Reservoir / Druid Hill / Mondawmin: Turning the corner

The corridor from Reservoir Hill to Druid Hill Park to Mondawmin is at a critical stage right now. It has the city's best park, best shopping mall, best transit outside downtown and some of its most attractive housing, but the recently announced closure of the Target store has dealt a bitter blow.

As such, the area's most critical development zone is not where you'd expect: It's the two block "no man's land" at the elbow where these three areas should and could come together, but don't.

The old "gold coast" high rises of Reservoir Hill looking west along Druid Park Lake Drive should be extended to wrap slightly around the corner toward Mondawmin (three new buildings, upper right).
Druid Lake will be shrunk somewhat over the next five years to construct underground water tanks. 

This small point is exactly where the development growth spreading northward from downtown to  midtown to Bolton Hill to Reservoir Hill comes grinding to a halt. Then two blocks beyond, north of Fulton Avenue, activity picks up again toward Mondawmin. This small two block area could be called "Reserdawmin Hill". Or some better name.

Development of this small area would allow Reservoir Hill to wrap around and embrace Druid Hill Park in a way that's not now possible, and create some common ground with the greater Mondawmin community, turning the corner, integrating them and blurring their boundaries.

Reservoir Hill is the growing neighborhood between North Avenue (US 1, lower left) and Druid Lake.
 Greater Mondawmin (upper left) is the large neighborhood west of huge Druid Hill Park (upper right).
"Reserdawmin Hill" could be the tie that binds them.

Traffic is in the cause and the cure  

The northwestern of the two blocks is dominated by one of the city's most bizarre intersections -  between Druid Park Lake Drive, McCulloh Street, Druid Hill Avenue and Fulton Avenue (see Google Earth map below). It's an intersection that literally screams "stay away!" to any pedestrians who might happen to venture nearby. It's also confusing for motorists. But moreover, it's a huge waste of space that infects and deadens both the main corner of  Druid Hill Park to the north and the triangular piece of parkland to the west toward Auchentoroly Terrace, making it not feel like part of Druid Hill Park at all. Residents of the attractive victorian rowhouses along Auchentoroly make the best of this, but they must feel like they're living on the edge of the world instead of next to the best park in the city.

The other block, bounded by Druid Park Lake Drive, McCulloh Street, Cloverdale Road and Madison Avenue, is occupied by a small outpost of the city's Department of Recreation and Parks offices. That's a gross underutilization for a parcel at the primary gateway of Druid Hill Park. Rec and Parks no doubt uses it only because it's there.

A third slender block between these two is occupied by basketball courts, which seems to be an odd use and not very convenient to the nearby communities or the rest of the park. However, they are otherwise lacking in recreational facilities and it's not critical to new development.

Existing traffic lanes through "Reserdawmin Hill": Reservoir Hill is to the lower right. Mondawmin is to the left. Druid Hill Park is to the top. Rec and Parks office in the little house on the right block.
 Basketball courts on the lower block. Snarling intersection on the upper block.

The traffic flow at this sprawling intersection is grossly imbalanced. Southbound flow is actually very efficient, comprised of three traffic lanes. The right lane flows thru into Druid Hill Avenue, the left lane turns left into eastbound Druid Park Lake Drive, while the center lane has a choice of either direction (for drivers who aren't quite sure where they're going).

In contrast, northbound flow is a giant mess. It's seven lanes in all, with enough pavement for an eighth or even a ninth lane, both of which had to be hashed out because there's no room for those lanes to go. It's an orgy of asphalt. Five of the seven lanes merge into northbound McCulloh Street, which eventually changes names again to Auchentoroly or Swann or Swan. Madison Avenue becomes a different Swann in the park. An "Ugly Duckling" turning into a Swann? The street names are almost as confusing as the streets themselves.

Merging zones like this belong on Interstate highways, not city streets. The merges beg aggressive motorists to go faster and faster. But the merge point is at the exact location of the pedestrian crosswalk into the park, instilling a helpless feeling on anyone attempting to cross.

