Comprehensive Rail Solution

LET'S FOCUS ON WHAT WE REALLY NEED

Freight, intercity high speed rail, and regional transit such as the Red Line - It all needs to be envisioned together, along with the role of Baltimore in the world economy, and between the inner city, our neighbohring cities and the suburbs.

Mark Reutter's latest article in the Baltimore Brew is a great starting point for thinking out loud about the chaotic state of comprehensive rail planning in the Baltimore region. The Maryland Department of Transportation's recent award of a $70 million down-payment from the Feds to begin work on the replacement of the Amtrak tunnel in West Baltimore is but a tiny droplet compared to the multi-billion dollar "needs" which have been defined by MDOT and all concerned.

Like spoiled children in a toy store who don't know what they really wants or really need, we simply clamor for everything. Briefly, rounded to the nearest billion or so, is some of the MDOT wish-list:

1 - A billion to replace the Amtrak tunnel with one that finally meets 1930s standards.

2 - A few billion for a new freight line through Baltimore to replace the CSX line which includes the notorious tunnel under Howard Street.

3 - A few more billion for a true high speed transit line between Downtown Baltimore, Washington and BWI-M airport, as planned by the MTA.

4 - More billions to extend this high speed line northward to Philadelphia and New York.

5 - Another billion or so for general MARC improvements to stations, tracks and whatnot.

6 - Several billion for a Metro heavy rail extension from Greenbelt to BWI-M airport. The rest of MDOT's grand ambitions within the DC metropolitan area shall go unmentioned here.

7 - A couple billion for the Red Line.

8 - Something less than a billion for a nice cheap extension of the MARC Line from Camden Station through the someday-to-be-vacated Howard Street CSX tunnel to 26th Street in Charles Village, then east to Clifton Park or so, as called for in the MARC master plan.

9 - Another relatively cheap augmentation to MARC for local transit on between Dorsey and Camden Station and between Odenton and Edgewood, as called for in the 2002 MTA regional rail plan.

10 - Many more billions to complete the regional rail plan to Towson, White Marsh, Dundalk and maybe some other places. Otis Rolley modestly estimated this at a mere $25 billion in an "audacious ideas" article. Audacious indeed. (The $25B includes the Red Line.)

So you can see how the tiny $60 million tip of the federal iceberg escalates into major "throw money at our problems" fantasy land. Our recent award is something around a thousandth of the total price tag of the MDOT wish list.

BACK TO REALITY

What is very obviously needed are some general principals to govern this indulgent display for someone else's largess. I suggest the following:

1 - Figure out the freight first - Not only is the hazardous material now traveling through our obsolete tunnels something to fear, and not only is freight movement a crucial national economic engine, but the freight solution will largely dictate the passenger solution. Moreover, the freight solution is relatively low-tech. All freight needs in Baltimore is just a spacious, flat, safe, well-ventilated tunnel with double tracks for double stacks.

2 - Position transit for Baltimore's emerging role - Movement between cities is where the true growth in mass transit is in the 21st century. The fate and role of Baltimore will increasingly be defined by its position between Washington, Philadelphia and New York, not its position between Woodlawn and Dundalk. Baltimore is now seen as a funky low-cost outpost between its neighboring world-class cities, both in terms of the information-age "creative class" and in terms military, national security and other growing public sectors. Aberdeen and Fort Meade were the recent big military winners because of their proximity to Washington, not Baltimore.

THE SOLUTION

Based on these two simple premises, it's surprising how easily some real solutions emerge from the mass fantasy confusion:

1 - Design the new Amtrak tunnel in West Baltimore to serve as Baltimore's future freight route. This is the best place to put a freight line, so it should be designed that way and eventually freight should be allowed to take over and passenger trains should be moved elsewhere. At a billion, this freight route is a bargain compared with some of the other solutions that have been put forth, such as tunneling southward under the harbor. This would be the best billion we could ever spend to ensure Baltimore's port freight future.

This new tunnel cannot and will not be designed for true high speed rail. At best, it can only shave several minutes off the travel time, but it can be designed to be ideal for freight trains.

2 - Begin serious planning for true high speed passenger rail in the northeast U.S. corridor between Washington, Baltimore and New York. There is much about the extensive planning that MTA has already conducted that can serve as a starting point, although this time, it needs to be serious, not just a study that gets stuck on a shelf when it's done. The MTA obviously has had no faith in their own high speed rail planning because they abandoned it before it was even completed, adding to their trail of failed transit planning studies over the years.

High speed intercity passenger rail must be thought of as mass transit. You have your fare card. You step up to the platform and wait for your train. No reservations. No fixed schedules. It should be fully demand-responsive. For that reason, smaller automated vehicles are undoubtedly the way to go. Amtrak Acela is a 1959 Edsel compared with what is needed. Why should we spend billions redesigning the existing Amtrak tracks to accommodate 1959 Edsels?

