A Shot Tower Maglev station would transform the city

There is one potential station location for the proposed high speed MagLev system that would change the way people along the entire east coast see Baltimore - especially Baltimoreans themselves. It's a station that could be at the intersecting point of the existing east-west Metro subway and a much faster spur of the city's north-south light rail line. It's a station that could also add 15 acres of new prime developable land to what could be the fastest growing part of downtown.

Footprint for proposed MagLev Station shown in blue, now the central post office, at the
 south end of the Jones Falls Expressway (shown at right). Metro subway is in green under Baltimore Street.  

A brief local history

This potential MagLev station site is at the foot of the Jones Falls Expressway and the Shot Tower Metro Station. This location has great access and was originally supposed to be a key part of downtown and a gateway to the Inner Harbor, but that never happened.

In the 1980s, Mayor Schaefer decided the open portion of the Jones Falls should become "Fallswalk",  patterned after the highly successful riverfront promenade in San Antonio, Texas. Some ambitious plans were carried out, including the Children's Museum in the grand old fish market, as well as "The Brokerage" shopping mall in the building which now contains the Rams Head Live music venue. But then in the 1990s, the police headquarters decided to use the closure of Baltimore Street to build the Metro to create its own permanent dead-end parking lot. When the Metro station finally opened, the MTA didn't even bother to return the bus service to the adjacent section of Baltimore Street, further isolating it. In 2001 after 9/11, the police decided to go a step further and make Baltimore Street into a secure "no man's land" where even pedestrians were prevented from approaching the Metro Station for several years.

The most conspicuous insult added to injury was that a very cool helium balloon tethered ride which had been erected above the Metro Station entrance had a mishap, where the balloon and its riders got stuck for many hours several hundred feet above downtown. That was pretty much the last straw. What was supposed to be a future high-rise "air rights" development site became just another ad hoc parking lot for whoever has the clout to park there.

While people often talk about the abject failure of transit-oriented development on Howard Street and other places, the Shot Tower Metro Station should also get an honorable mention. But just as on Howard Street, the seeds of failure were planted much earlier. People had unrealistic expectations when this portion of the Jones Falls Expressway was built in the 1980s as an at-grade boulevard (President Street) with the Jones Falls stream uncovered. (Unfortunately, that's a concept that refuses to die as some "visionaries" still want to tear down the expressway northward past the prisons.)

Simply put, the highway wasn't built to a pedestrian scale, and it probably never will be.

The real key is getting rid of the regional post office

But the expressway didn't even start the anti-urban trend in this area. That role could go to the 12-acre central regional post office built in the early 1970s adjacent to what later became the expressway. A regional post office was a bad anti-urban land use choice - a massive fortress that generates a huge amount of truck traffic. Its architecture also reflects this, being just about as brutal as "Brutalism" can get. This regional post office should be moved out to the suburbs or the city's outskirts.

The site would then become the ideal location for the city's Magnetic Levitation system station, with all the grandiose urban architectural gestures that such a revolutionary transit mode would justify.

Train stations have historically been the places where cities have put their civic pride on display to the most conspicuous extent possible. And now New York City happens to be doing it again with the redevelopment of their central post office into the Moynihan Train Hall, as they finally atone for the sin of tearing down their glorious Penn Station back in the 1960s.

Future New York train station on site of former central post office, across the street from the current Penn Station.

This kind of ostentation will be even more crucial for the northeast corridor MagLev line, the vast majority of which will be underground and thus provoke no sensual stimuli other than pure speed, up to 300 mph.

Riding MagLev into Baltimore should be a major event. It should leave no doubt in riders' minds as to where they are. Baltimore's boosters must understand this on some level, based on the jumbo video screen they've installed on the train platform to hype-up the city at Penn Station.

The scale of the adjacent JFX, aka President Street, cannot be reduced to human scale, so the scale of the humans must be expanded to meet the challenge.

