Baltimore’s public transportation system tries to appeal to all, but its ridership is skewing more toward low-income and minority households than in years past, a recent Maryland Transit Administration study found.

Roughly 4 of every 5 people using the region’s bus, light rail and subway system lacked access to a car, a rate that far outpaces the citywide average of a little more than 25% of the population without access to a personal vehicle, according to the Neighborhood Indicators Alliance. The rate of MTA riders, excluding MARC train and commuter buses that connect to Washington, D.C., and other parts of the state, exceeds 80%.

MTA routes do branch into the surrounding Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties, but core service remains predominantly within city limits.

When surveyed, about 1 in every 5 riders said that were the MTA not an option, they simply wouldn’t make the trip.

The data comes from MTA’s latest “origin and destination study,” which surveyed more than 14,000 riders about their demographic data and where they were traveling via transit.

Low-income ridership on local bus routes declined 2 percentage points to 90% compared with the last survey conducted in 2018. But light rail, Metro and commuter bus experienced double-digit increases in those riders.

The results reflect both how critical public transportation is for some and a stigma often associated with Baltimore’s — that it is a “system of last resort” that struggles to make new riders out of residents who have other options to choose from.

“People are using our service to get to life’s needs, and if they’re unable to do that, that just means that some of the things that help them live a good life, are unavailable to them,” said Liz Gordon, the MTA’s assistant deputy administrator for planning and programming, at a meeting of the Baltimore Regional Transit Commission earlier this month where she presented the findings.

The bus isn’t just a ride to work, she said, but to doctor’s appointments, to church, to the homes of family and friends.

The commission and others have been honing in on the question of how to make the MTA a public transportation system of choice like in New York City, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Doing so would mean more reliable service for those who already depend on it while also reducing roadway congestion and greenhouse gas emissions by turning more personal car trips into transit rides.

Getting the basics right — frequency of service, reliability and going to the right places — is essential for any transit agency to convince riders to keep coming back, said Christof Spieler, an engineer and author of the book “Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US and Canadian Transit,” that reviews every major transit system in North America.

The top two rider complaints that emerged from the MTA study were about inconsistent arrival times and a lack of frequency.

Many people are willing to swap a 20-minute drive for a 30-minute bus or train ride to avoid the stress of driving and parking, Spieler said, but they have to know the bus or train will always be there and arrive on time.

“Are you [as a rider] planning your life around transit or is it there when you need it?” Spieler said. “Because obviously people’s cars don’t leave once an hour, they leave when they need them.”

But responsibility doesn’t solely rest with the transit agency, Spieler said. The results of the MTA survey should be an alarm for those who control the purse strings. Service issues are often budget issues, but budget issues are often political issues, he said.

“Information like that is kind of a warning to policymakers that you are running a transit system that people are only using if they don’t have another option available,” he said.

State and city leaders seem to have the political will and ambition to improve the system, most notably with the renewed commitment to the east-west Red Line, but they have other expensive goals, too — in education, for example.

The state is struggling just to maintain the current level of MTA service, let alone expand it. The latest draft transportation budget leaves operating expenses intact but takes away more than $600 million of planned maintenance and rehabilitation funds from the MTA.

Earlier this year, MTA Administrator Holly Arnold presented to the transit commission a sort of vision board that described a near utopian Baltimore transit future. In as little as three years, she said, Baltimore could greatly increase bus frequency, run more light rail and Metro trains, and totally reimagine the longer-distance commuter bus system.

But that would require $260 million more. The state would need to allocate that money from somewhere else.

The recent survey found that Northwest Baltimore, Southeast Baltimore and the I-83 corridor remain the most common origin areas for bus trips, with the Northwest showing up consistently in popular origin-destination pairs.

On the light rail, Lutherville to downtown and vice versa emerged as the most common trip. It’s a possible nod to strong Orioles and Ravens fandom (and aversion to traffic and parking) in northern Baltimore County. It also could indicate potential demand for a proposal to build denser housing around the Lutherville light rail stop that has been opposed by some nearby residents.

Riders are also younger and more male compared to the last such study conducted in 2018.

The percentage of minority riders has gone up in the same time span across all modes, including MARC train and commuter bus, with double-digit jumps on the light rail and Metro subway. The number of commuter bus riders who identify as Hispanic or Latino has doubled since the last survey.