The optimum dimensions for a 21st century passenger rail tunnel are probably achieved by the existing cramped Howard Street freight tunnel, where sleek new high speed vehicles can negotiate with ease. The grades should be no problem, and any sharp turns would be close enough to the stations to be merely a minor factor. The Baltimore Arena site would make a perfect downtown terminal.

High speed rail should be planned to replace Amtrak. Incredulously enough, the MTA has envisioned its proposed high speed rail as diverting only a negligible number of Amtrak riders. But Maryland should be in the forefront of a full transition from Amtrak to an entirely new passenger system, so that the existing Edsel vehicles and tracks can be given over to freight.

3 - Focus Baltimore's regional rail system on serving the high density inner city, and on being a local distributor for the intercity high speed lines. Baltimore's inner city is finally ready to be converted to a totally transit-oriented domain, where it can serve to extend the "reach" of Baltimore's connections to Washington, Philadelphia and New York. All it needs is efficient, well designed and well connected transit. The lower density outer city and suburbs are nowhere near ready to make this transition. These areas are still in the process of exerting their independence from Baltimore's core, which started in the 1950s and accelerated with the completion of the Beltway in the mid-'60s and will not abate until it needs to.

All we really need is rail transit that allows the high density inner city to function as an integrated urban unit, so that once you get there, from Hopkins Hospital or New York or anywhere in between, you can get anywhere.

The MTA Red Line typifies the political urge to make any rail line all-things to all-people, urban and suburban alike, which ultimately results in failure to accomplish anything. The Red Line needs very fast, very high capacity service between efficient comprehensive transit hubs located where everything comes together. In that it now totally fails. There must be a single integrated downtown core hub. The Franklin-Mulberry corridor wasteland needs to be totally transformed. And there needs to be an East Baltimore hub with efficient connections between the Metro, MARC and the bus system. All of these can be connected with a short, simple Red Line that shares the existing Metro line tunnel between Downtown and Hopkins Hospital.

We need to keep our eyes on the prize, which is Baltimore and Maryland's specific role in the world economy and along the northeast corridor of world-class cities.

Decade in Review

MARYLAND'S DECADE IN TRANSPORTATION:

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

The most recent installment of Michael Dresser's column in the Sun was an excellent summation of the top ten transportation stories of the past decade. But what really struck me is how little has changed in the past decade. Sure, we couldn't have expected to be driving around in flying cars like The Jetsons by now, but why are we stuck in neutral?

Michael Dresser's list could have been written prior to the '00s instead of after it was over. The names would have been slightly different, but the ten stories could have been just the same.

So now, as another decade turns, let's party like it's 1999 and see how the descriptions on Michael Dresser's own list (presented in his same order) might have read if it had been written before this decade rather than after:

10 - Light rail double tracking - Governor Schaefer had to fire MTA Administrator Ron Hartman for the wildly underestimated cost of the central light rail line and the ensuing cover-up. After about fifty percent worth of cost overruns and ridership underruns later, the line was finally completed in 2006, as it had been originally conceived in the 1980s. Some of the second track had been deleted from the project that opened in 1992 - a deja vu for the single track Red Line tunnel currently planned by the MTA under Cooks Lane.

9 - Continuing deadly carnage on the highways - Will this ever change?

8 - Transportation funding crisis - Gas tax stuck at 23.5 cents per gallon. Read Governors Glendening, Ehrlich and O'Malley's lips: No new gas taxes. The good thing about a lack of funding is that it requires intelligent planning instead of throwing money at the problems. The bad thing is that when real money is not available, planners prefer to throw play money instead.

7 - Inner Harbor water taxi done on the cheap - It's a tiny body of water with big body currents, which is its unique charm. Baltimore is not Venice or San Francisco or anywhere else. Respect it or face deadly consequences.

6 - Ouster of MTA Administrator - Wheels fall off buses, metaphorically and literally. Baltimore transit system ridiculed far and wide. See #10.

5 - Baltimore and Washington compete for the same transit money - Washington cleans Baltimore's clock because they take transit seriously. Planning for Baltimore's Red Line began at the turn of the 2000s and a decade later we still don't have a feasible fundable or workable project.

4 - Bay bridge needs major repairs - What else is new?

3 - Planning to replace Woodrow Wilson Bridge begins in earnest - We should have savored this one. It was most likely the last time a billion dollar project will ever be done in Maryland without tolls. And nowadays, it seems that every project costs in the billions.

2 - Proposed InterCounty Connector emerges as statewide political issue - Governor Glendening tries his best to kill the highway, but it refuses to die. Future Gubernatorial wannabes line up to save it, most notably his handpicked successor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

1 - Baltimore has a dangerous undersized freight rail tunnel under Howard Street - Fixing our entire rail system, not only freight but passenger transit at the local, regional and even interregional magnetic levitation or other future high speed technology, depends crucially on what we do about this obsolete downtown tunnel and the trains that now use it. So ten years later, we have done nothing, and planned almost as little.

