yet, about 200 people along Liberty take the bus each day, a significant number by transit standards.
The buses run frequently because farther along the route they are apt to fill up and get bogged down in traffic. They run at all hours because some commuters work late shifts.
"We tried reducing the number of buses serving Liberty Parkway a few years ago, but we got a lot of complaints from riders," Mr. Wilson says. "There are no other streets in the area that can accommodate the weight and size of buses."
MTA officials claim to be sympathetic to the plight of Liberty Parkway residents. In June, they reduced the No. 20 schedule to 58 from 64 buses a day, and MTA police have set up speed traps to catch drivers, issuing nine citations and 21 warnings this year.
Mr. Wilson says he's generally willing to make compromises, but the MTA can't abandon the agency's basic mission -- to provide affordable transportation to those who need it most.
That does not mean Ms. Minardo's complaints are not valid. Mr. Wilson has agreed to monitor ridership to see if the frequent schedule is justified, to warn the drivers not to speed and to continue the police speed traps.
But beyond that, Intrepid Commuter sees little hope of resolving the conflict. Some people don't like buses in their neighborhood. Others depend on them.
"We've had buses operating on that segment of Liberty Parkway as long as I've been with the MTA -- that's at least 34 years," says Mr. Wilson. "We don't know what else to do about this."
Drivers seek signs for Light and Key
Some people you just have to hit over the head.
As our readers know, Intrepid Commuter does not advocate violence of any kind -- aside, of course, from sports like boxing, hockey and holiday shopping at the mall. The beating we recommend is figurative.
Take, for example, the intersection of Light Street and Key Highway near the Inner Harbor. We have heard from several readers with the same complaint: Drivers aren't following the lane designations.
"As you drive south on Light Street past the Inner Harbor, the two left lanes curve to the left and become Key Highway," writes Kristen O. Appel of Federal Hill. "The two right lanes take a slight jog and head into Federal Hill.
"Each set of lanes is directed by a different, and opposing, signal. Very frequently, I see cars in the left lanes facing a red light, and, unaware that they are in the Key Highway lanes, they instead curve to the right and head into Federal Hill."
Sundial callers confirm the problem. They speak of accidents barely avoided by southbound Light Street motorists. "I can hardly remember a time when someone didn't cut in front of someone else to switch lanes," Mary Stowe says.
Ms. Stowe and Mrs. Appel believe the problem could be greatly relieved by more explicit signs. Mrs. Appel advocates a "This is Your Signal" sign like the one on University Parkway.
Ms. Stowe would like to see the city relocate the sign directing traffic to Interstate 95 by way of Key Highway. The sign is perched over the center lane rather than over the two lanes that veer to the left.
We forwarded the various complaints to the city's Public Works Department, and officials took a look at the intersection from a fresh perspective. Grudgingly, they've agreed to make a minor change.
The sign advertising I-95 will be moved this week from its center position to a spot closer to the two left lanes as Ms. Stowe suggested.
"We did not see it as a problem, but we've elected to relocate the sign," said Vanessa Pyatt, the department's spokeswoman.
As for the other signs, city traffic officials "think it's very clear to motorists that the two left lanes are turning lanes to Key Highway."
While that may prove adequate to, we encourage readers who feel strongly about this issue to write George G. Balog, director of the Baltimore Department of Public Works, 600 Abel Wolman Municipal Building, Baltimore 21202.
KEEP IN TOUCH
Write to the Intrepid Commuter, c/o The Baltimore Sun, P.O. Box 1377, Baltimore 21278. Please include your name and telephone number so we can reach you if we have any questions.
Or use your Touch-Tone phone to call Sundial, The Baltimore Sun's telephone information service, at 783-1800, and enter Ext. 4305. Call 268-7736 in Anne Arundel County.