Session resources

Getting to Annapolis without a car

Updated September 25, 2026 · Every route, fare and schedule detail below was verified against the operating agency’s own published information.

The first thing to know about arriving in Annapolis without a car is the thing nobody tells you: Annapolis has no train station. The MARC Penn Line runs from Perryville through Baltimore Penn Station, West Baltimore, Halethorpe, BWI Rail Station, Odenton, Bowie State, Seabrook and New Carrollton to Washington’s Union Station — and there is no Annapolis stop on it, or on any other MARC line. Amtrak does not serve the city either. Every car-free arrival therefore ends with a bus, a taxi or a rideshare over the last stretch, and the practical question is only which one.

The good news for anyone housed in the historic district is that the last stretch is the only stretch. Once you are downtown, the State House, the House and Senate office buildings, Lawyers Mall and Main Street are all within a few minutes’ walk of one another. Session tenants who arrive by air routinely spend ninety days without touching a car.

Flying in: BWI is the airport that works

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport puts you roughly thirty minutes from Annapolis, and the airport’s own guidance for the trip is straightforward. Taxis queue on the lower level, inner roadway, outside Doors #5 and #13, around the clock; the airport taxi dispatch number is 410-859-1100. Uber and Lyft pickups are on the upper level, outer roadway, between Doors #5 and #12, also twenty-four hours. Both take about thirty minutes to Annapolis.

There is also a free option. Anne Arundel County operates the BWI Express, a bus running daily between the airport and Annapolis Mall by way of Millersville Park & Ride and Crownsville. It is fare-free, runs 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., takes about an hour to Annapolis, and picks up at both BWI stops on the Lower Level (Arrivals). It does not run on New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day. The county’s information line for it is 410-222-7440.

The catch is the mall. The BWI Express ends at Annapolis Mall, which is on the west side of town, not downtown — so a car-free arrival by that route needs one more connection. Two published services list a Westfield Mall stop and continue toward the historic district: MTA Commuter Bus 215, whose Annapolis end is Church Circle & School Street, and Annapolis Transit’s Purple route, which the city describes as running Westfield Mall to Eastport by way of Annapolis Towne Center and Church Circle. With luggage and a January evening, most people arriving this way still finish in a rideshare; the free bus is worth it when you are travelling light and not in a hurry.

From BWI	Time	Cost
Taxi (Doors #5 / #13, lower level)	~30 min	Metered
Uber / Lyft (upper level, Doors #5–#12)	~30 min	Variable
BWI Express bus to Annapolis Mall	~1 hr	Free
Light Rail + MTA LocalLink 70	~1 hr 35 min	MTA local fare

That last row is the transit purist’s route, and it is real: BWI’s Light Rail platform is on the lower level outside Door #19, and LocalLink 70 is titled, in MTA’s own schedule, “Patapsco Station – Annapolis.” Its Annapolis-end stops include West Street & Church Circle, Rowe Boulevard & Taylor Avenue and Calvert Street & Bladen Street — which is to say it reaches the legislative complex directly. The airport’s published estimate for the Light Rail leg is about twenty minutes to Patapsco, with the 70 taking roughly an hour and fifteen minutes onward.

By train: you are aiming for BWI Rail Station

Because there is no Annapolis station, rail travellers arrive at BWI Rail Station, which sits on the MARC Penn Line and is also an Amtrak stop on the Northeast Corridor. The station is not at the terminal, but the connection is genuinely easy: BWI runs a free shuttle between the MARC/Amtrak station and the airport terminal twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, approximately every 10 to 15 minutes, dropping to every 25 minutes between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. From the terminal you pick up any of the Annapolis options above.

Coming from Washington, MARC Penn Line trains board at Union Station, 50 Massachusetts Avenue NE. From Baltimore, they board at Penn Station, 1500 North Charles Street. Either way the train gets you to BWI and the last leg is a bus or a car.

From Washington by commuter bus

For a session team splitting time between Washington and Annapolis, the useful service is MTA Commuter Bus 220 (Annapolis – Washington DC). It runs Monday through Friday only — no Saturdays, Sundays or observed holidays — and it runs in the commuter pattern, which matters more than the fare does.

Morning trips leave Annapolis early: the first departure is 4:55 a.m. from Rowe Boulevard & Taylor Avenue, with further stops the length of West Street and at the Harry S. Truman Park & Ride. In Washington the line serves Virginia Avenue & C Street NW (OPM), the K Street corridor from 20th to 12th, New York Avenue & 9th, Massachusetts Avenue at 5th and at New Jersey Avenue, North Capitol & H Street at Union Center Plaza — a short walk from Union Station — and K Street at 1st and 3rd NE. Return trips run from early afternoon into the evening: the first leaves Virginia Avenue & C Street at 12:15 p.m. and the last at 6:30 p.m., seven trips in all.

Route 230 covers the same city pair by way of the Severna Park Park & Ride. Both are Zone 3 for the Annapolis–Washington trip, which under MTA’s published commuter bus fares means:

Zone 3 fare	Full	Senior / disability
One way	$6.00	$5.00
10-trip pass	$60.00	$50.00
Monthly pass	$204.00	$170.00

Read the pattern before you rely on it. A weekday-only, peak-oriented bus is excellent for a staffer who commutes to a Washington office on non-voting days, and close to useless for a 10 a.m. hearing followed by a 2 p.m. meeting downtown. Sine die week, when the Assembly sits late and weekends are working days, is exactly when the 220 is not running.

From Baltimore

MTA Commuter Bus 215 (Baltimore – Annapolis) is the direct link, and it has the best downtown ending of any bus on this page: its Annapolis terminus is Church Circle & School Street, in the historic district itself, having called at Cromwell Station Loop, Westfield Mall, Anne Arundel Medical Center and Rowe Boulevard & Taylor Avenue. At the Baltimore end it runs through the downtown core — Wolfe & Orleans, Fayette & Gay, St. Paul & Fayette, Light & Redwood and along Lombard Street. Route 210 connects Kent Island with Annapolis and Baltimore.

Once you are here

Annapolis Transit operates fixed local routes across roughly twenty-three square miles of the city and adjacent county, with every vehicle wheelchair accessible. Current routes are published by colour — Red, Green, Brown, Orange, Purple North and Purple South — and the Gold Route is now operated by Anne Arundel County. Evening Purple service runs 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, when Purple North, Purple South and ADA paratransit are the routes in service. Fares and full timetables are published by the city’s Department of Transportation, reachable at 410-263-7964.

For most session tenants, though, local transit is a fallback rather than a daily habit. A base in the historic district puts the State House, the office buildings, Lawyers Mall and the restaurants on Main Street inside a short walk, and the walking is the point.