tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269748452024-03-19T08:41:13.997-04:00Baltimore InnerSpace...reinventing the cityGerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.comBlogger215125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-43727241159938079412022-10-08T15:16:00.002-04:002022-10-09T08:24:07.426-04:00"STOP THE ROAD": Ev Paull's epic story of highway battles from the 1940s to 80s with one still raging on<p></p><b><u> <a href="https://stop-the-road.com/the-book/" target="_blank">Evans Paull's great new book, "Stop the Road</a>"</u></b> is a clear, detailed and gripping account of Baltimore's expressway battles from the 1940s to the 1980s. Built or not, these expressway plans had a profound effect on what the city looks like today.<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF79pMUHczrRVnHY3o9P1EyttyoTMPRhEsdtNSOKbJzrAACNUTj5UIWA0LulmPH6NeIea5GnyIAejosSJTVI1HEqGUA2SbVlLQuS9-yqM-1B5HmLvscPRWHdYIR-nM7CWDDiBwsFLZzvF_jX5unaJbVnkdU-d2VL59lx_Tiynm5_OWjUjFw/s2272/FM%20Ditch%20Inside%20View%20070.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1704" data-original-width="2272" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF79pMUHczrRVnHY3o9P1EyttyoTMPRhEsdtNSOKbJzrAACNUTj5UIWA0LulmPH6NeIea5GnyIAejosSJTVI1HEqGUA2SbVlLQuS9-yqM-1B5HmLvscPRWHdYIR-nM7CWDDiBwsFLZzvF_jX5unaJbVnkdU-d2VL59lx_Tiynm5_OWjUjFw/w640-h480/FM%20Ditch%20Inside%20View%20070.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Highway to Nowhere" wall adjacent to Franklin Street houses</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Highways and the threats of highways shape everything around them. They motivate people. They move people... literally. "Stop the Road" delves into all this and the results can still be seen in Baltimore over four decades after the last highway bulldozer of 1979.</p><p></p><p>Among all the various highway proposals described in the book are some that would have prevented the Inner Harbor. Others would have prevented Fells Point, Canton or Federal Hill as we now know them. Even Mount Vernon Place and its Washington Monument rubbed up against a proposed expressway plan. But ultimately, all of these vital Baltimore areas survived and later flourished due to victories in hard fought road battles by ordinary people who loved their neighborhoods.</p><p>These victories stand in stark contrast to the lone isolated expressway segment in inner West Baltimore where the brave and tireless road warriors lost and the road planners won - Interstate 170, later dubbed the "Highway to Nowhere". Evans Paull explains this with astonishing historic background in vivid blow-by-blow detail.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG44z9OHFC0S_ZaSLkhPv514lhj1_MkIvlF5WwioGlu_qU6b_NhrJdsNoZSfjFqFfVB4FDWBinySbHQHFhBBIpa3JgZWCC5PXRo2nax8d7ug0_nzybfEbP2vvAicm-Iiv4xsgG0ql31rq7bVK9yHFAayHo7CC5SQF3je03r3qwKqPlYctmmQ/s2000/Before1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1330" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG44z9OHFC0S_ZaSLkhPv514lhj1_MkIvlF5WwioGlu_qU6b_NhrJdsNoZSfjFqFfVB4FDWBinySbHQHFhBBIpa3JgZWCC5PXRo2nax8d7ug0_nzybfEbP2vvAicm-Iiv4xsgG0ql31rq7bVK9yHFAayHo7CC5SQF3je03r3qwKqPlYctmmQ/w640-h426/Before1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Highway to Nowhere" looking east with rail transit right-of-way in the median strip</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>The "Highway to Nowhere" was built because Mayor McKeldin signed its condemnation ordinance in 1967, which became a self-fulfilling prophesy of deterioration and destruction. Soon after there was virtually nothing left to save. The immediate motivation for this was "slum clearance", even though before the expressway plan, the corridor was a flourishing African-American community on what was a major part of the only small slice of the city's real estate which was open to its residents.</p><p>The large amount of up-front federal highway money that was spent for the highway's planning, engineering and demolition created another problem. A "hard and fast" deadline of June 1973 was imposed on getting construction started, constituting a threat that the federal government would demand repayment if the project was cancelled. Since William Donald Schaefer, mayor at the time, was frustrated over the lack of progress on the other segments of his expressway system, he took it out on West Baltimore and thus gave the order to proceed with the "Highway to Nowhere". Mayor Schaefer's reasoning was apparently that if he couldn't get this piece under construction, how could he ever get the rest of the system built?</p><p>Schaefer was trapped by his own hype. He promised that Baltimore's expressway system would provide a great economic lift to the city. So it's ironic that the expressway segments which were NOT built became the famous symbols for the so-called Baltimore Renaissance. Meanwhile, the "Highway to Nowhere" has produced absolutely nothing for its surrounding neighborhoods. Not a single new development of any size has occurred in the highway's Franklin-Mulberry corridor since its completion in 1979.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIn8ScNlcs55_UDc-5YjudqjPTZSLURWEn-WGIwqB_8jJcq5y_MKW_7_PXZrJrdi7T4inXd-4mZhUzAJdK5fgZD-t1BHfDmE9cFqyhcTBgH2OEJZq1Hs9IJuh3h792SM8nwJbDGQ9nnKcbrazEVvHeWGbvTCu9jDFQJzrhTvC4_bqUTpadA/s1600/Lafayette%20Square%20045.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1316" data-original-width="1600" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaIn8ScNlcs55_UDc-5YjudqjPTZSLURWEn-WGIwqB_8jJcq5y_MKW_7_PXZrJrdi7T4inXd-4mZhUzAJdK5fgZD-t1BHfDmE9cFqyhcTBgH2OEJZq1Hs9IJuh3h792SM8nwJbDGQ9nnKcbrazEVvHeWGbvTCu9jDFQJzrhTvC4_bqUTpadA/w640-h526/Lafayette%20Square%20045.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned housing on Harlem Avenue near "Highway to Nowhere"</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>Once it was built, the next promise was to build a large platform cap over the highway to provide sites for new development. But Paull cited community activist Esther Redd's reaction, "They're still trying to dupe us." It turns out she was right. The land created by such a platform cap would not in any way approach the value that would be necessary for such a cap to make any sense. It would be pointless to build an expensive cap to create developable land when the adjacent neighborhoods were increasingly generating their own vacant lots due to the spreading blight from the highway project.<p></p><p>After that, the next promise was to build a rail transit line in the median of the highway on land reserved for it in the design. For the first twenty years after the highway was completed, this was just another pipe dream, until 1999 when the Red Line was first proposed as part of a new regional rail transit plan.</p><p>If anything, however, the fifteen year Red Line planning effort prolonged the useless highway's life even more, since it encased the transit line. To the current day, there has still never been an official proposal to demolish the highway and return the Franklin-Mulberry corridor to its adjacent communities.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBg2BUrzcZABvnrW0o3epdjqf2MdiG8QOgTYs0zVTAuAm8_pEu1lVsEC1yKqXA9xKPdpi6-Fzm-r8AHdG0zstvdrU0rRk90LYQgdn4_ZcI3TbI2k0v1S9thl-ASyTA3E0WMHe3UBc4MDr-G0hCO0OpNhAYi7skzTk-AacOqHZh1nUNaONGw/s1095/Red%20Line%20MTA%20Harlem%20Park%20Station%20Rendering.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="1095" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBg2BUrzcZABvnrW0o3epdjqf2MdiG8QOgTYs0zVTAuAm8_pEu1lVsEC1yKqXA9xKPdpi6-Fzm-r8AHdG0zstvdrU0rRk90LYQgdn4_ZcI3TbI2k0v1S9thl-ASyTA3E0WMHe3UBc4MDr-G0hCO0OpNhAYi7skzTk-AacOqHZh1nUNaONGw/w640-h370/Red%20Line%20MTA%20Harlem%20Park%20Station%20Rendering.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MTA rendering of proposed Harlem Park Red line Station in median of "Highway to Nowhere"</td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="text-align: left;">So even now, the "Highway to Nowhere" continues to haunt us</h3><p>The 2015 cancellation of the Red Line by Governor Hogan is the last planning event of the "Highway to Nowhere" saga to be covered in Paull's book. But the Red Line cancellation had practically nothing to do with the highway. The Red Line was cancelled because about half or more of its estimated $3 billion price tag (most recently $3.8 billion) was devoted to its downtown tunnel that didn't even connect to any of the existing rail transit system. Just as with the expressway system, the Red Line as a whole was a money pit, but only crumbs were allocated to West Baltimore.</p><p>It's also interesting that even while Red Line planning was still proceeding circa 2008, the highway's original development platform cap concept was revived in the administration of Mayor Sheila Dixon. A new catchphrase was even coined: the "Highway to Somewhere". That catchphrase literally meant that the two mile highway could be made more useful if it went to "somewhere" rather than "nowhere". But the platform was as impractical in 2008 as it was four decades before when first proposed. Instead, just as during the original road war, the proposed cap seemed to be more of a ploy to try to win community support for a mega-dollar transportation project than something that made intrinsic sense. </p><p>So planning still continues to the present day. Amtrak is now building a totally new West Baltimore MARC Station at the west end of the highway as part of its new Frederick Douglass West Baltimore tunnel project to be completed in 2031. This brand new station will offer the opportunity to provide the best, fastest and most convenient rail service between Baltimore and Washington and serve as the west anchor of the corridor.</p><p>This year, the state also just completed the first phase of its latest East-West Corridor Transit Study. This brings Franklin-Mulberry transit planning full circle. One of the identified options in the current study is a heavy rail line that bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1968 plan that would spur off the existing Lexington Market Metro Station, which was completed in 1982.</p><p>But there are big differences between what we knew then and what we know now. By 2022, we have confidently demonstrated that the "Highway to Nowhere" is a failure. About a decade ago, the entire highway was closed for about six months to enable the demolition of its west retaining wall at Pulaski Street for an expansion of the MARC Station parking lot and for a future Red Line. Increased congestion did not happen in the corridor. This was easily predictable because all the traffic has always had to exit the brief highway west of Pulaski Street anyway.</p><p>We also know that transit is as important as ever to the future of the corridor, but this needs to include a mix of local, regional and inter-regional travel. Most significantly, West Baltimore needs to take advantage of its proximity to the Washington Metropolitan area as an essential future asset, including not just DC but also its suburbs with new MARC linkages to the upcoming Purple Line to New Carrollton and to the Amazon HQ2 in Northern Virginia. This is why it needs an absolutely accessible first class flagship MARC station instead of the cobbled together setup with grossly undersized platforms and no ADA access that's there now.</p><p>We also know that the Red Line as planned from 1999 to 2015 had serious flaws, and that a faster and higher capacity heavy rail line as conceived way back in the late 1960s would be a far more flexible solution. It can now be built as a spur off the existing Metro system that already extends 16 miles from Hopkins Hospital to Owings Mills and can be efficiently and affordably extended in an incremental manner by as little as two or more miles at a time, eastward to Bayview, Dundalk, Sparrows Point and White Marsh and westward to Edmondson Village and Woodlawn.</p><p>We also know that getting rid of the highway would open up far more opportunities for transit oriented development and other amenities which can be developed in no other way, particularly in a light rail line encased in a highway median strip.</p><p>We also know how to make economic growth happen without displacement of current residents, from experience elsewhere, most notably in the Station North neighborhood near Penn Station.</p><p>So the saga is not yet completed, and a new chapter of economic growth and prosperity is just beginning. The "Highway to Nowhere" somehow managed to survive the Road Wars as documented in Evans Paull's book, when the highways through all the other communities did not. But it should not survive any longer.