All this was in fact originally designed to resemble an Interstate highway, or at least to transition into one. Interstate 795, built in the 1980s from the Beltway outward toward Owings Mills, was originally (in the 1950s) supposed to proceed inward into the city along what later became the Wabash Avenue corridor, then proceed further to the Park Circle area, and then into this web of traffic lanes here along the edge of Druid Hill Park.

The two remaining lanes of the seven are directed to turn left into Fulton Avenue. This is OK, but the lanes take up a lot of space because they are segregated from the rest of the traffic, which also means motorists are screwed if they don't get in the proper lane two blocks in advance near Madison Avenue.

Proposed "Reserdawmin Hill" plan. Southbound traffic flow would stay as-is,
 but northbound flow would be greatly consolidated as shown.

The solution is to just design two normal intersections, one at Fulton and the other at the end Druid Park Lake Drive. The southbound traffic patterns won't change at all. For the northbound traffic, the high speed merge would be eliminated and all the traffic would be consolidated into three lanes on each approach, with an additional lane or two between the two intersections for left turns into Fulton. This layout would free-up a significant amount of land where the high speed merge lanes are currently located on Druid Park Lake Drive (see graphic above).

The exact number of lanes should be determined by further study of the larger area traffic patterns all the way north along Druid Hill Park, to greatly reduce the park's isolation from the Mondawmin community. Along the park, all the through traffic in both directions should be concentrated in the five lanes now used for northbound flow, thus enabling the elimination of through traffic on the street immediately adjacent to the houses on Auchentoroly Terrace (see article from Baltimore Brew). 

This is very do-able, and would be a major relief to the neighborhood and a major enhancement to Druid Hill Park. Relief is needed even for the two blocks of Auchentoroly just north of Fulton where most through traffic is shifted away from the houses, because the remaining thru traffic goes too fast, as evidenced by the "speed humps" that had to be installed - a stopgap band-aid kind of solution.

Northernmost hi-rise is the key to the plan. It would actually feel like it is part of the Mondawmin community (upper right), Druid Hill Park (bottom) and Reservoir Hill (left) at the same time. Also of note is the distinctive architecture of the city utility building just across the street from the proposed high rise. It was originally a streetcar storage facility. The nine-lane highway north of this intersection should also be narrowed at some point.

The "Reserdawmin Hill" plan

The goal of the plan is to bring Mondawmin, Reservoir Hill and Druid Hill Park together for the benefit of all. In terms of cold economics, the goal is to strengthen the primary local market area for retail in Mondawmin Mall (like the Target property) and for the neighborhoods as a whole.

The freed-up space adjacent to the park by downsizing the intersection south of Fulton should be used for high density residential development. This is one of the best places in all of north Baltimore for high rise housing because it would not directly impact anyone, but it would also infuse new life into the park and eliminate the "no man's land" between Reservoir Hill and Mondawmin. The nearby neighborhoods are dominated by thousands of rowhouses, so modern attractive high rises would be a welcome new market choice. These new buildings would also complement and relate to the adjacent historic high rise buildings just to the south along Druid Lake in Reservoir Hill (see top graphic).

There are probably legal issues to be addressed in this plan, but the sheer amount of park land should not be an issue. Druid Hill Park is huge and much of the park land does not even function as park land. More and better park land would be created by downsizing the highways that wrap around the park. And most of all, even more new park land is about to be created by burying much of Druid Lake for the safety of its drinking water. 

The real issue is not the gross amount of park land. It's maximizing the quality and usefulness of that land for real people, especially the land at the park's edges which most serve the surrounding neighborhoods.

Good sites for attractive high density housing are hard to find. This is a great one because it is on the cusp of two very ambitious and promising neighborhoods, along with the city's premiere park. Baltimore needs to get away from its waterfront development tunnel vision. Housing which is a true catalyst for the whole city's growth and which can return much more in the future should be a high priority.

There's going to be a big construction mess in this corner of Druid Hill Park for the next five years to build the new underground water tanks. Let's make it worth it.