Transportation FROM Northern Virginia to BWI?
 

I need to travel from a house in Northern Virginia (near Alexandria) *to* BWI, arriving around 1pm on a Friday.

What public transport method do people recommend for price/convenience? Amtrak from King Street? Metro to Union Station, then MARC? Others? The posts I've seen all focus on BWI *to* No.Va., and from experience getting from an airport by public transport can be easier than doing the reverse trip.

SuperShuttle seems easiest, but I'd rather spend less. It's $55, according to posts I've read here.

Best bet is to take Metro to Union Station and then take the Marc to BWI station. You can also take Amtrak to BWI from Union Station, but this is more expensive, although still much less than $55.

Having stayed at the King St Embassy Suites last year ...

Avoid Amtrak, as most trains thru Alex. have a layover in DC, and will cost $28 or so, and any train not originating at Union Station often run late, especially those that originate in Miami.

My first suggestion is Metro- Yellow (MtVernon Sq train) to Gallery Place stop, or Blue (Addision Rd train) to MetroCenter stop. Take RedLine (Glenmont) to Union Station - then take the MARC train (take the PENN line) to BWI. At the BWI rail station there's a free shuttle to the airport terminal. MARC will cost $6. The schedules can be found at

http://www.mtamaryland.com/schedules...03_for_web.pdf

Trains leaving at 10:20,11:20 & 12:20 will arrive at BWI at 10:53, 11:53, & 12:56 repectively .. allow a little extra time for the BWI shuttle, a 5-7 minute trip, but I don't recall how frequent (20 min??).


Option #2: Take Metro to L'Enfant Plaza (Yellow the better choice) then take the Green Line to Greenbelt. Get a transfer pass from the dispenser at either the King St or L'Enfant Plaza station. At Greenbelt station, catch the B30 bus, a non-stop to BWI that will drop you off right at the terminal. The busfare is $2 (have exact amount) but with the transfer pass, only $1.15

Go to http://rideguide.wmata.com for exact directions, times, and prices if you will travel only by Metro & Metrobus, but not MARC, or for directions etc for your trip to Washington Union Station. The B30 bus runs every 40 minutes & takes about 35 minutes. There are other station stops in Alexandria too.

The Metro portion of these trips will cost less than $3

Thanks, rb traveler, your detailed suggestions are very helpful & much appreciated.

You're quite welcome, tahl. Nice to know how things worked out when one offers suggestions.

So which itinerary did you use?

To be honest, I used the easy-but-pricy method -- SuperShuttle -- for the November trip. Not totally satisfactory, though. The driver showed up a half-hour early and claimed that was the time of my reservation. Since I had called S.S. to confirm the pickup time an hour before, I knew that wasn't true, and I insisted on calling S.S. and putting them on the line with him, where they told him that I was correct and he had to wait for me to finish getting ready. Not pleasant.

What was really going on is that he had picked up someone at another stop and didn't want to wait around for my scheduled pickup, as he partly admitted when we got to BWI. Anyhow, left a bad taste in my mouth about S.S. (By the way, my earlier post was inaccurate; fee was $45 from Alexandria to BWI, not $55.)

I expect to do the same Alexandria to BWI run again soon, and if I leave myself enough travel time, I hope to use your suggested "B30 bus" route.

In case others are interested, the B30 timetable is here (it's a PDF file):

http://www.wmata.com/timetables/md/b30.pdf