</p>Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-9680001444841078482021-04-30T19:30:00.170-04:002021-05-03T07:40:43.867-04:00Downtown Loop revival could kickstart rail system<p>Briefly in the late 1990s, the region's hottest transit proposal was to build a light rail loop surrounding downtown. It even garnered a front page top-of-the-fold full-speed-ahead headline in The Sun. This happened amid growing concerns that the system's downtown segment on Howard Street which opened in 1992 was too far west to serve all downtown adequately. Fast forwarding to the present, downtown has indeed pushed eastward toward Harbor East and away from Howard Street, which light rail has failed to revive. So it's time to revisit this concept. Despite inherent problems, it could still work and get the rail transit system moving.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfce0Y8lwuE/YIgbH_FVtjI/AAAAAAAB_Co/KH7sPuMcbXw78U26SPcxovNIVMjp6miKACLcBGAsYHQ/s539/Light%2BRail%2BLoop.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="539" height="588" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfce0Y8lwuE/YIgbH_FVtjI/AAAAAAAB_Co/KH7sPuMcbXw78U26SPcxovNIVMjp6miKACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h588/Light%2BRail%2BLoop.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A possible downtown rail plan - A light rail spur from Penn Station southeastward to beyond Shot Tower (in blue) and an Inner Harbor streetcar line (in orange) would constitute a loop. The Orange streetcar line could be extended eastward and westward and augmented by a Purple streetcar line to Carroll and Montgomery Park. A Red Line west of Lexington Market and a Green Line east of Hopkins Hospital are also shown. Existing rail lines are shown as outlines.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The full loop would use the existing Howard Street light rail line on the west, the Jones Falls Expressway / President Street corridor to the east (both in blue on the above map) and Pratt Street to the south (shown in orange on the map).<p>The northern stub for such a loop was even completed in 1997 to Penn Station. It was always half-hearted, as it dead-ends right into a structural column for the St. Paul Street bridge directly above it, which would have to be adjusted somehow if the loop was ever extended beyond this stub.</p><p>The Penn Station stub has proven to be an almost totally useless part of the system. Various operating patterns have been tried over the years to try to make it work, and it has been completely shut down since last year, attributed in response to the Covid pandemic. Aside from some minor confusion, riders have hardly missed it.</p><p>Over the years, the region's entire light rail system has been a case of "symbolic transit". The big thirty mile line looks great on paper - from the big Hunt Valley mall and business park on the north to BWI-Marshall Airport and Glen Burnie on the south, with downtown and the Camden Yards stadiums in the middle. There have also been numerous "transit oriented development" projects and proposals, almost all major failures.</p><p>Amid all this, the main justification for light rail to Penn Station has been simply to be able to say that light rail serves Penn Station.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Circular reasoning for a light rail loop</h3><div><br /></div><div>The main problem with any kind of transit loop is that people don't want to travel in loops. It is basic geometry that the most direct travel path from any Point A to B is a straight line. This is compounded by the fact that the existing west edge of a downtown loop on Howard Street is the slowest portion of the entire system. While this is bad, and perhaps even inexcusable, it is still only a small part of the whole thirty mile system, and so the problem can readily be overstated.</div><div><br /></div><div>But a loop would magnify the slowness problem. The east portion would be reasonably quick since it would mostly be next to or underneath the Jones Falls Expressway, but the south and southeast portions would be along Pratt and President Streets and would likely be as slow or slower than Howard Street. Moreover, much of the slowness is simply due to the need to handle passengers getting on and off at numerous stops, and is thus unavoidable.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, the most unavoidable element is the loop itself. Anyone riding on at least two sides of the loop would be going out of their way - not in a straight line. The country's most famous transit loop - The Chicago "L" Loop - transcends this by being fairly tight. Many riders can get off on one side of the loop and board for the return trip on the other side of the loop. Detroit's downtown people mover is also fairly tight but is only a single one-way track which exacerbates this problem. You cannot simply reverse your direction for the return trip. There is only one way to go.</div><p>In contrast, Miami's Metro-mover is a much larger loop, but it has two tracks to run both ways. What's more, the vehicles are operated so that most of them do not use the entire loop, but instead use the loop to spur off to other portions of the system. The loop does not function primarily as a loop, except to enable riders to transfer from one train to another to use different portions of it.</p><p>All these systems are also elevated. Baltimore's surface loop would be slower, but that's merely a challenge to make its other aspects work better.</p><p>None of these issues were ever really addressed in the Baltimore process back in the 1990s. Instead, despite the hype, the inherent limitations of the loop format were finally recognized, and the whole loop idea was soon abandoned as the comprehensive regional rail transit study began in 1999.</p><p>The 1999 study then led to the 2002 comprehensive rail plan, including the Red Line which then took on a life of its own until finally dying in 2015, taking the rest of the plan down with it. The 2002 plan had circumvented the whole question of downtown distribution by creating redundancy instead, emulating the DC Metro or even the New York subway system. The proposed Red Line paralleled the existing Metro subway downtown within only two blocks, while a proposed Yellow Line paralleled the existing central light rail line all the way from Timonium outside the Beltway to downtown, mostly tunneling underneath streets like York Road and St. Paul Street. All this was highly extravagant, to say the least.</p><p>So now in 2021, the process remains stalled at square one. Downtown looks very different from how it did in 1992. To the west, Howard Street is desolate. To the east, a "new downtown" Harbor East has sprung up. So the need for downtown distribution is more important than ever.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">To loop or not to loop?</h3><p>With the eastward downtown shift, the case for a light rail spur from the north leg of the line, through Penn Station and then along the Jones Falls corridor to Harbor East is now stronger than ever. Of course, a spur is not a loop, and the case for a full loop is not as strong, as discussed above.</p><p>But is the case for a spur strong enough? And then what happens to the loop concept?</p><p>The case for building the spur probably boils down to whether the central light rail line as a whole is important enough to matter, particularly to the north of downtown. Right now, it probably isn't. The city's most recent significant development project in the corridor is "The Woodberry" apartment complex on Cold Spring Lane, and this is hardly even oriented to the light rail station. Just prior to that, a key parcel just north was given over to an electric substation, so the overall net potential has been decreased, not increased.</p><p>The 2002 rail plan basically declared the existing north leg of the central light rail line a flop by proposing another line (the Yellow Line) in the nearby adjacent corridor, and things have only gotten worse since then.</p><p>Of course, this should be re-evaluated if other major development projects happen. But will they? The track record in Old Town is bad, consisting only of empty promises over the years. Most people consider MagLev high speed rail a long shot, so <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html" target="_blank">Shot Tower/ Old Town MagLev Station as proposed here</a></u> would be an even longer shot.</p><p>So that brings us full circle (so to speak) back to the loop. The best way to make a loop work, particularly a large loop like this one, is to make it not function like a loop. This is the lesson from the Metro-mover in Miami. Instead, make it a series of loop segments that can stand on their own.</p><p>If an east spur is built, the loop's missing link would be the south segment along Pratt Street and the Inner Harbor. This would also be the tightest and slowest segment. It would be particularly slow and congestion-inducing if it included turns to link it to the existing light rail line at Pratt Street and the proposed spur at President Street to create the loop. Trains on the existing straight segment of the light rail line can move simultaneously with the parallel Howard Street traffic, but turning trains would require all other traffic in the intersection to stop, which would be a recipe for gridlock.</p><p>So the best way to design a Pratt Street segment would be to design it for east-west streetcars, not light rail trains. The east end of this streetcar line could be the upcoming Perkins Point project (as described here) or anywhere between Harbor East and Canton Crossing. The west end of this streetcar line could be Carroll Park <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2014/02/b-mount-clare-first-mile-plan-from-brew.html" target="_blank">as described below and here</a>)</u> or the Franklin-Mulberry corridor, where it could join a new version of the Red Line <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2013/09/integrating-light-rail-and-streetcars.html" target="_blank">as described here</a>)</u>. Or a combination of these.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DXQabrx20F0/WWJAFJokEXI/AAAAAAAAuZY/nB742eMXEvg6JDYxM_3kPddne9CX9ZJrQCPcBGAYYCw/s860/Schematic%2BPlan%2B3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="860" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DXQabrx20F0/WWJAFJokEXI/AAAAAAAAuZY/nB742eMXEvg6JDYxM_3kPddne9CX9ZJrQCPcBGAYYCw/w640-h480/Schematic%2BPlan%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible streetcar line to Carroll Park and Montgomery Park via the historic B&O Railroad "First Mile" corridor would unify and redevelop the area.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></h2><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A real rail system that merely looks like a loop</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In sum, what we have here is simply a series of candidate rail transit projects, none of which have extravagant price tags and all of which are eminently do-able. They are therefore all opportunities to kick-start the region's moribund rail transit ambitions. In no particular order, they are:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1. Central light rail spur from Penn Station to Harbor East.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2. <u>East <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-perkins-line-best-bet-for-southeast.html" target="_blank">streetcar line from the Inner Harbor</a></u> (e.g. Howard/Pratt Street) to Harbor East, Perkins Point, Fells Point and/or Canton.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">3. <u>West <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2013/09/integrating-light-rail-and-streetcars.html" target="_blank">streetcar line from the Inner Harbor to Edmondson Village via the "Highway to Nowhere"</a></u>, MLK Boulevard and Pratt Street. The portion of this line on the former Red Line alignment would use the previous Red Line design to ultimately accommodate multi-car light rail trains instead of just streetcars.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">4. <u>S<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2014/02/b-mount-clare-first-mile-plan-from-brew.html" target="_blank">outhwest streetcar line from Carroll Park to the Inner Harbor</a></u> via the "First Mile" corridor and Pratt Street.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If the light rail spur (#1) is built with any of these three streetcar lines, then voila! The result would be a downtown loop.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But any and all of these should be driven by actual development plans, not grandiose prayers. Real transit-oriented development has been the most missing element of all the rail that has been built in this city so far, so that must not happen again. Real development plans must come first.