The scale of MagLev itself also fits this formula. It's passenger platforms will be over 1300 feet long, compared to the planned Red Line light rail's platforms of less than 200 feet. The tunnel excavation for each MagLev station, where the "top down" construction technique is deemed necessary rather than a conventional "boring machine", is planned to be over 3200 feet long.

Perhaps most importantly, the MagLev station would fill a gaping hole in the urban fabric of what is otherwise a very fast growing area of on the east edge of downtown. Development is now spreading northward from the "New Downtown" at Harbor East and westward from the Johns Hopkins Medical campus to Old Town. The post office would not only be replaced with a MagLev station, but also great high density accompanying urban development such as offices, residential and retail uses.

Map view of proposed MagLev Station adjacent to intersection of Metro (green) and
proposed central light rail extension (orange) from Penn Station to the north to Harbor East to the south (bottom).

Rail transit connections

Another Baltimore failure has been its inability to fulfill the 1960s vision of a central rail transit hub station, where high quality east-west and north-south lines would meet. The Charles Center Metro Station was supposed to be that station, but the existing Metro has become pigeonholed as more of a minor low-ridership northwest line. Meanwhile, it is now realized that a proposed central north-south spine line to Towson would end up costing many billions which simply can't be justified.

So in the 1970s, a far cheaper light rail line up the Jones Falls Valley to Timonium and Hunt Valley was planned. This was originally to extend all the way down the valley to the east side of downtown. It was finally built in the 1990s, but to Howard Street on the west side instead.

Then a funny thing happened. As the light rail line was built to link the west side, downtown itself drifted eastward. And not only did jobs and retail abandon the west side in droves, but the light rail line itself proved immune to all attempts to run at a decent speed.

So with the explosive growth and expansion in Harbor East, along with a possible MagLev station, now is the time to revive the original plan to extend the central light rail line all the way down the Jones Falls Valley from Penn Station. The speed of the two mile segment from Penn Station to the MagLev Station would be quick, with very few traffic conflicts and probably only one intermediate station under the expressway at Centre Street to serve Mount Vernon, Old Town and the new development on the Sunpapers site. The cost would also be reasonable.

The demolition of the post office would also enable the MagLev and light rail stations to be integrated as seamlessly as possible, taking advantage of the direct underground connection to the Shot Tower Metro station which already partially exists.

South of this point toward Harbor East, however, the light rail line would run into some serious traffic conflicts on President Street, so careful and creative planning would be necessary. But it would be worth it. Even a slow light rail line for this last half mile to the Inner Harbor and Harbor East would add greatly to its value. Another possible concept would be to end the high capacity light rail service at the MagLev and Metro Station and simply run streetcars beyond that point, with both services overlapping to Penn Station.

MagLev Station footprint in blue, Central light rail extension in orange and Metro subway in green.
View is looking south toward Harbor East at the top.

MagLev Station Alternatives

When measured by the station location criteria in the latest MagLev study report released this month, the Shot Tower / Post Office site comes through with flying colors.

Prior to this report, station locations at Penn Station and Harbor East had already been rejected. There is an inherent geographic problem with Penn Station in that "geometry precludes a feasible route to the northeast", as stated in the report. In other words, Penn Station is simply located too far off the straight high speed path from Washington to Philadelphia and New York. That's a fatal flaw.

Both Penn Station and Harbor East also suffer from "complex construction challenges" as the report states it. This basically means that there isn't enough land available anywhere to excavate the station and provide access for the very long and deep tunnel boring process that would be necessary. This is particularly a problem at Penn Station because the route alignment would be on an angle tilted to the northeast, which is not amenable to the shapes of any parcels that would be available.

This is also a problem for all the station sites in the "Downtown Station Zone" defined by the report, including the Inner Harbor and apparently the Mechanic Theater site which I had proposed here. According to the study, it's somewhat less of a problem, but still an issue, in the Camden Yards/Convention Center site that has been retained in the screening process.

