Metro Stations to reopen Wednesday after electrical fire forces closures

Metro SubwayLink in Baltimore will be back in service Wednesday morning, days after last week’s electrical fire in Owings Mills.

Subway service from Owings Mills to Johns Hopkins was scheduled to resume at 4 a.m. between the Mondawmin and State Center stations.

“The agency appreciates our riders’ patience as we conducted a full inspection of the Metro Subway system and completed track repairs,” the Maryland Transit Administration said in a statement late Tuesday.

Many commuters had expressed frustration that the electrical fire had led to lengthy, widespread delays.

A bus bridge was put in place to accommodate commuters while the subway was closed, but some commuters told WJZ they didn’t believe that was good enough.

“I don’t know what’s really going on,” Baltimore resident Janiah Gray said prior to Tuesday night’s announcement.

Baltimore resident Arthur Gilliam had lamented, “We only have one subway stop in East Baltimore and it’s shut down.”

On Friday, an electrical fire broke out at the Owings Mills Metro station early in the morning, prior to the start of service..

As the MTA conducted a thorough inspection, all 14 Metro SubwayLink stations were taken out of order.

“I’m happy I’m off today because people [could] be losing jobs for being late,” Gilliam said. “This could be their last straw.”

Gray said her commute to work usually takes about 20 minutes but would take an hour because of the service outage.

“It’s kind of inconvenient a little bit because I have to go make my money, but I mean, it’s life,” Gray said.

Safety was another concern of affected commuters.

“Everybody knows how this city is, a whole bunch of shootings and stuff,” Gilliam said. “People want to get home or back and forth to work without nothing happening to them, not sitting out here on the streets waiting for something to happen.”

The MTA encourages riders to use the Transit app for updated service information or to visit mta.maryland.gov.

Banner staff contributed to this report.

WJZ is a media partner of The Baltimore Banner.