So, You Want to be a Bus Driver?... 𝘽𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙆 | Route 30 - 𝑭𝒖𝒍𝒍 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆 (Bus Driver's POV)

LocalLink 30 - Hollander Ridge to Rogers AvenueⓂ️

Losfom Z11 Body Camera (1080p)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DP3YMDDY?...

Onboard recording of a single trip on the Route 30 from a bus driver's point-of-view. We'll be traveling from Hollander Ridge to Rogers Station during a pretty bus night for myself. I was covering for a Northwest Division block (run) after I completed my work on the CityLink Silver at Morgan State University. Thereafter, I volunteered to do a change-out with a fellow Bush Division operator at University Hospital in downtown as we were due to meet each other at Pratt & Greene Sts.

As mentioned, we are traveling east to west along northern-most section of the Baltimore city boundary to service the LocalLink 30, one with a pretty based historical legacy to go long with the present day operations. To narrow it down, before the LocalLink 30, there was the Route 44 crosstown. Since the 1950s, the routing segment as we see at the beginning of the trip has remained consistent as for ¾ of a century, aside from the eventual extension to Pulaski Highway in the late 60's, where the city built low-income housing in Hollander Ridge -- a history that the city wish to forget and did so accordingly in the late 90's -- the alignment has remained relatively unchanged. It wasn't until the 1970s where the alignment, as we know it today, transitioned the Route 44 from being a northeastern-focused feeder route to a "true" crosstown line. During this period, the Greater Baltimore was going through the last of its economic boom following the Vietnam War, and with the increased need for housing & development on once unused land, there was a necessity to build-up infrastructure, in the means of transportation. The infamous Jones Falls Expressway was erected along the once cherished Jones Falls Creek waterway [still there beneath the expressway] to laid the foundation for the Interstate boom that was organized to meet the induced demand of automobile-owned suburbanites. I won't go too far into that rabbit hole but it does play a critical role into the construction of Northern Parkway.
See, before Northern Parkway, there was Belvedere Avenue as the last crosstown arterial before you reach Baltimore county. Development along the Belvedere corridor has been a mainstay since the colonial era [at least a few homes that were long before the population boom of 1900] and within that timeline the first streetcars and, later, trolleybuses were established along the corridor. In comes the, aforementioned, freeway construction boom. Northern Parkway is built to be the "new" arterial feeder to replace Belvedere Avenue. If you haven't notice in this POV video, we would inexplicably crisscross Belvedere Avenue without foresight. That adverse void cutting off northeast and northwest Baltimore was between Falls Road and Greenspring Avenue, where a deep entrenched valley lies as a natural barrier for the development of infrastructure. If you haven't figured it out by now, that entrenched valley happens to be the Jones Falls Creek.
Northern Parkway's wavy route has much; if not obvious already, to do with the extreme hilly terrain that MTA buses, for years, have had a hard time navigating upon due to the steep incline. Nonetheless, the infrastructure was laid and now we have a crosstown arterial finally connecting northwest with northeast. The irony of it all, I've mentioned Belvedere Avenue being cut-off at FALLS ROAD, but... Belvedere Avenue had a continuation of its name on the west-end of the valley from Greenspring Avenue onwards. Rather this is by coincidence or the roadway actually had a narrow passage that weaved through the valley of Jones Falls Creek (I have no historical evidence to back this claim), but Belvedere Avenue, nonetheless, marched on as it passes by the world-renowned Pimlico Racetrack [home to the Preakness Stakes].
The Route 44 became the proprietor to this missing link and did so successfully until BaltimoreLink came into fruition on June 17, 2017.
Following the restructuring of Baltimore's transit network, the Route 44 was split into two lines at Rogers Station: 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝟯𝟬 and 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝟯𝟭. By circumstance, these two lines would be considered "cousins" [they wouldn't be "siblings" due to the nature of both lines doing their own separate alignments; CityLink Silver & LocalLink 67 would be considered 𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 by that metric]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjoflak...


Bus Driven: 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗙𝗹𝘆𝗲𝗿 XD40 (40-footer)

▪ Frequency: 15-30 minutes (Weekdays/rush hour) / 20-60 minutes (Weekends)
▪ Equipment: 10+ buses (Weekdays); 6 buses (Saturdays); 4 buses (Sundays & Holidays)
▪ Length per Trip: 40-55 minutes
▪ Division: Kirk, Northwest

🟌https://www.mta.maryland.gov/schedule...
🟌https://metrodreamin.com/view/d0hhYTV...

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