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Back when the Red line was being debated, the city administration's most cited purpose for the project was to reduce traffic congestion. That was wrong then and it is even more wrong now. The rail system must spur development. The Red Line had two major failures in this regard. The first was the city's refusal to come up with a real development plan for the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor, except its tired old promise since the late 1960s to someday build a "cap" so that the highway could be preserved underneath any new development on top. The second was when Harbor East developer John Paterakis actually kicked the Red Line station away from that area's greatest future growth corridor, Central Avenue.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Besides feasibility and lower cost, the primary advantage of proposing small incremental rail transit projects such as these, instead of multi-billion dollar mega-projects is that they can be used strategically to promote such development. That is the main thing Baltimore needs to get from rail transit.</div></div>Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-2274297883514050012021-02-01T19:04:00.003-05:002021-04-25T08:21:54.817-04:00Three city MagLev stations that would actually work<p>Thanks to the botched <u>Draft <a href="https://www.bwmaglev.info/index.php/project-documents/deis#">Environmental Impact Study</a></u> report which was recently released, it's back to the drawing board to find a workable Baltimore Magnetic Levitation train station. The international MagLev team can be excused for its failure, even if it was intended, but our own Maryland Department of Transportation's name is right there on the cover page along with the US DOT, so they need to go back and get busy re-examining options. Based on the station standards in the DEIS, here are three that are far more reasonable than their own options, <u>C<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2021/01/downtown-maglev-station-needs-to-move.html">herry Hill or Camden Yards</a></u>.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fo6tUbEeYA4/YBgbshl_q2I/AAAAAAAB-Es/jLIRtucMYeUNsuQRCYyV5n7hso3xsu3-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/MagLev%2BPatapsco%2BHill.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fo6tUbEeYA4/YBgbshl_q2I/AAAAAAAB-Es/jLIRtucMYeUNsuQRCYyV5n7hso3xsu3-ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/MagLev%2BPatapsco%2BHill.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patapsco Hill MagLev Station site - showing a range of possible angles to conform to any underground MagLev alignment. The central light rail line which would provide regional connections is on the left (west) edge of the yellow box.</td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="text-align: left;">It's all about the angles</h3><p>This failure can't be blamed on the specialized requirements of cutting edge MagLev technology. Yes, a very smooth gentle alignment is necessary to accommodate 300 mph speeds, but that's just a matter of geometry, not technology. Creating such a smooth high speed alignment simply boils down to the angle to which each station is oriented. And the 1300 foot long trains also require stations to be of that same length, or more depending on the construction requirements for digging the tunnel at a given site.</p><p>Here is how the Draft EIS report describes this challenge and the resultant need to demolish ALL buildings around their proposed station at Camden Yards:</p><p>(<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">Chapter 4, Affected Environment, page 9/13)</span></p><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"The Camden Yards station is more challenging because the project orientation and alignment cannot match the existing Baltimore street grid. To access the station area, all buildings above the proposed station for a distance of 1,970 linear feet will have to be demolished to create open space for the top-down construction activity. It is not feasible to build a station in this location with the tunnel boring method because of the width required for a station, the presence of underground utilities and the presence of adjacent building and roadway support structures."</div><p>So here are three other station locations that can work in this context. Two are situated so that they can be oriented to a wide range of angles, depending on what becomes the optimum alignment for high speed non-stop through trains between Washington, DC and New York City. The third option is a relatively minor tweak of the Camden Yards station proposed in the Draft EIS plan, in order to minimize its damage to downtown, which would otherwise be severe and unacceptable, including demolition of the Bank of America tower, Garmatz Federal Building, historic Otterbein Church and much of the Convention Center and Federal Reserve Bank complex.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">1 - Patapsco Hill Station</h3><div><br /></div><div>The graphic above shows a wide range of possible angles and locations for this station option just south of Patapsco Avenue. All of these options can be feasibly excavated and connected to the central light rail line (shown in blue on the left/west edge of the yellow box) without demolition of any significant buildings or permanently losing any Southwest Park facilities. The background for this plan was provided in <u>this <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/02/maglev-better-at-patapsco-hill-station.html">previous blog post</a></u>. </div><div><br /></div><div>The two potential station boxes shown are both in excess of 4300 feet long, well over twice that of the proposed Camden Yards Station and far longer than the required 1300 foot MagLev train platforms. So the actual project footprint would be much smaller than the two that are shown, anywhere in the range between them which ensures full flexibility.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FxGblQJJ7Xc/YBgrHf0ND8I/AAAAAAAB-E4/lHsHXZ5cQMgvW4z1oDhT-e9UlaJrg8CngCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/MagLev%2BShot%2BTower%2BOld%2BTown%2B2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FxGblQJJ7Xc/YBgrHf0ND8I/AAAAAAAB-E4/lHsHXZ5cQMgvW4z1oDhT-e9UlaJrg8CngCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/MagLev%2BShot%2BTower%2BOld%2BTown%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shot Tower / Old Town Station site - Under Fayette Street at the bottom (south - brown box) has the least tilt toward the northeast, while extending it through the Post Office site (purple box) and/or under Gay Street (yellow box) would increase the angle.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><h3>2 - Shot Tower / Old Town Station</h3></div><div><br /></div><div>Three alternative station boxes for this site are shown in the graphic above. All would originate in the vicinity of the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83) corridor adjacent to downtown, where they would be served by the Shot Tower Metro Station and a possible extension of the light rail line from Penn Station that was part of the proposed regional rail system from the mid 1970s to late 1990s. More background is contained in <u>this <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html">blog post</a></u>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ironically, this light rail extension plan was abandoned just as the building boom started in nearby Harbor East, while the light rail line which was built in the 1990s along Howard Street on the west side of downtown was met by a major building bust in that corridor.</div><div><br /></div><div>The police headquarters at the southwest (lower) end of the brown and purple boxes is slated to be vacated by the Police Department, because of the poor condition of the buildings caused by deferred maintenance. The Central Post Office would most likely also be demolished as part of this plan, if for no other reason but that it would be a valuable site for MagLev construction staging and future transit oriented development, but it could be saved if necessary.</div><div><br /></div><div>The three proposed station location boxes are 2100 to 2600 feet in length, more than enough for construction needs.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EfCCMQDuPE0/YBgxgLUlG7I/AAAAAAAB-FE/L6FNQfb3CQQ6nUUTscRw0Risl8zeTXYWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/MagLev%2BCharles%2BCenter.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EfCCMQDuPE0/YBgxgLUlG7I/AAAAAAAB-FE/L6FNQfb3CQQ6nUUTscRw0Risl8zeTXYWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/MagLev%2BCharles%2BCenter.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charles Center Station site - this is a variant on the Camden Yards station site proposed in the Draft EIS but shifted slightly to the west and north so as to rework Charles Center and connect it to its Metro Station.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><h3>3 - Charles Center Station</h3></div><div><br /></div><div>This proposed station mostly overlaps the Camden Yards station which has already been found to be feasible in the Draft EIS, but this revision extends slightly to the north and west, rather than the east and south. It therefore saves the Bank of America Building, the historic Otterbein Church and the Federal Reserve Bank. However, it still requires the demolition of the Garmatz Federal Building and a large portion of the Convention Center. It also requires taking the Fallon Federal Building just north of Lombard Street, a somewhat older building that is very poorly situated as a wall which divides the south end of Charles Center from the Inner Harbor. This causes great problems for pedestrian circulation through the plazas of Charles Center. Demolition of the Fallon Building would be a major net enhancement to its surrounding area.</div><div><br /></div><div>This station box would also extend northward to the Charles Center Metro Station though the empty open pit where the Mechanic Theater was demolished. Combined with the elimination of the Fallon Building, this would open up great opportunities for new urban attractions in Charles Center. More background is contained in <u>this <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/12/maglev-station-should-cross-street-into.html">blog post</a></u>.</div><div><br /></div><div>This plan could also be combined with a previous city plan to demolish and replace much of the Convention Center with varied uses, including a new arena to replace the adjacent obsolete facility just to the west.</div><div><br /></div><div>The station box would be up to about 2200 feet in length, which is more than for the currently proposed plan. Access to the Camden MARC and light rail station would be about the same as the current plan.</div><div><br /></div><div>In sum, this "tweak" would impact portions of downtown that need to be impacted, most notably in south Charles Center, and save the buildings that ought to be saved.</div><div><br /></div><div>That goal also should apply to any Baltimore MagLev station plan, which would be a major public face for how this city would present and position itself to the rest of the country and particularly to the Northeast Corridor between DC and New York. Like Charles Center, the light rail corridor and the Shot Tower/Old Town corridor, all greatly in need of the kind of development push which the MagLev project would provide. </div><div><br /></div><div>The city cannot afford to blow this opportunity. We must count on the Maryland Department of Transportation to be Baltimore's advocate in the MagLev planning process.</div>Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-24296316193406282302021-01-20T18:24:00.001-05:002021-01-21T07:36:18.252-05:00Downtown Maglev station needs to move back to Phase 2<p><u>The <a href="https://www.bwmaglev.info/index.php/project-documents/deis#">Draft Environmental Impact Statement</a></u> has just been released for the 300 mph, $10-billion-plus Magnetic Levitation train system from Washington to Baltimore, and wow, have they made a shambles of the plans for the Baltimore Station! The only rational thing that can be done now is to end the project's Phase One at BWI Marshall Airport and save Baltimore for the future, when clearer heads may prevail.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WDvf8bOEvS4/YAhCEiySa1I/AAAAAAAB96Y/9uWAZPZ2jvg5eYLd3jLYGSU7pkMWIGaGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1341/Camden%2BMaglev%2BStation.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="1341" height="346" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WDvf8bOEvS4/YAhCEiySa1I/AAAAAAAB96Y/9uWAZPZ2jvg5eYLd3jLYGSU7pkMWIGaGgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h346/Camden%2BMaglev%2BStation.