Washington Dulles Airport to Downtown Baltimore via Public Transport: $16 one way
One of the great things about living on the East Coast is the easy connections between cities by car, bus and train. Being a British expat has also meant trying to coordinate which airport family should fly into in terms of affordability and whether it makes sense to get to an airport with cheaper prices and use public transport to get to another city. In this post I am going to describe how to get to downtown Baltimore ( a city in between two big International airports) from Washington Dulles Airport.
Washington Dulles Airport
Once you land at Washington Dulles Airport, you have to make a decision. Are you going to spend money on the convenience of an easy getaway, or are you feeling adventurous? If it’s the second option then you will have to head to the centre of the Terminal building (Arrival door 4) and read on.
The Silver Line Express Bus essentially takes you from Dulles to the closest Metro station, Wiehle-Reston East station (which is on the Silver Line). It takes 15 minutes in total, and after speaking with a customer representative, I found out there are at least 2 buses continuously rotating between Dulles and the Metro station. It costs 5 dollars (free for children under 2), and you can pay by cash or credit card (but not American Express) at the counter inside the terminal. Smart trip cards (which are the equivalent of a London Oyster or New York metro card) aren’t applicable. It comes every 15 minutes during peak times and 20 minutes on non peak (including weekends). The table below is for Monday to Friday.
| 6am-9am | Bus departs every 15 minutes |
| 9am-3pm | Bus departs every 20 minutes |
| 3pm-7pm | Bus departs every 15 minutes |
| 7pm-1020pm | Bus departs every 20 minutes |
On Saturday and Sunday, the bus departs every 20 minutes from 7.45am to 10.40pm (9.40pm on Sundays).
The bus has free Wi-fi and according to the phone call I made fits 43 people. There is plenty of space for luggage.
Wiehle-Reston East Station
After 15 minutes on the bus, you are at the most western stop on the Silver line. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has a great website which is easy to use and plan ahead. I’ll summarize below a little bit about the station.
The station opens at 4.50am (Mon – Fri), 6.50 am (Sat) and 7.50 am (Sun) and is about 20 miles from Union Station in downtown D.C. The trip will take you 52 minutes but will require one change, and generally trains come every 6 minutes. During peak times, it will cost $6.00 and off peak it costs $3.85. This may be a good time to buy a Smart trip card if you plan to visit D.C and use their metro frequently.
Metro Center Station
Metro Center Station is the main station which connects most of the different metro lines (Silver, Orange, Red and Blue). To get access to the Yellow and Green lines (the remaining lines) you would need to take 3 stops east on the Silver to L’Enfant Plaza. However Union Station is where you can access Amtrak (the National Railways of USA), Metro (as already discussed this serves the City of Washington D.C), MARC (Maryland Area Regional Commuter-which we will talk about in more detail) and VRE (Virginia Regional Express). You can also access buses with companies like Greyhound, Megabus, PeterPan and Bolt to name a few. You can take the bus but looking at the Greyhound website it is $10.00 to Baltimore whereas the MARC train is only $8.00.
MARC Train
The MARC train serves 3 main routes. The first connects D.C to Martinsburg in West Virginia via Harpers Ferry (beautiful if you haven’t been). The second and third route both end up either in Baltimore or passing through. One route ends up in Camden, which is in the South East part of downtown Baltimore, next to the Baseball and American Football stadiums. This route takes 1 hr and 9 minutes.
The other route which is the easiest to get to Downtown Baltimore has a final destination of Perryville which is a suburb of Baltimore to the North East. It is equidistant between Baltimore and Wilmington (in Delaware). This route is a little quicker (1hr) and also takes you by BWI airport! This will take you into Penn Station Baltimore and from there you can get to wherever you need to be in Downtown Baltimore. There is also a subway system in Baltimore but I can discuss that in another post.
It will cost you $7.00 if you are going from Union Station to BWI airport and an extra 1 dollar ($8.00 in total) to go to Baltimore Penn station (cheaper than a bus!)
Conclusion
If you have all the time in world, or are a Penny Pincher like me, this 2 hour commute is not bad (make sure you have some entertainment of course) and is really cheap. These experiences are also a great way to explore public transportation options and also understand the subway system in a new city.
Featured Image by Sebastien Gabriel on Unsplash
This is fantastic! Thanks for the step by step guide on how to go about this! Very useful! Keep up the great work pennypinchingdoc!