Cherry Hill will soon get a free bus route connecting the neighborhood to downtown.
On June 23, Baltimore’s Department of Transportation will begin service on the Cherry Route of the Charm City Circulator, an initiative started in 2010 by former Mayor Sheila Dixon to reduce the number of cars in downtown.
The Cherry Route is scheduled to run every 20 minutes with stops in Cherry Hill, the Baltimore Peninsula, Riverside, Federal Hill, Sharp-Leadenhall, Otterbein, and the Inner Harbor.
In Cherry Hill, the circulator will stop near Middle Branch Park, MedStar Harbor Hospital, the Cherry Hill light rail station, and Cherry Hill Senior Manor.
The Charm Circulator runs from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to midnight on Friday, 9 a.m. to midnight on Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.
The new route comes two years after a number of changes were proposed to the Charm City Circulator to improve equity and access for households without cars. Before the Cherry route, the bus service mostly served wealthier, whiter neighborhoods with high rates of car ownership.
“One of the No. 1 complaints you get about it is how inequitable it is. Most notably, and shocking, is that the residents of Cherry Hill, the circulator buses are stored in Cherry Hill, but they can’t get on the circulator,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told WBAL in 2022.
The 2022 transit development plan noted that almost 43% of Charm City Circulator riders used the service to get to and from work.
As of 2019, 19% of Cherry Hill residents were categorized as living in poverty, and 54% of households did not have a car. Residents in the historically Black neighborhood have often felt cut off from the rest of the city because of its geography.
With the Cherry Route servicing Federal Hill, the Purple Route, which now runs between Federal Hill and Charles Village, will be shortened on the southern end at Montgomery Street and expanded eastward on the northern end along 33rd Street to service Greenmount Avenue. It will run every 13 minutes.
The post Charm City Circulator adds Cherry Hill route connecting the neighborhood to downtown appeared first on Baltimore Beat.