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proposed Downtown Maglev station (in yellow) would wipe out two large modern Pratt Street buildings, much of the Convention Center, the historic Otterbein Church and the Federal Reserve Bank. </td></tr></tbody></table><h3 style="text-align: left;">Downtown station alternative</h3><div><br /></div><div>The proposed plan for the station underneath Downtown Baltimore is shown above. It calls for the demolition of the Garmatz Federal Building, 17-story Bank of America building, historic Otterbein Church, the Federal Reserve Bank complex and much of the Convention Center in order to create a huge hole in the ground for the underground station. The hole covers such an extensive area because the planners insist that the station must be built on an angle that is not aligned with the north-south downtown street grid. This angle will enable the line to be pointed to a future extension northeastward toward Philadelphia and New York. Since Maglev is built for such quick acceleration and speed, its curves must be smooth and seldom.</div><div><br /></div><div>The trains will also be long, which calls for large stations. Just recently, they adjusted their design specs to expand the trains from 12 to 16 cars totaling 1300 feet in length. This would accommodate larger seats and even restrooms. Apparently, the designers are preparing for a future of Maglev trains criss-crossing the entire country and even competing with airlines for lengthy trips. So Maglev trains and stations would be almost three times as long as the Baltimore Metro, over four times as long as light rail and a whopping six and a half times as long as the defunct Red Line.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bV_PtxrnOps/YAhL3UQlakI/AAAAAAAB968/n1UYr6D3sywkRYAsBXbiQe52t98oPmMjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s794/Cherry%2BHill%2BMaglev%2BStation.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="794" height="420" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bV_PtxrnOps/YAhL3UQlakI/AAAAAAAB968/n1UYr6D3sywkRYAsBXbiQe52t98oPmMjwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h420/Cherry%2BHill%2BMaglev%2BStation.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alternate Cherry Hill Maglev elevated station and site for 5000 parking spaces</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">Cherry Hill station alternative</h3><div><br /></div><div>If all that downtown destruction seems crazy, the planners have also developed an alternate plan for a station in Cherry Hill. This one is elevated instead of underground, and requires only the demolition of large low-rise warehouses and commercial space to provide 5000 decked parking spaces. According to the planners, this station would save an estimated $1.18 billion compared to the downtown plan. Saving that much money and demolition is sufficient for the planners to now conclude that putting the station under downtown just is not worth it. The project sponsor, an international corporate consortium, has recommended that the Cherry Hill station should be built instead of the Downtown station.</div><div> </div><div><div>The biggest challenge for the Cherry Hill option is that raising the tracks up out of the ground to an elevated station requires very long grades. To the south of the Cherry Hill station, Patapsco Avenue and Annapolis Road would need to be rebuilt and raised approximately twenty feet so that Maglev can be accommodated in a trench underneath. To the north of the station between Westport and its waterfront, the tracks would be elevated on a 62 foot high bridge above Kloman Street.</div><div><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uFUTatQYPPY/YAhKBsbgyMI/AAAAAAAB96w/IfekSZvfPvEBzSSXjBn9_WsC13ogoiiGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1037/Westport%2BMaglev%2BTerminus.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1037" height="388" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uFUTatQYPPY/YAhKBsbgyMI/AAAAAAAB96w/IfekSZvfPvEBzSSXjBn9_WsC13ogoiiGgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h388/Westport%2BMaglev%2BTerminus.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plan and profile drawings for elevated Westport extension north of the proposed Cherry Hill station. The huge I-95/395 elevated interchange is shown on the plan view photo at top-right but is only labeled but not shown on the profile drawing underneath</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>But regardless of how that might impact the Westport neighborhood and its recently announced new waterfront development plan, the most insurmountable problem lies just north of that point where Maglev would confront Interstate 95. Shown above is the plan and profile sheet for the Maglev line adjacent to Westport. The profile diagram shows the vehicle guideway at an elevation of 22.96 meters (75 feet), above ground that is about 4 meters (13 feet) above sea level. Interstate 95 is on the right end of this diagram, but its elevation profile is conveniently not shown. So how would the elevated Maglev line get past I-95, whose elevation is about 54 feet for the thru lanes and 68 feet for the adjacent northbound off-ramp flyover to I-395? And how could Maglev then dive back down from this height into the earth north of I-95 in order to get down into a tunnel under downtown?</div><div><br /></div><div>The plan and profile sheets don't show any of this. In contrast to the meticulous attention which the plans devote to the overall alignment of the Downtown station alternative, the Cherry Hill station alternative leads to nothing except futility. This looks painfully like a fatal flaw.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Going back to BWI and forward toward the northeast</h3><div><br /></div><div>The differences between the Downtown and Cherry Hill station plans could not be more stark. Spatially, <u>d<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/10/baltimores-maglev-station-must-be.html">owntown is and always has been the heart</a></u>, the centerpiece and the focal point of the Baltimore area. But physically, the contrast of the plans' impacts is just the opposite. The Downtown alternative calls for massive destruction and digging a huge crater, tearing the heart apart.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately, there exists a common means of identifying feasible station alternatives. That would be to define the entire range of possible track alignments northeastward through the city. But that task has thus far been a void in the planning process.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, the process has had a very counterproductive bias to focus on possible station sites in south Baltimore and south downtown. But the best station sites are most likely on the opposite side of downtown toward the northeast. These sites would require a longer and thus more expensive Maglev line in the short run, but the total project distance to Philly and New York is fixed. </div><div><br /></div><div>We thus do not know the entire range of feasible Baltimore station sites. For a project of this magnitude, this is a conspicuous failure. The report even laments the alignment of Baltimore's downtown street grid and the lack of streets on angles, in contrast to Washington, where angled New York Avenue was selected for the station, which resulted in far less digging and destruction. But Baltimore does indeed have such angular streets, most notably Fayette and Gay Streets toward Oldtown and the northeast. <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html">See blog post on Post Office Maglev station)</a></u>. Those streets and areas must be studied, even if that means starting over.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, the Maglev project can keep going with BWI Marshall Airport as an interim end of the line from Washington, DC. This station location may seem limited, but it has great potential as a true focal point for Baltimore's south and southwest suburbs. New Maglev oriented development could be planned around the BWI stations to create the same kind of urban center that Crystal City provides to support Reagan National Airport in Arlington. The light rail line from Downtown Baltimore to BWI could be given major upgrades such as express service, track and signal improvements, and <u>new <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/02/maglev-better-at-patapsco-hill-station.html">transit oriented development at key stations</a></u> to strengthen the connections and take maximum advantage of Maglev.</div><div><br /></div><div>Probably the best thing about the Maglev project is its showcase of the advanced Japanese technology. The project sponsors have a tremendous incentive to present it well, to sell it to the rest of the nation and even the world. Maryland and Baltimore will be where this can happen, so we need to take maximum advantage of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>So let's give the go-ahead for the Maglev consortium to build a smaller and less expensive project where it can be done right, from Washington to BWI Airport. And then let's immediately begin work on Phase Two to a Baltimore station that will work for us and for everyone else. Comments on the plans <u>can be <a href="https://www.bwmaglev.info/index.php/project-documents/deis#">submitted to MDOT</a></u> until April 22.</div><p></p>Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-82549327310452135402020-10-15T09:04:00.012-04:002020-10-23T22:28:16.807-04:00How to save Harborplace: Make it a neighborhood<p>From its opening in 1980, Harborplace was an international success story. So what went wrong? Harborplace's big strength was also its big weakness. It was built by a suburban developer, James Rouse, as a little piece of suburbia in the center of the city where suburbanites and visitors would feel safe experiencing the city. But since then, neighborhoods in the real city have emerged to fulfill this role in a far more authentic way. Now it's time for Harborplace to emulate the neighborhoods.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M_3smSRz9XI/X4BzFo6qzeI/AAAAAAAB85M/hZGhMSjE-lovmUKjC52BodKmP4y7niS8QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/Harborplace%2B1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M_3smSRz9XI/X4BzFo6qzeI/AAAAAAAB85M/hZGhMSjE-lovmUKjC52BodKmP4y7niS8QCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/Harborplace%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pratt Street Pavilion of Harborplace - Its pedestrian bridge over Pratt Street should be extended over South Street to a new high rise/low rise residential complex (shown in gold).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><h2 style="text-align: left;"><br />Finding the right tenant and land use mix</h2><div><br /></div><p>Hopefully, retail gurus are already busy trying to identify a tenant mix that can fill Harborplace's mostly empty space - a civic embarrassment where once was a "festival marketplace" that made international news for success and innovation. Hopefully, they're looking at its retail forerunners such as Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Faneuil Hall in Boston and the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, as well as countless subsequent imitators, some of which have since gone defunct, to figure out what will work in the 2020s and what won't.</p><div>But as much as retail has changed in the forty years since 1980 when Harborplace was new, Baltimore has changed even more. Back then, there wasn't an important distinction between being innovative and being fake. The Inner Harbor was supposed to be a world apart from the rest of the city. This wasn't really just a calculated way to build it. It was the <i><b>only</b></i> way to build it and it was the right site to build it on.</div><div><br /></div><div>The biggest change in those forty years affecting Harborplace <i><b>as a place</b></i> was the emergence of real neighborhoods that served the same role that Harborplace originally served. The most successful of these neighborhoods have been Federal Hill, Fells Point, Canton, Hampden and finally, Harbor East, which has been touted as the "new downtown".</div><div><br /></div><div>Harborplace then responded by going for national chain retail and restaurants, which might have been OK except the city then also added even more retail space along Pratt Street, Market Place and in the Power Plant, which in the long run has all been impossible to keep filled. Then they planned even more retail space in the Transamerica plaza (formerly USF&G) and the Convention Center, plans which could hardly have been more wrong for the time.</div><div><br /></div><div>The main advantage of the neighborhoods is that they have been able to experience their growth in a mostly organic way, without relying on adhering to master plans that leave little margin for error. The amount of retail and other commercial space in these neighborhoods, relative to residential space, has been open to constant adjustment and thus has been resistant to precipitous failures. Of course, there have been failures, notably the Hollins Market area, but these are mostly due to external forces.