Finally, the Harbor East site suffers from "intermodal connectivity constraints" as stated in the report, which is another way of saying it has insufficient traffic and transit access.

The Shot Tower / Post Office site solves all these problems. A nice gigantic hole in the ground of 10 to 15 acres could be dug to fulfill all the construction needs. The route alignment angle would create a virtually ideal path toward Washington and on to New York. There could be direct access to an interstate highway and two direct high quality rail transit lines, located near the geographic center of the entire metropolitan area.

Closer view looking south down President Street extension of I-83, with post office in the lower left
 next to historic St. Vincent DePaul Church (white tower) and Shot Tower (brown brick tower).
 South of Baltimore Street (green) are subway entrances on both sides of President Street, which can also serve as
MagLev Station entrances. The one to the right (west) has direct access to the Inner Harbor along Market Place.

The Maglev Alternatives report suggests that engineers have been far more dominant over the planners than they usually are in this type of process. After all, nobody in these parts has ever built a Magnetic Levitation line before, so questioning engineering judgment is risky. Our MTA did try to design such a MagLev system back in the 1990s, but the result looked too much like a 40 mile deluxe version of their 18 mph Baltimore Red Line plan rather than 300 mph high speed transit. Both projects met the same fate of failure.

So now it is time to expand our horizons and give MagLev its rightful place at the top of the transit hierarchy - which ranges from light rail to heavy rail Metro to MARC to Amtrak to hyperloop and on up to MagLev.

Baltimore needs to build a MagLev Station which is befitting of our city's special role between Washington, Philadelphia and New York? The Shot Tower / Post Office site offers the best location to make it happen.

With Amazon HQ2, MARC should be extended to Virginia

With Amazon's newly announced Northern Virginia Headquarters 2.1, Crystal City will now start to displace the District of Columbia as the "New Downtown" for the entire Washington metropolitan area. That includes Baltimore. So Amtrak's Northeast Corridor must be extended from New York to beyond Washington, DC - into Virginia. And just as surely, the MARC Commuter Rail "Penn Line" must also be extended from Baltimore and DC into Virginia as well.

Currently, trains from Baltimore and New York must undergo a cumbersome and time consuming switch from electric to diesel locomotives at Washington's Union Station in order to proceed southward to Virginia. This will no longer be acceptable. It must go "all electric".

Extension of MARC "Penn Line" from DC Union Station to the Amazon Crystal City Headquarters
 in Arlington, Virginia and three nearby stations, made possible by electrification of the Amtrak line. 

Baltimore and DC will both be suburbs of Northern Virginia

The new Amazon headquarters in Northern Virginia (let's call it NOVAmazon) is actually destined to live up to that often abused term - "game changer". It will accelerate changes in the roles of both Washington and Baltimore in the urban hierarchy, and bring all of them closer together - hence the need for a transportation link that is best capable of connecting it all.

NOVAmazon is just the tipping point. The sprawling nature of the federal government and the 130 foot (thirteen floor) DC building height limit have long doomed the Washington metropolitan area to outgrow the District of Columbia as its central business district. So now the transportation system must now keep up with the inevitable.

Ironically, the District of Columbia will now become more like what Baltimore has also been becoming - just another node in the great Northeast Corridor megalopolis. As such, the distinctions between cities and suburbs have been getting a bit blurred. DC's wide avenues and expansive National Mall have long had a slightly suburban quality compared to Baltimore's intense gritty urban feeling. Throughout most of our country's history, Baltimore was much larger than Washington, which was always a relatively sylvan campus whose virtually only reason for being was as a setting for federal lawmakers and culture.

Now both Baltimore and Washington will be subordinated, relative to Northern Virginia. The big difference is that Baltimore is currently nearer to the bottom of the pecking order. Baltimore has already had time to get accustomed to the role of being a small fish in a big pond, and this is just another step.