Gee, writing this 1999 list was so easy, I might as well write the list for 2019 while I'm at it.

To be continued...

MLK-FMX

A DIRECT SOLUTION TO THE FRANKLIN-MULBERRY STALEMATE DISASTER

The solution: Consolidating all the traffic into the current eastbound roadway to the right, thus freeing the remaining land now occupied by the median strip and the westbound roadway (left) for new transit-oriented development linked to the community.

Nobody denies that the US 40 "Highway to Nowhere" was instrumental in destroying the Franklin-Mulberry community in West Baltimore in the 1970s. But the truly amazing thing is that, three decades later, the City insists on maintaining that highway as-is, even in its so-far futile attempt to rebuild the community around it. That hasn't worked over the past thirty years and it won't work in the next thirty. And rail transit alone can't fix it either, as every other Baltimore area community with rail transit can attest, from Howard Street to Hunt Valley and Owings Mills.

The City is still in a state of denial about the cancerous effect created by this highway. Along with the MTA, they only see the wasteland it created as a vacuum which the transit Red Line can fill (with more parking for MARC commuters). They still cling to the expensive 1970s plan to cover over the highway "ditch" rather than truly repair it, which has been demonstrated to be unworkable by the decades of inaction.

Land along Franklin Street between Fremont and Schroeder remained undeveloped for decades because of the harmful economic effects of the adjacent "highway to nowhere". Beyond is the high rise building to be vacated by the Social Security Administration.

Back in the early 1990s, the City Housing Commissioner Dan Henson proposed the elimination of the entire "highway to nowhere" as part of the City's bold plan for Heritage Crossing. This proposal was made in a manner typical of the Schmoke administration. Like Mayor Schmoke's crusade for "medicalization" of drug offenders, it was an enlightened idea, but it was simply thrown on the table. Then-Governor and former Mayor Schaefer had no temperament for dealing with such out of the box thinking, and without wider backing, Mayor Schmoke's ideas were marginalized, just as Heritage Crossing itself was never incorporated into a larger plan to redevelop surrounding northwest Baltimore.

Typical of Mayor Schmoke and Commissioner Henson, they did not even reach out to the fellow bureaucrats at the City Planning Department who occupied the same office building as the city housing department, for support in how a plan dealing with the obsolete "highway to nowhere" could be made truly workable. (That included me.)

Nothing substantive has changed. The City government still has some lone crusaders like Dan Henson, but still resists comprehensive out-of-the-box thinking. The state has another former Mayor as Governor who still thinks of himself as the Baltimore's patriarchal guardian. And ideas like the Red Line show that there is still much more hype than substance to the plans. If the Red Line goes to construction in its current form, it will certainly end up in the same dysfunctional state as the rest of our rail transit system, particularly Schaefer's vaunted central light rail line.

THE CURRENT HIGHWAY MAKES CONGESTION WORSE ANYWAY

The crowning irony of all this is that keeping the gaping, sprawling, obsolete "highway to nowhere" also causes chronic congestion on Martin Luther King Boulevard underneath it. What we now have is a very free-flowing "highway to nowhere" up above, with all the turning movements bottling up MLK down below. By far the worst is the heavy left turn from northbound MLK to westbound Franklin Street, crammed into an exceedingly short left turn lane and subjected to an electronically variable second left turn lane installed as a pathetic "band aid" a few years ago.

The City has recently developed a very cavalier attitude about traffic congestion. The City is more than willing to squeeze the Edmondson Avenue and Boston Street communities to accommodate the MTA's version of the Red Line, cutting traffic capacity by up to half, which assures that congestion will get increasingly bad. But they are not willing to mess with traffic flow as it directly impacts downtown, so that commuters can act as they see fit, to drive to the dominant downtown parking garages.

Traffic will continue to dominate downtown where it really matters, in order to feed the city's development machine. To do this, the downtown section of the proposed Red Line will be kept underground out of the way to allow the parking garages to continue to attract maximum traffic.

In contrast, the City acts as if motorists using Edmondson, Boston Street and MLK can fend for themselves. Unlike on downtown streets like Pratt and Lombard, the outer areas have loads of alternate routes, even if they are many miles away like Fulton/Monroe, I-95 and the Beltway. Unlike downtown, regional traffic has room to "sort itself out" and disperse in ways that will obscure the costs and benefits.

Technical tools like computer simulation models for traffic volumes and flows are of little use in shedding light on all this. They were developed to evaluate major regional highways, not micro-level local impacts.

Apologists for this lack of technical rigor point to situations like the dismantling of the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, where the traffic reportedly disappeared like magic. But there, all the proper infrastructure was in place to restore balance to the urban travel patterns. Unfortunately, we don't have that in Baltimore. Instead of effective BART regional and MUNI local transit, we have our MTA vainly attempting to compete with many tens of thousands of downtown parking garage spaces which were built to be filled up. And the San Francisco Bay Area, in spite of its urban success, still has an intractable regional sprawl problem fed by the difficulty of urban movement. The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge now connects the East Bay sprawl to Marin County much more than the urban Embarcadero Freeway once did.

