Best way to Baltimore?

Originally posted by Bags:

Originally posted by chimbly sweep:
The MARC train that permits you to drink before travelling and has cabstands outside the stations and allows you to forgo scrounging or paying for parking and makes sure your car isn't broken into.

…and doesn't run on weekends or after any normal time you might want to get home after a show, even a pretty early weekday show.

Chimbly, this crusade you're on is getting kind of tedious (I'm trying to think of the least not nice description….).

I'm amazed by the Baltimore drive times – I can never get to BWI in less than 45 minutes from downtown, so don't know how folks make it into to downtown Bmore in the same (or the Baltimore clubs, which seem to all be on the nothern side of the city…)

What club, besides the Ottobar, is on the north side of the city limits of Baltimore City? I'm actually asking, as I really don't know. I guess there's Rendezvous on 25th but that's not really a club.

I guess the appropriate question is what time are you usually leaving and which way are you heading out? If you go north out of the city, up Georgia, 13th or New Hampshire you can easily get on the beltway within a few stops of both the BW parkway and the I-95. Otherwise you'll spend an extra heap of time driving around the edge of the city. I live around Takoma and it normally takes me 15 minutes or less to get from my doorstep to Dupont by car…about 5-10 minutes or so to get from here to the beltway (all lights behaving as they should), and about 25 minutes on 95 N to 395/MLK split in Baltimore…from which it's just a quick 5 minute trip up to Fells/Canton or Sonar and a 10 minute trip up MLK to Howard and then up towards JHU.

Originally posted by j_lee:
What club, besides the Ottobar, is on the north side of the city limits of Baltimore City? I'm actually asking, as I really don't know. I guess there's Rendezvous on 25th but that's not really a club.

Ottobar and The Mojo Room are the only places i've wanted to go….Fletcher's as well, but I've never been so I don't know where it is.

PS, I should clarify, I meant either north or east Baltimore – ie, other side from D.C. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that it's further than the "40 minutes" folks always like to quote you when mentioning the DC/Balto trip.

the Recher is in North baltimore, or should i say, north OF baltimore and is much farther than 40 minutes from DC.

DC is like 35 miles from Baltimore but no, you can make it from said desitination in DC to said destination in Baltimore in 40 minutes….ever.

:)

Originally posted by sonickteam3:
the Recher is in North baltimore, or should i say, north OF baltimore and is much farther than 40 minutes from DC.

DC is like 35 miles from Baltimore but no, you can make it from said desitination in DC to said destination in Baltimore in 40 minutes….ever.

:)

Based on what I've seen advertised at the Recher (which is in Towson) there's usually no need to go there if you live in D.C.

Did you mean you CAN'T make it to said destination in Baltimore in 40 minutes?

Years ago when I lived in Baltimore I made it from the doorstep of my apartment on East Preston to the Parking Lot at Nation in 35 minutes easy.

It can be done…probably not within the boundaries of the legal speed limits but it can be done.

Originally posted by j_lee:
Based on what I've seen advertised at the Recher (which is in Towson) there's usually no need to go there if you live in D.C.

the recher may be the best place to see a show in the area, still hard to choose it over a show in dc though

Originally posted by j_lee:

It can be done…probably not within the boundaries of the legal speed limits but it can be done.

I've made it to Boston in 5 hours and 20 minutes before too, but lets just say, it cant happen all the time.

and yes, i suppose its more likely to get from Bmore to DC in 40 minutes, if its after say 10pm.


and Nation is super easy cause you barely have to get off the highway and you're right there!

Originally posted by Bags:
Chimbly, this crusade you're on is getting kind of tedious (I'm trying to think of the least not nice description….).

How to say this in the least not nice way?
I'm just finding this love-for-driving crusade a little tedious, especially since I live here and have to breathe the air that unnecessary car trips pollute and all that.

Besides, check my original post. It said "MARC train." That's all. I didn't go ranting about cars. I just promoted train. It's certain (how to say this nicely?) overly-defensive-car-fanatics that keep making this into an argument. I'm shit tired of it myself, but it's not going to stop me from advocating for smart alternatives.

chimbly, I am certainly positive that we would all rather not drive. i CERTAINLY hate driving, not because i am polluting your air, but because i think its going to end my life one day.

anyway, if we lived in a world that public transportation was affordable, accessible and efficient (Europe), then i am sure we would all be driving less.

its cool that you have an extra $32 to ride the Amtrak or can stay out til 5:50am whenever you go out. but dont say anyone loves driving cause they dont.

in fact, i think you are in cars plenty, you just bum rides from other people….which is also really cool.