Extending the northeast rail electrification southward will allow Baltimore to maximize its suburban spin-off from the Amazon move. Among other groups, this will include Amazon commuter employees, contractors and vendors as well as other people who just want to expand their horizons to what Baltimore has to offer, like BWI-Marshall Airport (which will be easier to get to than Dulles even with its new Metro extension.) Mostly, people will be trying to get away from the Washington area's sky-high cost of living, which is bound to get even higher. There has been lip service about this for a long time, but now is the time to get serious about takking advantage of Baltimore's lower cost of living, especially in West Baltimore, which is now the frontier. New MARC Stations at Sandtown, Upton, Mount Royal and Violetville could join the existing West Baltimore Station near the "Highway to Nowhere".

New rail relationships between Amtrak, MARC and VRE

The electrification will enable many MARC trains from Baltimore's Penn Station to extend their runs beyond Union Station to the current commuter rail stations at L'Enfant Plaza, which is farther into the heart of Downtown DC and has connections to four Metro lines instead of just one. Then the trains can proceed into Virginia to Crystal City and Alexandria, and most likely a new commuter rail station at Potomac Yard in between, which will likely experience the most dramatic growth from the new Amazon presence.

Maryland's MARC Commuter Rail line may be poised to take more advantage of the new travel patterns than either Amtrak or Virginia Railway Express (VRE). All Amtrak trains in this corridor traverse the entire corridor to New York or beyond, so they will have less flexibility to increase service in response to ridership growth at a specific location, even one as meteoric as anticipated from NOVAmazon. Long distance Amtrak trains must also keep their station stops to a minimum. It's not likely Amtrak will add another stop between Union Station and Alexandria. In contrast, MARC could more easily make Baltimore to Alexandria its core corridor and better tailor service to specific local travel demand patterns.

MARC and the State of Maryland should actually be in a strong negotiating position on this. Amazon should make a big push for the extended electrification in order to link its Northern Virginia Headquarters 2.1 to its New York Headquarters 2.2. The funding would happen through Amtrak, while CSX owns the tracks and thus must also be satisfied. But MARC would reap much of the benefit.

The Washington Metro will likely to continue to be the transit mode which guides Virginia's high density urban growth, far more than VRE. Virginia has put a great deal of emphasis on development in the Silver Line Metro corridor from Rosslyn to Ballston to Tysons Corner to Dulles Airport, and there is no good connection from that corridor to Amazon at Crystal City. Building such a connection would be difficult and expensive and thus require great growth in that corridor to justify it.

VRE is more likely than MARC to continue its current role as a more traditional commuter rail service, with its two branches to Mananas and Fredericksburg deep in the Virginia sprawl country. So VRE will still clearly be somewhat on the fringe. As a telling example, their ticket operation currently isn't even integrated with Amtrak's. At DC Union Station, you can't buy VRE tickets from Amtrak vendors or machines. At the gate to VRE's station platform, there's a sign saying you must have a ticket to proceed through the door, but VRE's only ticket machines are beyond that gate door.

In general, rail service needs may even outgrow the arbitrary distinctions between Amtrak, MARC and VRE. A new regional transportation authority would integrate all three, along with SEPTA, NJT, etc. and even Maglev. No transportation should operate in a vacuum, and that includes the regional highways as well (see this blog post).

The new southern terminus of the electrified Northeast Corridor could be Lorton, Virginia, just south of Alexandria, where Amtrak has a large train yard where switching from electric to diesel locomotives could be done with less disruption and more efficiency. There's already a station there for Amtrak's Autotrain service to Florida, and this could be expanded to serve all other trains as well.

Many other capacity and flexibility improvements will also be warranted as development and ridership grows, but electrification is a start.

Back in the 1970s, Amtrak extended the electrification of its Northeast Corridor northward from New Haven to Boston to keep up with the times. So all this is nothing new, except for the extraordinary change and growth in the Washington-Baltimore region which is leading to it. NOVAmazon will be the key focus.