But there are parallels between the Embarcadero and Franklin-Mulberry Expressway. Both have served both traffic and communities badly. And while the Embarcadero conspicuously stood between the waterfront and high income communities, Franklin-Mulberry stands between downtown and low to middle income communities.

THE SIMPLE SOLUTION

Here's the simple answer which strips the inherent problems of the Franklin-Mulberry Expressway down to the most basic solution: Just tear down its northernmost bridge over MLK Boulevard and consolidate the traffic onto the other southernmost bridge. In this way, the "highway to nowhere" will be downsized from a huge fragmented Interstate highway swath to a single narrow overpass. There are currently only two lanes on each bridge, but the Interstate-standard shoulder easily provides room for a third lane. Downtown highway bridges don't even have shoulders - the Orleans and Russell Street Viaducts certainly don't, and there was never a clamor to provide them the last time they were rebuilt.

Franklin Street looking west from MLK Blvd. between expressway bridge, which should be knocked down (left), and Heritage Crossing community (right).

Eastbound flow on the remaining bridge can easily be consolidated into a single lane by guiding its second lane into the Mulberry/MLK intersection. Most importantly for traffic flow, the current very difficult left turn from northbound MLK to the westbound Franklin-Mulberry Expressway can be diverted into an uninterrupted right turn loop ramp eastbound on Franklin, then westbound over the remaining bridge. This will greatly alleviate congestion on MLK at very little expense to Franklin-Mulberry.

Most importantly, this solution will create large attractive new development parcels along Franklin Street that can be integrated into Heritage Crossing, Downtown and the Franklin-Mulberry Corridor as a whole.

New development parcels are shown in yellow. New expressway connections are in green. New local streets are in blue. The MTA "preferred" Red Line alignment is in red.

This solution is also fully compatible with the MTA "preferred" Red Line alignment (shown above), and in fact allows that alignment to work much better by creating new transit oriented development parcels. But it would also enhance any other Red Line alternative.

It is also compatible with the City's long-promised plan to build development "caps" farther west where the expressway enters a ditch, although any need or benefit for those expensive and limiting "caps" would be totally obviated by narrowing the expressway (see BaltiMorphosis.com .)

Focusing on the creation of new development value at this end of the Franklin-Mulberry corridor near MLK Boulevard is now particularly crucial because of the Social Security Administration's recent decision to vacate its huge complex which is the essential link between here and downtown.

Tapping into the economic energy of downtown and maximizing the value and benefit from redeveloping the Social Security complex is the key to activating the Franklin-Mulberry corridor. The MTA Red Line plan doesn't even attempt to do this. It only proposes one transit station in the entire highway corridor, in the median strip between Carey and Calhoun Streets, about seven blocks west of MLK Boulevard, which would eventually be underneath a proposed cap. Another station would be located along MLK to the south, but the nearly block-long width of the existing dual-bridge expressway would prevent this from serving any new development in the expressway corridor, just as it is already a major impediment to activity and growth.

An additional Red Line station, located just west of MLK Boulevard at the same grade as Franklin Street and the Heritage Crossing community, would be a perfect way for transit to contribute to this revitalization. The elevation changes created by the ditch itself would not be a factor, as these do not begin until several blocks from this point west of Fremont Avenue. All that is necessary is to get rid of the expressway bridge that separates the Red Line from Franklin Street.

Proposed expansion of Heritage Crossing, shown in yellow, across Franklin Street toward the Red Line (to the left) and across MLK Boulevard toward the Social Security Administration Building (to the right).

Such a solution satisfies all the goals that Housing Commissioner Dan Henson must have had in mind when he proposed knocking down the Franklin-Mulberry Expressway to extend Heritage Crossing, and to jump-start further development throughout the corridor. It was easy for him to simply call for the destruction of the entire highway and ditch in order to begin anew, but by making such a sweeping proposal, he ended up getting nothing done. It is far better to focus on that part of a problem which is the greatest impediment, rather than a blanket attack (which is probably also why drug abuse is still such a pervasive problem.)

To satisfy our goals, we need to look at all aspects of the relationships between the city, transportation and other systems to identify the highest priorities for change.

MTA vs LHF Plans

MTA "PREFERRED" RED LINE ALTERNATIVE 4C

VS. THE "LOW HANGING FRUIT" PLAN

The MTA Red Line philosophy is "one size fits all". And if the shoe doesn't fit, the MTA will spend hundreds of millions of dollars extra to bury as much of the line as they think they might afford so no one has to look at it. If the crammed-in lines don't connect, they'll build yet another tunnel to make people walk between them. Then they'll cram the rest of the line through the communities that they can't afford to bury, whether anyone likes it or not.