Originally posted by chimbly sweep:

I'm just finding this love-for-driving crusade a little tedious, especially since I live here and have to breathe the air that unnecessary car trips pollute and all that.

wah wah wah wah wah, oh my god, you cry constantly….

Originally posted by white man from town:
actually, Baltimore is starting to look more like a real city. and not just 3 blocks from the harbour. Canton, Fells Point, Federal Hill and the Downtown are all areas that you see less junkies and more people jogging.

Yeah, Baltisnore is starting to look downright gentrified. I miss the old industrial rot & stink. Baltimore's old charm is that it was always a dangerous, dirty eastern rust-heap. That's becoming a memory as the health nuts take over.

What in the hell would you know about it anyway…aren't you from goddamned Ontario, or something?

Originally posted by white man from town:
anyway, if we lived in a world that public transportation was affordable, accessible and efficient (Europe), then i am sure we would all be driving less.

i actually think its the other way around, if we lived in a world where gas was $4-6 a gallon (Europe), then i am sure we would all be driving less, public transportation or not.

http://www.energybulletin.net/4906.html

Originally posted by white man from town:
in fact, i think you are in cars plenty, you just bum rides from other people….which is also really cool.

carpools are fun.

no, i really don't want to argue. i just think while everyone is saying 'i like to take road #3263' i can say 'i like my train.'

in the ideal world, we all know, all good bands would play nextdoor to our houses. ah, voltaire.

and by the way… tho' it's not obvious here, i don't actually talk about transportation much in my day-to-day life. it's just always coming up on the board for some reason. actually, i think this board is probably the only place i interact with suburbanites.

Chimbly-

I gotta agree with Bags. As someone who worked in the transportation reform community for quite a few years, one of the biggest roadblocks I saw facing that community was the condescending holier than thou attitude of many of my colleagues. All it does is alienate the very people that they were trying to convince, convert or whatever.

Not everyone who gets behind the wheel of car is an ignorant earth hating neanderthal you know…..

I don't think any reasonable person would argue that cars are destructive to the environment, that the transportation system as it exists today is not an equitable one, that the feds earmark too many dollars for highways and not enough for public transportation, that dot's should fix the dilapitated roads that exist before building new ones, that the creation of new transportation infrastructure does not take into account the associated environmental impacts….blah blah blah blah.

But the bottom line is some of us need our cars.

I am done.

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:

Originally posted by white man from town:
anyway, if we lived in a world that public transportation was affordable, accessible and efficient (Europe), then i am sure we would all be driving less.

i actually think its the other way around, if we lived in a world where gas was $4-6 a gallon (Europe), then i am sure we would all be driving less, public transportation or not.

http://www.energybulletin.net/4906.html

maybe not the other way around, but certainly yet another reason to do so. If gas prices here were $4-$6 a gallon, I would still be faced with almost an hour commute (public trans) instead of my 12 minute car ride, and the MARC train would still not be a viable option for DC shows or weekend trips.

i hate driving though, scares the piss out of me, on the highway at least.

Originally posted by chimbly sweep:
but it's not going to stop me from advocating for smart alternatives.

but the train is not a smart alternative for most people, if it's an alternative at all. if you want clean, fresh air, move to a nice and simple rural area. . .

$32 to Baltimore and back? thats smart!

Please stay away from Baltimore. It's always a good idea to avoid cities that Tom Clancy likes.

Originally posted by white man from town:
$32 to Baltimore and back? thats smart!

but given gas prices + parking it might be cheaper for a single driver…

what annoys me is its almost as cheap for two people to drive and park at the 9:30 club then it is take the metro. especially during the week when they collect parking at the greenbelt station until midnight.

Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
especially during the week when they collect parking at the greenbelt station until midnight.

i have never, ever even once, paid to park at the Greenbelt Metro station, and i have never come or gone after midnight. did they just start doing that?

yup… post parkingate at wmata they collect parking until the station closes now, they also require the use of a smartcard to exit. the irony of course is they still pay someone to sit in the booth until closing. it's $3.50 and i can't believe they collect that much more money in the couple hours they extended it. one can save money by using the meters after a certain point.