</div><div><br /></div><div>But downtown and the Inner Harbor have recently had one very bright spot - the residential market has been booming. People like the <i><b>idea</b></i> of living downtown, even if downtown has not reacted very favorably to them. This mismatch is partly due to the fact that office and retail space still dominate even though it is underutilized.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moreover, while planners have been coming up with huge "game changer" plans like a mega-arena Convention Center, a grand Pratt Street boulevard and a pedestrian drawbridge across the Inner Harbor, what they have ended up with are very weak half-hearted plans like tearing down the McKeldin Fountain to plant more grass, tweaking Light Street's excessive ten lane width instead of actually narrowing it and providing bike paths that are really just sidewalks. There is a huge disconnect between their vast ambitions and their results.</div><div><br /></div><div>Downtown and the Inner Harbor need large comprehensive plans because there are so many forces and interactions at play. But big plans can translate into a big failures.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>So regardless of what direction the city goes regarding the overall functioning of downtown and the Inner Harbor, individual projects need the kind of organic flexibility to respond like the neighborhoods do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Harborplace must be open to accommodating everything from high powered national chains like H&M and the Cheesecake Factory, all the way down to unique mom 'n' pop shops to artist and craft studios and everything in between. It should attract tourists and it should attract residents. The residents should gawk at the tourists and the tourists should gawk at the residents.</div><div><br /></div><div>But how do we stimulate these interactions? More residents in the closest possible proximity should be the catalyst.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP3UsPbmuh8/X4BzFbl99iI/AAAAAAAB85I/nNyuTu1TAa0YUIit6ewPAlJ_6pSOL-TugCLcBGAsYHQ/s1366/Harborplace%2B2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP3UsPbmuh8/X4BzFbl99iI/AAAAAAAB85I/nNyuTu1TAa0YUIit6ewPAlJ_6pSOL-TugCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h296/Harborplace%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The key to the proposed new residential complex (in gold) is orienting it to a "Main Street" style linear courtyard that is flexible enough to be anything from fully public to fully private with any mix of uses.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6qoMsGqz6FU/X43gGGlnpWI/AAAAAAAB868/_PNIl4BK8rwji9EErMfQGD1dsRwsf0GwQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="2048" height="414" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6qoMsGqz6FU/X43gGGlnpWI/AAAAAAAB868/_PNIl4BK8rwji9EErMfQGD1dsRwsf0GwQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h414/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Architect's rendering of the building proposed for the site - a generic mixed-use high rise building which indicates they'll go in any direction the market demand takes them (MCB Real Estate).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">How to make Harborplace a neighborhood</h2><div><br /></div><div>So here's a new plan: On the one remaining surface parking lot just across the street from the Harborplace Pratt Street Pavilion which is waiting to be developed, instead of building yet another freestanding office, hotel or residential tower, a complex should be designed and built to emulate a high density neighborhood.</div><div><br /></div><div>This should include a direct connection from the pedestrian bridge above Pratt Street from Harborplace into a simulated "Main Street" environment that traverses the length of the site up toward Lombard Street. While this space should be designed to evoke a traditional urban "Main Street", flanked by a high and low rise buildings, it should not be locked into any particular functions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Overhead walkways are currently out of favor with urban designers, but that is mainly due to a lack of commitment to making them work. The above-ground environment needs to focus on its own "ecology", and not simply be some kind of extension of what is below on street level. It needs to be a completely new self-contained environment.</div><div><br /></div><div>The objective of this space should be to allow adjacent Harborplace to function as much like a neighborhood as desired and necessary. Therefore, flexibility is important. It should also add significant value to the new development. No other residential property in the city has a direct linkage to anything as "iconic" as Harborplace, at the heart of the Inner Harbor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Such simulated "Main Streets" were already the next iteration of suburban retail design after "festival marketplaces" and shopping malls, and are typified by The Avenue at White Marsh and somewhat more timidly by Canton Crossing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Residential complexes often have outdoor courtyards, but they are usually very private and not patterned after a very public "Main Street". The Scarlett Place condo complex in the Inner Harbor between Pier 6 and President Street has an above-street courtyard, with a prominent and public looking stairway down to the public Jones Falls promenade and Columbus Piazza. The Scarlett Place courtyard looks great, but is very poorly designed. It is not well oriented to the residential complex itself, so while the design aims for flexibility, what it creates is ambiguity, which is the worst problem for attempting to achieve "defensible space".</div><div><br /></div><div>Another nearby attempt at an above-street public courtyard is at the Verizon office building at Light and Pratt Street, which predates Harborplace from the 1970s, and has been groping for an identity ever since. It had overhead linkages to both the Convention Center and Harborplace and so was poised to be a very public thru-space, originally even having pretentions to being a Ghirardelli Square style retail complex, but never had the flexibility to find its place. It has now become mostly private, mostly by default.</div><div><br /></div><div>The new "Main Street" at Harborplace can be designed in a far clearer and more flexible manner. It needs prominent entrances to all buildings. It should be designed to fully support any kind of retail, from resident conveniences to restaurants to artist studios to whatever, or none at all. It should be readily adaptable to being fully private or fully public or anything in between. By being part of a mostly residential complex, this should be achievable.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's overarching role should simply be to serve Harborplace, particularly to support any kind of new functions and uses that anyone may dream up for the forty year old complex, in the clearest and strongest manner possible, as the entire world of retail continues to be redefined. This new complex will create a reservoir of residents to create a human "real world" identity for whatever happens - which is actually what we want any urban neighborhood to do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9TUPXTg7R6A/X4BzGamaWVI/AAAAAAAB85U/7Y2YsPLirLwK084UOQ0o7o_QQKqNBGqZACLcBGAsYHQ/s1024/Harborplace%2B4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9TUPXTg7R6A/X4BzGamaWVI/AAAAAAAB85U/7Y2YsPLirLwK084UOQ0o7o_QQKqNBGqZACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/Harborplace%2B4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Birdseye aerial view showing above street-level linkage between Harborplace Pratt Street Pavilion, the Gallery at Harborplace retail/hotel complex (upper left) and the proposed "Main Street" residential complex (in gold, upper center).<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Providing new direction for the rest of the Inner Harbor</h2><div><br /></div><div>All this can then set a new tone for the entire Inner Harbor, which despite a stream of egotistical plans, no longer appears to have any direction at all. This problem is most clearly illustrated by the petulant destruction of the McKeldin Fountain, only to be replaced by a new isolated space seemingly designed only to be a campground for the homeless. </div><div><br /></div><div>There's also the new replacement for the building on the Constellation Dock, which hardly anyone wanted in the first place. Just a few weeks before the signs said it was scheduled to be completed, they were still in the "site prep" phase and construction had not really even begun. They finally stuck a "1" over the "0" so the the scheduled completion would be "September 2021" instead of "September 2020".</div><div><br /></div><div>This aimlessness is further typified by the aborted reboot of Harborplace itself several years ago for larger footprint tenants that would have greater direct access from outside the building, particularly direct access from Pratt Street. Retailers hate having front doors on opposite ends of their stores. This hardly ever works, and was made even more impossible here because the Pratt Street frontage of Harborplace still looks and smells like the building's garbage dump. This is truly pathetic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Part of the problem is Pratt and Light Street themselves. They should be reconfigured to fully accommodate local functions while still handling their very heavy traffic loads. The city's previous plans to make it into a two-way boulevard a la Conway Street predictably appear to be dead, which is good riddance from the standpoints of both traffic and pedestrians.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fixing the larger Light Street Pavilion of Harborplace will be an even more daunting challenge than fixing the Pratt Street pavilion, but success must be found where it can, before we can spread it around. The recent closure of the cheesy "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" Museum illustrates the problem, but hopefully also creates new opportunities for solutions.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Inner Harbor's basic problem is that it has just become a stew for anything anybody wants - a bit of this, a bit of that. Instead, the city needs to make it a neighborhood. This puts the onus on the urban designers and architects to design something which will organically allow it to become whatever kind of place the Inner Harbor itself wants to be.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">Related Article Links:</h4><div><br /></div><div><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/01/fixing-preston-gardens-to-create-true.html">Fixing Preston Gardens to create a true neighborhood</a></u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/02/no-inner-harbor-end-game-for-dormant.html">No Inner Harbor "End Game" for dormant Harborplace</a></u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/get-rid-of-wide-light-street-from-past.html">Get rid of wide Light Street from a past that never was</a></u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-new-park-from-questar-tower-to.html">A new park from Questar Tower to McKeldin Fountain</a></u></div>Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-33388992337605000002020-02-18T10:56:00.001-05:002021-01-24T08:08:07.182-05:00Five ways candidates should embrace city's future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The same old answers aren't going to work for candidates in the city's upcoming election. So here is a guide to show them how to get beyond the current rhetoric about urban symptoms like crime and corruption to make a real physical difference in the future of Baltimore. Voters can then compare this to what the candidates are promising and decide who to support. Here are five ways Baltimore can turn the corner and embrace the future:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV-twNSXCtw/Vi5CJGCmHlI/AAAAAAAACV4/3Ksy8-fbHO8vTNqiu_QIi9wMuMo2VHnsgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Circulator%2BDistrict4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="607" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VV-twNSXCtw/Vi5CJGCmHlI/AAAAAAAACV4/3Ksy8-fbHO8vTNqiu_QIi9wMuMo2VHnsgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Circulator%2BDistrict4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A possible new Circulator Bus non-profit authority district</td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
1 - Replace and expand Charm City Circulator Bus System</h3>
