MagLev station should cross street into Charles Center

The latest word for the 300 mph MagLev plan under Baltimore is for the downtown station to replace the Garmatz Federal Courthouse, just north across Pratt Street from the previous site at the Convention Center. That's progress, but it needs to be nudged north just one more block to the site of the Fallon Federal Building at the south end of Charles Center, whose demolition would be far more beneficial for the entire city.

Fallon Building, as seen across Lombard Street from Garmatz Building, built on top of an imposing impenetrable pedestal, cutting it off from the rest of the city and all of Charles Center behind it. This should be the location of the MagLev Station. (Baltimore Heritage, Eli Pousson)

To the MagLev planners and engineers, this is no doubt all about "constructability". They need a site where a giant hole in the ground could be dug in a place that allows access to the huge deep tunnel accommodating the high speed trains. The location originally chosen under the Convention Center must have been very problematic to have gotten them to move it northward to the other side of Pratt Street, where the functional and modern Garmatz Courthouse would have to be demolished.

But moving the MagLev station hole northward just one more block across Lombard Street would allow them to knock down the older and very dysfunctional Fallon building instead and create a great station location that would open up all of downtown. Ever since that building was constructed in the mid-1960s as the south anchor of the massive Charles Center project, it has been a curse on downtown, effectively creating a wall that forever cut a large portion of downtown off from all growth to the south, most notably the Inner Harbor.

What's more, there's already a large hole in the ground next to this site, due to the failure of the Mechanic Theater redevelopment project which has been largely a result of the massive wall that the Fallon building created when they were both built at about the same time. The Mechanic Theater hole in the ground can be combined with a Fallon Building hole and the vacuous plaza between them to create a truly formidable and encompassing MagLev Station site.

Here's the big hole in the ground already dug where the Mechanic Theater once stood, just north of the Fallon Federal Building and adjacent to the Charles Center Metro Station entrance, shown just to the right.

Making this area work is crucial to the future of downtown Baltimore. Without a fully functional Charles Center, downtown Baltimore really has no center. Ever since it was built in the 1960s, the huge mass of Charles Center has reduced the viability of the Howard/Lexington retail center to the west and even the Chinatown area to the north. The Charles Center access problem was originally supposed to be solved by aerial walkways which were built across virtually every major street in the area, including Lombard, Pratt, Charles and Light, as well as through the buildings, plazas and the McKeldin Fountain to the Inner Harbor. These walkways have gradually been dismantled over the years in the face of their failure to unify the areas.

Recommended Charles Center MagLev Station site in green, just north of the currently proposed Garmatz Building site and the previously proposed Convention Center site.

Creating a central rail transit hub is also essential

This failure is also inextricably linked to the failure of Baltimore's regional rail transit system to have a central unifying hub. The semi-permanent hole left by the demolition of the Mechanic Theater is contiguous with the Charles Center Metro subway station and also occupies much of the intervening gap westward to the Howard Street light rail line.

It is crucial to connect all of this as well as possible to the proposed MagLev station. The MagLev planners talk about the need for a parking garage to serve the station, but that's a very minor consideration. Sure, convenient parking is needed for certain VIP passengers, but there is no way that auto access can accommodate more than a very small share of them, and the efficiency of this access and the high speed MagLev time savings would inevitably be fully negated by street congestion anyway. MagLev should be capable of saving a half hour or more in getting to Washington, and eventually more toward New York, but it would lose all of this if it relied on driving on the local streets to get to the station.

This access can only be provided if it fully relies on the entire regional rail transit system. This can only be provided north of Lombard Street.

There is also a "default" station location proposed for Cherry Hill several miles to the south, but this is a non-starter in achieving this. It's too far from downtown, too close to BWI Airport (but not close enough to be useful) and basically near nowhere that most MagLev riders would want to go.

Ultimately, Baltimore needs the MagLev station to be downtown. It may very well be possible that the MagLev planners, designers and engineers can conceive of a solution that achieves the necessary downtown linkages without knocking down the Fallon Building, but this must not be an afterthought. It's disconcerting that they're already talking about details like parking, which makes it appear that they're putting the cart before the horse (there's a good metaphor in there somewhere!)

Many people have also questioned the level of importance that Baltimore is having in the whole MagLev planning equation, fearing that the city is being treated as a mere stepping stone in connecting Washington to New York. In the linked article, that includes Jim Shea, a very prominent citizen now dealing with MagLev in his role with the Central Maryland Regional Transit Plan Commission. Only locals can truly ensure that Baltimore's needs are being fulfilled in the MagLev planning process. And clearly, if the city's station is not well located, Baltimore will forever be doomed to be an unimportant "whistle stop".

To make the current downtown MagLev station plan work, the best possible linkage is needed with the Charles Center Metro Station, the Mechanic Theater demolition pit, the rest of Charles Center, and the central light rail line. Moreover, knocking down the Fallon Building will remove the wall that has prevented Charles Center from being integrated with the Inner Harbor and serving its historic and rightful role as the center of downtown.

If that can't be achieved, then it will be necessary to go back to the drawing board to consider other locations like the Shot Tower Post Office site a few blocks to the northeast.

The older and obsolete Fallon Federal Building, not the adjacent Garmatz Building, is what is standing in the way of a great linkage to all of these essential access points.

The Baltimore Magnetic Levitation planning process has now reportedly "paused", but it's really only just begun. Baltimore needs to use this pause to determine if MagLev is going in a direction that will actually serve the city.