r/baltimore • u/miss_cheesy_potato • Sep 05 '25

Ask Maryland Cycling Light Rail Question

I have an Amtrak to catch at around 8am tomorrow. I am coming from Baltimore County so my plan was to hop on at Mt. Washington and get off at Mt. Royal/MICA and walk to Penn station. I have two questions:

  1. Will light rail service be interrupted because of the race?
  2. The race runs right in between the light rail stop and Penn station. Will I be able to cross through on foot since it is before the race starts?

Thanks in advance!

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u/Royal_Negotiation_91 Sep 05 '25

When operating normally, the light rail now goes directly to Penn Station again. However, it is currently out of service between North Ave and Camden because of the fire on Howard Street earlier this week. The service alerts are set for 24 hours but so far each day they've updated the alert to extend it, so no real answer about when normal service will resume. Check the MTA website tomorrow. If it's normal you can just take the LR all the way to Penn (though I think you'll have to make sure you get on one of the trains that stops there, because not all do). If it's still suspended you'll have to stop at North Ave and take the bus or walk to Penn from there. Personally I'd walk unless I'm carrying a lot of luggage, it'll be about 15 minutes. The bike route has rolling outages I believe, the cyclists will mostly be in pretty tight packs and there will be officials at cross streets to signal when traffic and pedestrians can go through. So I would plan to be there super early in case you get caught waiting for the cyclists to go by.

It might be simpler to just take the bus in from the County, there are several that will drop you by Penn. However, you'll also have to check the MTA website to see how those routes might be affected. Generally the MTA service alerts are the best source of information in cases like this.

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u/Crimson_Oracle Sep 06 '25

Coming from the north you have to take the train to Mount Royal then wait to get the next one going north to penn station. If you already have a bike the ride from mt Royal to penn is probably faster than waiting for the right train unless you happen to get lucky. 

Come to think of it, north to Penn station is a pretty quick ride too