Greater Baltimore Bus Initiative

While some of the proposed changes were obvious improvements, others were heavily opposed by riders, elected officials, and advocates, who considered them inconveniences and losses of service.

[5] Announced in the Summer 2005, the GBBI plan involved routing and scheduling changes to all but six of the agency's then 59 local bus lines and some of its commuter services.

Many of the modifications were met with heavy criticism from the riders, the media, elected officials, and civic organizations, and as a result, many planned changes were either delayed or not implemented at all.

Service was added, eliminated, reduced, or modified on just 26 lines in the system, where MTA believed these changes would have only a minimal negative impact.

Some of the complaints of riders that were reported in the Baltimore Sun were as follows: Around New Year's Day 2006, MTA announced that there would be some revisions to the original changes proposed due to various issues.

This phase was delayed several times for various reasons, and ultimately scrapped in 2007 following the election of Governor Martin O'Malley in favor of incremental changes.

Flanagan said that hearings held during the previous year were sufficient, and that those who had concerns about these changes could write letters to MTA to express their views.

At the hearings, riders mostly voiced concerns pertaining to the negative impact felt by the October 2005 changes, as well as minor details of the planned ones.

[citation needed] In September 2007, MTA announced a set of hearings that would be held the following month regarding a series of changes to ten lines.