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The Charm City Circulator bus system is the perfect example of how this city is spending too much of our tax dollars in favor downtown and the privileged neighborhoods, to the detriment of the rest of the city. Moreover, the city does not run the system very well. A state official described the city's system as being in a "death spiral" of reduced service and aging buses. Moreover, it has become part of a crazy quilt of redundancy that competes with existing MTA bus service and a slew of private shuttles run by institutions such as colleges and businesses such as Amazon.</div>
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The solution is to create a new organization that will consolidate all of these public and private circulators and shuttles into a new integrated localized system which serves everyone. It would be funded by those who really have "skin in the game" - the same institutions who are now spending money to benefit only a small segment of the transit market. This would then enable the state-run MTA system to focus on areas not served by the shuttles and to strengthen its system of transit transfer hubs, instead of dealing with unfair and destructive competition with free buses.<br />
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Read more in this 2015 blog post: <u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-sort-out-bus-system-circulator.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-sort-out-bus-system-circulator.html</a></u><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1UeLB4MI7A/XP2FAHhmCpI/AAAAAAAB29w/0b8GDQeLQog7TPGCwETrFotLRI0M708_ACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast%2B5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1UeLB4MI7A/XP2FAHhmCpI/AAAAAAAB29w/0b8GDQeLQog7TPGCwETrFotLRI0M708_ACPcBGAYYCw/s640/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast%2B5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible new diverse income housing on the Cherry Hill waterfront</td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
2 - Create mixed-income developments in lower income areas that really work</h3>
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There's a lot of talk about "Two Baltimores", rich and poor, but investment in mixed-income developments really hasn't worked well in virtually any part of the city.<br />
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For many decades, there's been a lot of money thrown at providing low income housing, from the high-rise projects of the 1950s through the huge Sandtown project by the Enterprise Foundation in the 1990s, but the overall result has been that the city has been losing rather than gaining low income housing. Two of the problems in this, bad design and lack of diversity, have since been rectified in more recent mixed-income projects such as Heritage Crossing, Albemarle Square and Center West, but this has not been nearly enough to make them catalysts to stem blight in their surrounding areas.<br />
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Albemarle Square, which replaced the Flag House Courts high rises just north of Little Italy and east of downtown, has almost all the ingredients of success - a near ideal location, good design and a mix of low and middle income units, but the adjacent Corned Beef Row and Jonestown areas are now even more vacant and blighted than ever. Major institutions such as the Jewish Museum, National Aquarium and Ronald McDonald House have only helped a little. And this is an area located squarely in the so-called "White L" of affluence and privilege.</div>
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The basic problem is that property values in surrounding areas are still too low to justify adequate investment and maintenance. Higher income "residents by choice" still avoid these surrounding areas, creating isolated islands of development. Even moderately higher income people will only live there if it's cheaper than their alternatives. This creates an escalation of subsidies, not only for the low income residents who actually need subsidies, but also for those with higher incomes as well. It has also seriously curtailed the ability to support non-residential uses, particularly strong retail, which is essential to creating viable urban communities and attracting "choice" residents. The result is more disinvestment, not investment.</div>
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The solution is to identify and invest in low income areas where major value can actually be added. The north side of Carroll Park adjacent to the Mount Clare neighborhood is a prime example. Carroll Park is magnificent and is next to the world class B&O Railroad Museum and the higher income Union Square neighborhood, but Mount Clare is crumbling from neglect. Another example is next to the even more magnificent Druid Hill Park where Reservoir Hill intersects the Greater Mondawmin neighborhood. The Westport and Cherry Hill waterfronts are other clear examples. None of these are in the so-called "White L".</div>
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Gentrification? That's not a significant issue in a city as non-diverse as Baltimore which has lost over a third of its population.<br />
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Read more in many articles throughout this blog, such as:<br />
<u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/green-network-part-1-four-priority_10.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/green-network-part-1-four-priority_10.html</a></u></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-unDyesG97p4/WM2rOKYKFrI/AAAAAAAAE1c/9h4zs0MNSaUvQhT5pqCi1MzV0htLjJXvgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Harlem%2BPark%2BRed%2BLine%2B700px.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="792" height="366" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-unDyesG97p4/WM2rOKYKFrI/AAAAAAAAE1c/9h4zs0MNSaUvQhT5pqCi1MzV0htLjJXvgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Harlem%2BPark%2BRed%2BLine%2B700px.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible neighborhood down in the ditch where the "Highway to Nowhere" is now, <br />
leaving room for a revival of the Red Line plan (Marc Szarkowski).</td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
3 - Get rid of the "Highway to Nowhere" once and for all</h3>
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Why can't the city admit that this useless ill-fated stub of an Interstate Highway is a cancer that must be fully removed from West Baltimore? The charades started in the 1970s before construction even began with visions of "capping it over" to create development lots that would be far more expensive than their dubious value. Then the ill-fated light rail Red Line stuck in its median strip was supposed to add the value, but of course, it never did. Payson Street was extended across the highway through a pair of obnoxious high speed intersections, but that didn't help much, and now there's talking of doing the same with Fremont Avenue.</div>
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Now the focus has turned to doing something with the huge abandoned Metro West complex formerly occupied by the Social Security Administration. Even this project has not raised calls to get rid of the highway. The plan still appears to be to keep the highway, but knock down the bridges over MLK Boulevard to simply move all the traffic to the surface intersections. But the problem is not the connections across the highway - it's the highway itself.<br />
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Redeveloping Metro West is an important project, but only if it is an opportunity to integrate it with all of West Baltimore, notably Heritage Crossing, Lafayette Square, Harlem Park and Poppleton. The unconflicted connections left by the highway bridges may be the best way to add value to really make the project work. And perhaps moving the much of the State Center office space to Metro West is the way to get it going.<br />
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Read more in many articles throughout this blog, such as:<br />
<u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-low-line.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-low-line.html</a></u><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0lIjRYcUHBo/RwKOFrYknrI/AAAAAAAABu4/6GBzX8LO8dAROqORWcFa-j_nTAfeXwBfwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Lafayette%2BSquare%2B006.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1375" data-original-width="1600" height="548" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0lIjRYcUHBo/RwKOFrYknrI/AAAAAAAABu4/6GBzX8LO8dAROqORWcFa-j_nTAfeXwBfwCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Lafayette%2BSquare%2B006.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Historic architecture on Lafayette Square surrounded by squalor that needs to be treasured</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
4 - Get serious about historic preservation</h3>
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Baltimore's glorious but often tumultuous history is the main thing that sets it apart from the suburbs and gives us our soul and identity. This is especially so in the African American communities where this history has never been fully told or has even been largely forgotten. The center of this history is Upton, where some residents longingly remember the destroyed Royal Theater, Freedom House and other vestiges of the past, while others are busy plotting to knock down even more of this heritage such as the row of houses where Cab Calloway grew up.</div>
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Upton has a proud past and should have everything going for it in the future - a great location, a subway station and distinctive architecture. All it needs is an intelligent historic preservation plan to add to its value. Instead, we get a city that simply wants to knock down the irreplaceable buildings, to add to the portfolio of vacant lots, failed parks and sporadically located modern ticky tacky rowhouses that could be from anywhere, USA.</div>
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Without preservation, Upton will no longer be Upton. It will just be part of the continuing depopulation of the city that began half a century ago. Next stop: Lafayette Square.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OmcahP-Z0Pk/W_yrGI1NqbI/AAAAAAABQzU/6DzrjxYZte4M3Pgib4b2fnOSrO2NDZPOgCLcBGAs/s640/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible MagLev Station on the downtown Post Office site across the street from the Shot Tower<br />
at the end of the Jones Falls Expressway</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
5 - Tune in to the Magnetic Levitation high speed rail project</h3>
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A consortium of investors in the US and Japan want to build a 300 mph MagLev system from Washington, DC to New York, with a first phase that would terminate in Baltimore. They've gotten the federal government involved and have submitted major portions of the environmental impact review process. If this project happens, Baltimore would suddenly be a mere 15 minutes from downtown Washington and at the cutting-edge of 21st century transportation.</div>
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Baltimore doesn't really need to do much to push this project, but we do need to watch it closely and get involved. The consortium really doesn't seem to care much about Baltimore, except for it being the place where the first phase would end and be evaluated on the way to phase two. They've selected BWI-Marshall Airport as a first station, a choice that would maintain a high profile for the project without much additional risk. This might help reveal the impact of MagLev on air travel, but DC already has Reagan National Airport as the choice of air travelers for whom convenience is the priority.</div>
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In contrast, Baltimore is where the impact of MagLev could be profound. Underneath Camden Yards was the project's early station choice. Now Cherry Hill is being favored, because they think they could build the station there less expensively above ground. The downtown option has shifted to the site of the Garmatz Federal Building on Pratt Street. But the alternatives are highly fluid because very little of the project would be above ground, with the major constraints being constructability and the need for a straight alignment that would enable vehicles to maintain maximum speed. Two other options could be in the vicinity of Charles Center and the Shot Tower, but these have not been studied.</div>
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The city has not been asked to pay for anything on this project. So in the aftermath of the city's hangover from the failed Red Line light rail project, why has their been so little interest in a far larger project that would dramatically vault Baltimore to the front of the international transportation stage?</div>
