Metro Stations to reopen Wednesday after electrical fire forces closures

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

Metro subway service from Owings Mills to Johns Hopkins will be back operating at 4 a.m. between the Mondawmin and State Center stations

A bus bridge had been in place to accommodate commuters while the subway is closed, but the people told WJZ they don't believe that is good enough. 

"I don't know what's really going on," Baltimore resident Janiah Gray said.

Passengers were frustrated by the service outage.

"We only got one subway stop in East Baltimore and it's shut down," Baltimore resident Arthur Gilliam said.

On Friday, July 7, early in the morning before service started, an electrical fire at the Owings Mills Metro station broke out. 

As the Maryland Transit Administration conducted a thorough inspection of the fire, all 14 Metro SubwayLink were out of order.

"I'm happy I'm off today because people 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 will 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.

Aside from travel time, safety is another concern among impacted 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."