The "Low Hanging Fruit" philosophy is a total opposite: Build a rail transit system that fits its environment, so that people will orient their lives to it. Take advantage of the opportunities that have already been planned to make the city more livable, and bring those plans into harmony with the rail transit system. Build transit to transform the city, not to cram it through.

By taking maximum advantage of existing infrastructure and building to a scale suitable to the environment, the entire Low Hanging Fruit plan would cost approximately the same as the MTA's $1.6 billion "preferred" Red Line plan. Since much of the LHF plan incorporates projects that are already being planned outside the Red Line anyway, the true comparative cost would actually be much less. Place to place, here's how the MTA's "preferred" Red Line plan compares with the "Low Hanging Fruit Plan":

DOWNTOWN

MTA PLAN - Downtown is the centerpiece and most expensive part of the MTA's "preferred" Red Line plan. Here they plan to bury the Red Line under Downtown's biggest and baddest traffic sewer, Lombard Street (shown above), which will remain as auto-dominated as ever, hostile to pedestrians and lined with wall-to-wall parking garages. Three stations are proposed here, with a fourth dropped for cost reasons. Construction will be very disruptive.

The transformation of Lombard Street will be limited only to new stairs, escalators and elevators to access these underground stations, and perhaps several new pedestrian spaces such as the one currently being rebuilt at the base of the former USF&G/Legg Mason tower at Light Street. The Red Line will be two blocks away from the existing subway under Baltimore Street, so the MTA intends to build a pedestrian tunnel under Light Street, with a moving belt sidewalk to enable riders to get from one isolated station to the other.

LHF PLAN - This plan will avoid hundreds of millions of dollars and years of construction disruption by having the Red Line share the existing Metro subway tunnel under Eutaw and Baltimore Streets. Transfers from one line to the other can then be made at any station simply by stepping off the train onto the platform.

Baltimore Street carries far less traffic than Lombard, so it can be suitably redesigned to become a livable urban street. It is also sufficiently wide at the critical locations, such as the Charles Center subway entrance shown above, to accommodate design creativity and traffic flow simultaneously.

The three key blocks are between Howard and Charles. The west end adjacent to the Baltimore Arena is already being used as a low-rent impromptu transit hub. The other two blocks can be transformed in concert with the renewal of Charles Center, especially the vacant Mechanic Theater adjacent to the Metro Station entrance (shown above), which provides sufficient room away from traffic flow to accommodate transit and people-oriented activities.

One potential concept for this portion of Baltimore Street is to build a short spur from the Howard Street light rail line to the Charles Center Metro entrance. In that way, the entire rail transit system would converge at a single point, which is the overall goal of all but the very largest successful urban rail transit systems.

All this can be done without the cost and disruption of new tunneling.

NORTH CHARLES STREET CORRIDOR

MTA PLAN - The MTA Red Line does not include Charles Street or any north-south corridor. The MTA has kept an arms length from the detailed professional planning study which has been sponsored by the Charles Street Development Corporation demonstrating the feasibility of a Charles Street Trolley. This $150 million streetcar line would travel from the Inner Harbor northward through downtown, Mount Vernon and Penn Station (Station North) to Charles Village, Hopkins University and Tuscany-Canterbury. The primary stipulation the MTA has made is that the $150 million Charles Street Trolley project not usurp any federal funding away from their Red Line.

LHF PLAN - The CSDC Charles Street Trolley plan should be planned as an integral part of the region's rail plan, and not just as a mere "circulator", both by intimately orienting it to Red and Green Lines downtown at the Charles Center Metro station (shown above), and also by making it part of a comprehensive streetcar network centered on the Inner Harbor. It should collaborate, rather than compete, with the Red Line for federal funding. If planned properly, it would dramatically increase the "reach" of the entire system.

INNER HARBOR

MTA PLAN - The Red Line would not serve the Inner Harbor, except through the back basement door at Lombard Street.

LHF PLAN - The photo above shows how the current Charles Street trolley plan might look in the Inner Harbor. However, we can do much better. The City is already planning to spend about $100 million to transform and rebuild Pratt Street and relocate intersecting Light Street adjacent to the Inner Harbor to create a totally new environment. This is a perfect opportunity to upgrade the streetcar plan to fully integrate it with the street plans, providing exclusive rights-of-way for streetcars on both streets. As the front door and most prominent window on the city, the Inner Harbor streets should fully become people and transit-oriented places instead of urban speedways.

The streetcar line would run in both directions along Pratt Street from Charles to Pier 5, and then through Pier 5 to Eastern Avenue and/or a new bridge to Fleet Street and Harbor East. The Light Street branch of the streetcar system would run the length of the Inner Harbor to the Science Center at Key Highway.

HARBOR EAST AND FELLS POINT

MTA PLAN - The Red Line would remain in a tunnel and would have two stations, one between Central Avenue and Eden Street to the east of Harbor East, and the other under Broadway in Fells Point.

