Marty Taylor of the Right Rail Coalition has been complaining about the Red Line for many years, long before the final route and plan was presented and approved.
It is a long accepted concept that transfers that do not decrease travel time reduce ridership significantly. Forcing a Red Line rider to transfer to an equally fast subway line under the downtown and then again to a bus to get to East Baltimore will decimate the ridership potential of the Red Line.
In all of the Right Rail group's proposals, one thing stands out: There is no rail service to Southeast Baltimore and the Canton area. Let's call it what it is, "Right Rail" is a mostly NIMBY group trying to keep others out of their neighborhood. They don't want better transit, they want to delay and confuse the issue so much that the costs will keep going up like everything else does until it is too expensive and they can go back to their autos while the rest of the city barely gets around on the buses. There are one or two people in Right Rail who think this is the right way, but privately they want streetcars in Canton too.
Yes, we need a streetcar network in this city, starting with converting the Charm City Circulator to rail, but not at the expense of the highly needed and desired east-west light rail system, which by the way uses standard size light rail vehicles not small ones. That subway for the Red Line will be expensive, but it can also be the core of many other light rail lines sharing the valuable asset through and linking the city.
Ignore the NIMBY's and build the Red Line now.
Bob Reuter, Baltimore