Hunt Valley
Pepper Road
Hunt Valley is the northern terminus of the Baltimore Light Rail Link and was part of a five-stop extension from Fairgrounds (then named Timonium) that opened on September 9, 1997. This extension was designed to service a large suburban office park with the new light rail station terminus designed to try and help a dying indoor shopping mall in particular survive. This mall only had two of the four intended anchor tenants when it opened in 1981. The Hunt Valley Mall ended up closing just three years later with an open air “lifestyle center” of big box stores and outdoor shopping areas opening in 2003 across from the station. This still makes it a bustling shopping destination after crossing the mall's outer access road. The lifestyle center was built in a way so that a central main street with limited parking (and large parking lots on each side) is directly across the access road from the light rail station so there is no need to cross a parking crater to get from the light rail to shopping.
The station itself contains a single island platform for two terminating tracks. These two tracks curve across Shawan Road before becoming a single-track about 1,000 feet south of the station. There are no further switches so the station is on basically two siding tracks. These tracks continue east of the platform where a second train could be stored before the tracks end at bumper blocks.
The single-tracked nature of the line north of Timonium Fairgrounds · limiting service to every 15 minutes · means that this is a rare station and branch that paradoxically receives more frequent service outside of rush hours than during rush hours. Outside of rush ours all light rail trains terminate at Hunt Valley, with service only every half-hour on the two branches at the opposite southern end of the light rail system. During rush hours service on the BWI Airport or Glen Burnie branches is every 20 minutes with service every ten minutes as far north as Fairgrounds. North of Fairgrounds to Hunt Valley during rush hours only trains to and from BWI run north of Fairgrounds to Hunt Valley, giving the station a 20-minute frequency. Trains to and from Glen Burine terminate at the Timonium Fairgrounds during rush hours.
The station single island platform is located just south of the malls ring round that once surrounded the parking crater the shopping mall was in the middle of, but now shops and rental apartments abut this ring road. This platform has entrances via three level crossings. One at each end and one in the middle of the platform. These lead to crosswalks across the Mall access road to the north and directly to the edges of the station's small 85 space park and ride lot with a driveway entrance across from the platform at Sawan Road.
ADA access to the station is a bit unusual at each end of the island platform are the mini-high level ramps up to the front door of the train (with trains having to move down the platform when they transition from a terminating train to an originating train). The mini-high platforms for the southern track are opposite the island platform and along the parking lot due to the narrowness of the station's platform.
The stations' location just 16 miles south of the Pennsylvania State Line means the station's only connecting bus route is rabbittransit's rabbitExpress Route 83S that provides peak service to and from York, Pennsylvania a few times per rush hour (with bus connections to another express route, although they only make sense in the southbound direction, to Harrisburg, PA).
Photos 1-22 taken on August 31, 2024;