LHF PLAN - The line would be similar to MTA surface street Alternative 4A, but with a crucial difference. Since it would operate as single vehicle streetcars instead of multi-vehicle block long trains, it would be able to easily run in the existing traffic lanes (e.g. eastbound on Eastern Avenue and westbound on Fleet Street). The streetcars would also need station stops of only about 60 feet long, about the same as bus stops, instead of stations occupying entire blocks in order to accommodate four car light rail trains.

Because of this, unlike in the MTA plans, virtually all on-street parking would be preserved. In turn, more stations could easily be provided, such as one near President Street serving Little Italy, along with the heart rather than the periphery of Harbor East. This is particularly crucial because of this area's strong demand for relatively short trips whereby convenience is more important than speed. The MTA's own study found that their surface alternative is more cost-effective (more riders and time savings per dollar) than the alternatives with tunnels.

CANTON

MTA PLAN - The Red Line would emerge from the ground at a large portal built into an enlarged median strip onto Boston Street near Montford Avenue. Boston Street would have to be totally redesigned to squeeze the heavy traffic into a single lane in each direction to accommodate the light rail line. There would be two stations in this median, one near the American Can retail complex near Lakewood Avenue and the other near Canton Crossing near Clinton Street.

LHF PLAN - The streetcar line would either remain in the existing lanes of Eastern Avenue and/or Fleet Street through Canton, or turn into Boston Street. Either way, the streets would remain approximately as-is except for modifications to accommodate the short station stops of about 60 foot length. All stops would be along the sidewalks rather than sandwiched between the heavy traffic in the median strip. Additional stops could easily be provided because of their low impact and the demand for more convenient service.

HIGHLANDTOWN

MTA PLAN - The line would enter an abandoned freight railroad right of way northeast of Boston Street near Conkling Street. It would have a station serving Highlandtown at the existing railroad bridge above Eastern Avenue (shown above, with the proposed Highlandtown Loft District).

LHF PLAN - The LHF and MTA alignments could be the same in this area, taking advantage of the livable transit-oriented design of the Highlandtown Loft District plan. However, an additional station could be provided to serve the rapidly growing Brewers Hill community, which could then also be made equally as transit-oriented as the Highlandtown Loft plan.

Alternatively, the streetcar line could use the portion of Eastern Avenue under the railroad bridges, which was originally built for streetcars and is severely overdesigned for its present use as a short four lane traffic expressway between Highlandtown and Greektown. Under this latter alternative, the line could proceed along Eastern Avenue through the heart of the Greektown business district to the Hopkins Bayview campus. It could then be extended to Dundalk and Turners Station as originally intended in the 2002 regional rail transit plan, but which has been rendered virtually infeasible in the MTA's "preferred" plan.

BAYVIEW

MTA PLAN - Two Bayview stations would be at the end of the line in the "preferred" MTA plan, one serving a MARC Commuter rail station and parking lot around the Norfolk Southern freight yard, the other terminating in the Hopkins Bayview campus. The fundamental problem with this arrangement is that the alignment creates a very long circuitous "S" curve that maximizes travel distance and time to downtown and for the entire line, despite about a mile of tunneling into downtown. Even worse, it makes it very difficult and untenable to ever extend the line beyond Bayview to Dundalk, Eastpoint, Essex or the suburbs beyond.

LHF PLAN - The much more efficient and effective concept is to extend the existing heavy rail Metro east from Hopkins Hospital to Bayview along the Amtrak right of way. The MARC station would be located at the large vacant site shown above, at Edison Highway and Monument Streets, which would also provide an ideal connection point for the entire MTA bus route network from the northeast and east. The streetcar line from Canton and Highlandtown could also conveniently terminate at this point, along its abandoned freight branch line.

The heavy rail line would then continue slightly farther along this right of way to Hopkins Bayview (seen on the horizon in this photo). Travel time would be only about 6 minutes to Hopkins Hospital and 9 minutes to Charles Center. The line would also be poised for further extension beyond into the suburbs, with eminently feasible branches to Dundalk, Eastpoint, Essex, Middle River and White Marsh.

There would be a third station near where the line comes out of the ground east of Hopkins Hospital near the Biotech Park and the Berea community. This is a very high density transit-oriented community.

FRANKLIN-MULBERRY

MTA PLAN - The Red Line would come out of the ground west of downtown near the interchange of MLK Boulevard and the infamous Franklin-Mulberry "highway to nowhere", where it would turn into the desolate and isolated median strip shown above. There would be one station on MLK Boulevard just south of the interchange, one in the median strip near Carey Street, and one just beyond the west end of the highway ditch at the West Baltimore MARC station.

LHF PLAN - The key to the LHF plan is to squeeze the Franklin-Mulberry Expressway down to four standard urban lanes from its current width, which was rendered obsolete when it no longer was part of the Interstate Highway system. The narrowed roadway would be shifted up against the south retaining wall of the ditch (to the right in the BaltiMorphosis.com photo montage above). The transit line would be located next to the narrowed road. This would free-up about a mile of multi-level space for a new fully transit-oriented community between Franklin Street and the transit line.