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Read more in these blog posts:</div>
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<u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/12/maglev-station-should-cross-street-into.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/12/maglev-station-should-cross-street-into.html</a></u></div>
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<u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html</a></u></div>
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Baltimore has fared badly from overhyping potential "game changer" projects from the Grand Prix to the Horseshoe Casino to Port Covington and the Red Line, but the city's need for big ideas is as strong as ever. Our future depends on it.</div>
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Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-89026153007745916772019-12-23T08:14:00.001-05:002020-06-09T07:58:50.427-04:00MagLev station should cross street into Charles Center<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The latest word for the 300 mph MagLev plan under Baltimore is for <u>the <a href="https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21118646/md-baltimorewashington-maglev-proposal-paused-while-company-provides-further-details-on-design-engineering" target="_blank">downtown station to replace the Garmatz Federal Courthouse</a></u>, 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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QEXHq3_JGLM/Xf43bvlLQ0I/AAAAAAAB56o/8GeEeJg0718dg2wO7_c3NivmmHKKf7hRQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Fallon%2BFederal%2BBuilding.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QEXHq3_JGLM/Xf43bvlLQ0I/AAAAAAAB56o/8GeEeJg0718dg2wO7_c3NivmmHKKf7hRQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/Fallon%2BFederal%2BBuilding.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">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. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(Baltimore Heritage, Eli Pousson)</span></td></tr>
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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What's more, there's already <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/10/mechanic-theater-demo-pit-starts.html" target="_blank">large hole in the ground next to this site</a></u>, 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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wfDW2bRXHi8/WdUbqDcThII/AAAAAAAA3Q0/K0-WbSbgWj4PO1drmhnvryK8hBRVJG6VgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/DSCN9450.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wfDW2bRXHi8/WdUbqDcThII/AAAAAAAA3Q0/K0-WbSbgWj4PO1drmhnvryK8hBRVJG6VgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/DSCN9450.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">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.</td></tr>
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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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uCJXq2-MEpA/Xf-Io5mQrQI/AAAAAAAB560/xcmzAwZWK2AwJBDaM5u8CoihgbTyZYGOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/MagLev%2BStation%2Bsite%2BCharles%2BCenter.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uCJXq2-MEpA/Xf-Io5mQrQI/AAAAAAAB560/xcmzAwZWK2AwJBDaM5u8CoihgbTyZYGOgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/MagLev%2BStation%2Bsite%2BCharles%2BCenter.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recommended Charles Center MagLev Station site in green, just north of the currently proposed Garmatz Building site and the previously proposed Convention Center site.</td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Creating a central rail transit hub is also essential</h3>
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Ultimately, <u>B<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/10/baltimores-maglev-station-must-be.html" target="_blank">altimore needs the MagLev station to be downtown</a></u>. 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!)<br />
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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 <u>the <a href="https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21118646/md-baltimorewashington-maglev-proposal-paused-while-company-provides-further-details-on-design-engineering" target="_blank">linked article</a></u>, 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".<br />
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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.<br />
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If that can't be achieved, then it will be necessary to go back to the drawing board to consider other locations like <u>the <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html" target="_blank">Shot Tower Post Office site</a></u> a few blocks to the northeast.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-10254957811057618452019-10-29T15:32:00.001-04:002021-05-02T10:14:18.069-04:00"Station West" should strive to outdo Penn Station<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
While the planners at the Baltimore Metropolitan Council have declared failure in the effort to build any new rail transit in their 25 year plan, there's still a project that can keep the door open. The West Baltimore MARC Station must be totally replaced when the planned new Amtrak tunnel is built. For this new station, $90M has been programmed in the region's long range plan. This creates a great opportunity to use the Amtrak Northeast U.S. Corridor as the impetus for new transit in Baltimore, even while we've given up on expanding our own region's rail transit system. Building a great train station in West Baltimore at the end of the Franklin-Mulberry "Highway to Nowhere" is the key.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Welcome to Station West - This needs to become a real neighborhood, instead of just a bus loop and commuter parking lots as far eastward down the "Highway to Nowhere" as the eye can see. The temporary station platform is up the wood stairs to the left. The "Ice House" should be a future neighborhood development along Franklin Street, to the upper left.</td></tr>
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The rationale goes like this. Starting with the 2002 regional rail plan, transit planners believed that a comprehensive rail system throughout the region was necessary to achieve a "critical mass". They rejected the concept of incrementalism as much as possible. They saw the failure of "transit oriented development" and the stagnant rail ridership throughout the system as explanations for why Baltimore needed a D.C. Metro kind of major comprehensive system. With the $3 billion Red Line, it was all or nothing, and even if all of it had been built, many more billions of dollars would still be needed to complete the system before success could be achieved. Even when Governor Hogan killed the $3 billion Red Line, they refused to even consider anything less.<br />
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But a different kind of "critical mass" has been emerging over the past several decades. The suburbs are now a sideshow. The traditional linkage between the city and suburbs is being gradually replaced by a new linkage between Baltimore and the other cities of the Northeast Corridor - Washington, Philadelphia, New York and in between. And instead of daily 9 to 5 job commuting, the new linkage emphasizes mostly independent employment, along with occasional face-to-face activity in the different cities. Much of this is fueled by widening disparities in the cost of living among these cities, so that long distance encounters make more economic as well as cultural sense.<br />
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This concept has long been recognized by planners for the Penn Station area. The surrounding "Station North" neighborhood has been marketed to people who make frequent, if not daily, trips from Baltimore to Washington, but the success has only been modest. Station North didn't really take off until its emphasis was shifted more recently to culture, arts and education, fueled by expansion of the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art and University of Baltimore.<br />
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This follows a long proven principal: Any successful urban neighborhood needs a diverse mix of activities and a strong quality of life, regardless of its other reasons for being. So fledgling "Station West" which includes the West Baltimore Station should strive to emulate "Station North" as a neighborhood, which includes Penn Station. Of course, the neighborhoods have virtually nothing in common except train stations, but that makes them even more complimentary.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">New West Balt Station should be iconic neighborhood anchor</h3>
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So start with the train stations. The new West Baltimore Station should be designed to be an icon, just as Penn Station is. It won't have the historic beaux-arts architecture of over a century ago, but it will have the advantage of being a clean slate where contemporary style can be free to express itself. What must be avoided is building just a cheap train platform plus bare-bones facilities. The attractive new Camden Station which the MTA has just completed at Camden Yards has the right concept, but the West Baltimore Station should go further because it must play the role of a neighborhood anchor.<br />
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Here's an idea: A few years ago, the zeal to extend the iconography of Penn Station was perhaps overdone with the installation of the new Man-Woman sculpture in front of the station. Many people complained bitterly about how this contemporary sculpture was totally in conflict with the historic beaux-arts look of the station itself. This controversy demonstrated the power of art and iconography. So let's use this same power to promote the West Baltimore Station. When the new station is built, the Man-Woman sculpture should be moved to Station West to allow its iconic value to achieve better integration with its surroundings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-12qICQ5EGxo/R7gwh7aS7KI/AAAAAAAABhg/WrF6G6e6zh8IHaVGsihFMykdDJF8Qk2GgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/MaleFemale%2BSculpture%2B007.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="1600" height="564" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-12qICQ5EGxo/R7gwh7aS7KI/AAAAAAAABhg/WrF6G6e6zh8IHaVGsihFMykdDJF8Qk2GgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/MaleFemale%2BSculpture%2B007.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Critics decry the metallic Man/Woman Sculpture for how out of place it is in front of historic Penn Station in Station North. Its iconic value would be better served by moving it to the front of a new modern train station at Station West.</td></tr>
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The sculpture would continue to be associated with train travel, but now it will be able to do so in a more harmonious way. And it would be "good riddance" for many advocates of Station North.<br />
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Beyond that, what the new Station West neighborhood needs is to create logic out of what is now the illogic and destructive force of the obsolete "Highway to Nowhere". This should not necessarily be done by destroying the illogical or destructive past, but simply by making it work. History is not neat and tidy. That's why a "Walk of History" could be part of what replaces the highway, as discussed in <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/12/transform-highway-to-nowhere-into-walk.html" target="_blank">previous blog article</a></u>. Various other art objects that didn't work in other parts of the city could be made to work here.<br />
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Most importantly, Station West must be made into a true neighborhood, with real residents and real life rather than just parking lots. But every train station area has its own strengths and weaknesses which must be dealt with. Station West is closer to Washington, DC than is Station North, so that may be a key advantage to some people. It provides abundant free parking, unlike Station North, but this may only be a small relative advantage, since the nearby Halethorpe or BWI Airport stations offer much better parking and auto access, especially in the long run.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Rail service will be expanded</h3>