This plan would have a short tunnel spur off the existing Metro, north of the Lexington Market Station, and come out of the ground just west of MLK Boulevard. The MLK Boulevard station would be located just west of the tunnel portal adjacent to a southern expansion of the beautiful Heritage Crossing community. The other two stations would be located near Carey Street and the West MARC station.

EDMONDSON VILLAGE

MTA PLAN - The MTA plan would ram the Red Line into the already crowded Edmondson Avenue (Route 40 corridor) where houses are built right up to the street. This would require the elimination of one of the three lanes in each direction on this already congested major arterial highway. It would also require the elimination of much parking as well as left turn lanes. There would be only two stations, at Allendale Road and at Edmondson Village shopping center, so much of this large community would still find it much more convenient to take buses, which would get caught in the congestion created by the narrowing of Route 40.

LHF PLAN - Under the LHF plan, the Red Line would terminate for now at the West MARC station and would never run on Edmondson Avenue. Bus service would be upgraded in the community by extending premium Quick Bus lines into branches to Wildwood Parkway, Westview, Catonsville and other locations. Station stops would be upgraded to the same standards as the new streetcar service, but would remain located along sidewalks rather than stranded in median strips surrounded by whizzing traffic. Local bus shuttles would be provided to the West MARC station, which would serve as a comprehensive transit hub providing connections to everywhere.

Possible future rail transit extensions could serve Font Hill, oriented to a possible major new community on the site of the former vast Southwestern High School campus, FredHilton and Irvington, and many points to the west.

WOODLAWN AND SECURITY

MTA PLAN - The MTA had to narrow their tunnel under Cooks Lane to a single reversible track, because of their project's deficiency to federal cost effectiveness standards. This will seriously jeopardize service reliability. Homeland security is a major issue at the stations serving the federal SSA and CMS complexes. Stations under the MTA plan have had to be located far away from the buildings for security reasons, well beyond the parking lots, which will make the rail service unattractive to those who can drive. An additional station also had to be eliminated from the plan for the same reason. Two other stations will serve Security Square Mall and a park and ride lot on the former Interstate 70.

LHF PLAN - This area will be served by the enhanced Quick Bus and local bus service described under "Edmondson Village".

FEDERAL HILL AND PORT COVINGTON

MTA PLAN - The MTA plan does not include this area.

LHF PLAN - The plan would incorporate a recent proposal by the Baltimore City government to extend the streetcar system southward from the Inner Harbor through the Federal Hill community to Port Covington, on the shore of the Middle Branch. As can be seen from the photo above, this area has huge undeveloped parcels which used to be a railroad yard. The parcel shown is part of the printing press plant owned by the Baltimore Sun. Behind the printing plant is a Wal-Mart store.

The streetcar line would integrate Port Covington into the urban fabric of South Baltimore and greatly enhance its development potential.

Low Hanging Fruit Plan

THE BEST, SIMPLEST AND MOST EFFICIENT RAIL TRANSIT PLAN - TO REPLACE THE MTA'S CONTRIVED CONTORTED "PREFERRED" PLAN

For years, the MTA and their cohorts have been accusing their opponents of trying to disrupt the Red Line process. What we're really doing is trying to make the process work.

After numerous delays of their own, the only way the MTA was able to come up with something that looked even superficially feasible was to inflate the ridership numbers at the last minute, after submitting lower numbers to the Federal Transit Administration in their Alternatives Analysis and Draft Environmental Impact Statement. While inflating the ridership numbers by increasing future population and employment projections, the MTA got rid of two stations and narrowed the tunnel under Cooks Lane to a single reversible track, in their last ditch effort to make the cost and benefit numbers work.

Thus, the MTA's "preferred" Red Line alternative was something that no one preferred during the process, based on data that was unavailable. Nor would anyone ever want to "prefer" their plan.

Anyway, the MTA process is over. I will no longer devise additional ways to make the MTA plans work. They've finished their process and have totally failed. Enough is enough.

HERE'S THE PLAN THAT ACTUALLY WORKS:

This plan that can be designed and built more quickly, easily and economically than the MTA's plan, without contrivances like the single track Cook Lane tunnel, the two block downtown pedestrian tunnel and the ram-jobs to squeeze surface light rail into the median strips of Edmondson Avenue and Boston Street. See diagram above.

1. The Red Line should use the existing heavy rail Metro tunnel that already exists under downtown between Lexington Market and Hopkins Hospital. This saves a huge amount of money and disruption and allows riders to transfer between the two lines by stepping on a platform instead of walking through a two block tunnel.

2. To the west, a short tunnel spur should be built north of Lexington Market to the Franklin-Mulberry corridor, where the line can be easily built to the West MARC Station. It can be extended in the future, perhaps along the Amtrak right of way to a new town on the site of the former Southwestern High School campus and to a transit hub at FredHilton, and perhaps eventually back to Edmondson Village and Security/Woodlawn.

3. To the east, a short tunnel should be built to the Amtrak right of way, where the line can easily be built to a new East MARC station and to the Bayview Research Park, with a future extension to Eastpoint, Essex and Middle River. Green Line extension options currently under study should be preserved.

4. The Charles Street Trolley project, already demonstrated to be feasible in a detailed study by Kittelson Associates, should be built from the Inner Harbor northward to Charles Village. Since this study was done outside of the MTA and city government planning processes, additional coordination will be required to integrate this plan into the comprehensive rail transit plan.

5. MTA's Red Line study already showed that the all-surface Alternative 4A was by far the most cost effective plan. It can easily be made feasible with negligible negative impacts eastward from the Inner Harbor to Harbor East, Fells Point, Canton and Highlandtown, by using single vehicle streetcars in mixed traffic lanes instead of block-long light rail trains in their own exclusive right of way.

6. The City government has recently proposed a streetcar line from the Inner Harbor southward through Federal Hill to Port Covington. This can be built as an extension of the Charles Street trolley.

7. The City has also proposed to totally reconfigure Pratt and Light Streets adjacent to the Inner Harbor. This should be done in a way that is fully in concert with the streetcar plans, to make these streets as transit oriented and friendly as possible.

8. Baltimore Street and its surrounding environment should be redesigned to serve as a comprehensive transit hub between Light and Howard Streets, with particular attention to areas around the escalator portals to the Charles Center Metro station. A two block spur from the existing Howard Street light rail line to the Charles Center Metro Station should be also investigated. This would enable all rail transit lines to converge at a single point.

Many variations to this proposal are possible. The important strategy is to sieze the opportunities that are readily available, not to try to contort a Red Line plan into locations where it clearly does not fit, as the MTA has done.

Hilton Terminal

Hilton Terminal: The only solution to the west end Red Line mess

Nobody else has a solution, so I'll just have to do it. This plan original appeared in March in Baltimore Brew.

Now the MTA has said they need to save money by building only a single track tunnel under Cooks Lane. Obviously, if the MTA can't build a decent tunnel under Cooks Lane, that means they really can't build a tunnel under Edmondson Avenue either, which has become a non-negotiable demand of the surrounding community. But if the MTA ignores this demand, they will probably end up in court and the Red Line will die a slow death.

So in the spirit of reconciliation, I offer this plan. (I don't know why people think of me as a troublemaker. I only want to help.)

The Red Line should end at Hilton Parkway, where it will still serve the Edmondson communities, but it will not ram its way into them. Then build a terminal station/parking garage/Leakin Park Gateway where part of the obsolete Hilton Parkway interchange now stands on land that once belonged to the park.

I've sketched the rough concept in the Google Earth image above. The colors are:

RED - The Red Line - ending in a widened median of Edmondson Avenue at Hilton Parkway.

YELLOW - A multi-level structure built on what is now the north half of the Hilton Parkway interchange. The top level would be new parkland with a playground, commercial kiosks serving transit riders, and a gateway entrance to the rest of the park. The lower levels would be parking.

This photo shows the grade differential between Hilton Street (above) and Hilton Parkway (below) which enables the construction of an almost invisible parking garage in the hole created by the interchange. The houses in the background would then look out on parkland instead of a highway interchange.

MAGENTA - Hilton Parkway, straightened out and narrowed into the westernmost underpass under Edmondson Avenue. The ramps south of Edmondson would be unchannelized to accommodate traffic now using the ramps to the north.

BLUE - The existing southbound ramp from Hilton Parkway to Edmondson Avenue, which would be adapted to carry two-way traffic including some vehicles now using the ramps. It may be necessary to feed all southbound traffic from the north into this road to nullify the potential conflicts at the north end. A short bridge over the parkway below would provide access to the parking garage.

GREEN - New pedestrian and bike paths through the new parkland on top of the parking deck, leading to the Gwynns Falls Greenway shown in the upper right corner, at the Leon Day Park playfields off of Franklintown Road. Connections to this path would be provided over the top of Hilton from Harlem Avenue (shown, upper left) or Denison Street, as well as inside the existing underpass under Edmondson now used by northbound Hilton Parkway traffic.

Here is the Hilton Parkway underpass seen from the south, with Edmondson Avenue on top. Traffic would be consolidated into the road going through the left tunnel, and the right side would be renovated for pedestrians and bikes. If Edmondson Avenue can be widened sufficiently, a stairway up to the transit station in the Edmondson median could be provided.

This photo shows the gorgeous Gwynns Falls Valley which is now all but invisible and inaccessible to the community because of the interchange. The new pathway from Hilton/Edmondson to the Greenway Trail would be just to the left of this photo and the railroad tracks.

Implementing this plan would enable the Red Line to work with the community instead of tearing it apart. It would also save a ton of money compared with what the MTA wants to do (a squeezed force-fed unworkable Red Line), and two tons of money compared to what the community wants to do (an underground Red Line).