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The whole way that train service is marketed will change in the future. The distinctions between MARC and Amtrak - commuter and regional rail - will be blurred. The Baltimore Metropolitan Council long range plan considers the MARC rail service area to be expanded all the way from Northern Virginia to the south (where it would serve the new Amazon headquarters) to Philadelphia to the north.<br />
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Station West must find its role in all this, just as Station North has. There's also "Station East" to consider, even though that emerging neighborhood east of Hopkins Hospital doesn't even have a station now. Then there's a possible Magnetic Levitation train system, and - who knows - maybe even hyperloop. Transportation is always evolving and progressing.<br />
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And there's no reason why the Red Line plan couldn't be resurrected in some alternative guise to serve Station West, which in turn, could make Station West much more connected to downtown than Station North is. This need not be dependent on some multi-billion dollar comprehensive rail plan such as the 2002 plan.<br />
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Incrementalism will certainly play a role. It could start as simply a shuttle bus line that takes advantage of the lack of traffic conflicts inside the "Highway to Nowhere" ditch. One of the justifications for not knocking down both of the "Highway to Nowhere" bridges over MLK Boulevard would be to accommodate buses between the West MARC Station and downtown. This service would be far better than the Charm City Circulator from Penn Station to downtown, which is really just a redundant replication of MTA bus service. Beyond that, the west shuttle could be upgraded to a streetcar line, then part of a streetcar system, and then part of the light rail system, possibly connected to the existing central light rail line on Howard Street. It could even grow into a facsimile of the Red Line extending all the way to suburban Woodlawn and the CMS and Social Security complexes, and even to the east side as well.<br />
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In any case, the eventual long range rail transit system of the future won't necessarily be built as it was envisioned in 2002, but all possible options need to be considered.<br />
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It all begins by building a new West Baltimore train station that can truly serve as an anchor for a new Station West neighborhood. And while Station West should strive to outdo the initial premise behind Station North, all neighborhoods ultimately develop their own personalities based on their own residents. One could call it the "Creative Class" phenomenon invented by Richard Florida - except that people, neighborhoods and cities have always worked to define each other.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-46798889185595187962019-07-09T17:10:00.002-04:002021-05-03T16:44:10.066-04:00Planners say: No new rail transit for next 25 years<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The good news in the new draft 2045 regional transportation plan produced by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council is that the city is focusing on coordinating its major transportation projects into development areas, namely Port Covington and the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor. The bad news is that the plan is virtually all highway projects, with no new rail transit whatsoever. The always obsolete "Highway to Nowhere" will be retained, albeit in slightly truncated form. Is this the death knell for "transit oriented development"?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is how the Red Line had been proposed to look at the Harlem Park Station. It would have done nothing to improve the environment of the surrounding "Highway to Nowhere". The new 2045 plan gets rid of all new rail transit plans, but keeps most of the highway, including this portion.</td></tr>
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Governor Hogan is still getting lambasted by the city for killing the Red Line project four years ago which would allegedly had revitalized the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor. The city then quickly said it would propose new alternatives, but never did.</div>
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The Governor's reason for cancelling the Red Line project was very specific: the downtown tunnel was half the cost yet it didn't connect to the existing subway tunnel. At that time, he also made clear that he was not against all rail transit by approving the Purple Line for Montgomery and Prince Georges County.<br />
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After the Red Line's demise, the city even proposed another unrelated rail project - a spur from the existing central light rail line to Port Covington. But that project has also been left out of the new plan.<br />
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<u>Here <a href="https://baltometro.org/sites/default/files/bmc_documents/general/transportation/long-range/2045/Maximize2045_4of4.pdf?utm_source=website_pc&utm_medium=news-item&utm_campaign=Maximize2045_4of4.pdf" target="_blank">are the chapters of the 2045 plan</a></u> that deals with projects and funding. Costs are a major issue, of course. Federal rules require that long range regional plans be fiscally constrained and must not be mere "wish lists". But there is a provision for the inclusion of "illustrative projects" which could be amended into the plan "should future funds become available". For example, the plan includes a proposed third span for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, for which no specific concept or cost has yet to be developed.<br />
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Such off-budget projects are now a significant trend. These include projects funded predominately by public-private partnerships to be paid back by user revenue, loans, tax increment financing or other creative tools. The Purple and Red Lines were both to be financed by a mixture of these new and traditional methods. But no rail transit projects have now been included in that category as well.<br />
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This exclusion makes it appear that the Baltimore City, MTA and Baltimore Metropolitan Council regional planners have simply given up. Governor Hogan implicitly gave a simple directive for the Red Line: Propose a project that actually works, but without a new downtown tunnel two blocks away from the existing subway tunnel that would have cost well upward of a billion dollars.<br />
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Since then, Baltimore has had three mayors who have produced no plans.<br />
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The explanation might be that Baltimore is simply too dense to accommodate efficient surface rail transit (as opposed to major expensive tunnels), but not dense enough to support the kind of "transit oriented development" that rail transit has thrived upon in other cities. Transit oriented development in Baltimore has been a monumental failure along both the largely underground heavy rail Metro and along the all-surface central light rail line, and even in the two areas served by both, Lexington Market and State Center.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Some changes to the "Highway to Nowhere" and MLK Boulevard</h3>
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An interesting aspect of the new 2045 regional plan is that an area which should have received major attention to "transit oriented development" in the Red Line plan is now, for the first time, proposed for major spending, but without the Red Line.<br />
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This so-called "Highway to Nowhere" corridor of West Baltimore, along with the adjacent Martin Luther King Boulevard, are vestiges of the city's failed interstate highway plans of the 1970s. This new inclusion of major investment, but without rail transit, would be similar to what has happened in other sections of the Red Line corridor. The Harbor East, Harbor Point, Canton Crossing and Bayview areas on the east side have been booming with major development in spite of no Red Line. The city is now betting the same for the "Highway to Nowhere" on the west side.<br />
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Throughout the fifteen year Red Line planning process, the city insisted that this "Highway to Nowhere" must be retained, so the potential for "transit oriented development" was limited to certain areas where limited adjustments to the highway were proposed. This seemed to be a major blown opportunity, since preparation for the Red Line entailed temporarily closing the entire highway anyway, which was accomplished with virtually no adverse effects. On the other hand, the Red Line plan itself had to be changed to eliminate the station closest to the highway's MLK intersections to accommodate a longer tunnel.<br />
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Those limited adjustments to the highway produced during the Red Line planning have now made it into the proposed 2045 plan. Specifically, this is a $118 million project to remove its two bridges over Martin Luther King Boulevard, replace them with surface roadways and reconnect Fremont Avenue with a large new intersection with the highway. Another $9 million will also be budgeted for "Re-Visioning" the 1.5 mile entirety of MLK Boulevard from Washington Boulevard (Pigtown) to Howard Street (State Center) as a separate project.<br />
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But the bulk of the "Highway to Nowhere" within the big notorious West Baltimore ditch between Schroeder and Payson Streets will remain as it has been since the 1970s.<br />
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This is a similar but larger version of what was done nearly a decade ago at the west end of the "Highway to Nowhere", where one block of the highway between Payson and Pulaski Streets was replaced with surface roadways and at-grade intersections. Pedestrians and local traffic will be able to walk or drive along Fremont Avenue the same way they can now traverse Payson Street - on, off or across the highway.<br />
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On Payson Street, this has <i><b>not</b></i> reduced the adverse impact of the "Highway to Nowhere" in any significant way. The highway remains a huge impediment to the communities. It is still much easier for local people to use the existing desolate but efficient bridges over the highway at Schroeder, Carey and other streets to get about.<br />
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At MLK Boulevard, replacing the existing highway overpasses with bigger surface intersections will also not make things any better for the communities. Yes, the heavy traffic volumes have proven that they can be accommodated, but the amount of backed-up traffic increases greatly without the overpasses, making it a very harsh environment for people, including bicyclists - to which the "complete streets" program is purportedly addressed.<br />
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What's more, the walls and buffers which were built along the highway right-of-way to seal off the adjacent Heritage Crossing community will need to be retained more than ever in order to fend off the traffic impacts. This will continue to keep Heritage Crossing as an isolated island, and prevent it from performing its originally intended function to be a catalyst for the revitalization of adjacent Upton, Lafayette Square, Harlem Park and the rest of northwest Baltimore.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--bIjMbSaRqo/SThFIEsHQ2I/AAAAAAAABug/rU0qtmModOUw22p5PzSxU1N_GBkE2ujGACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Image2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--bIjMbSaRqo/SThFIEsHQ2I/AAAAAAAABug/rU0qtmModOUw22p5PzSxU1N_GBkE2ujGACPcBGAYYCw/s640/Image2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MLK Boulevard under the "Highway to Nowhere". These two overpasses are proposed to be demolished, bringing all the highway traffic down to the surface intersections with it. The existing design is actually airy and attractive, but results in major dead spots and is isolated from the Heritage Crossing neighborhood (gazebo seen in background). </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Design is actually only a small part of the problem, and even serves well to mitigate the larger problem of too much traffic at the end of an interstate highway. The overpasses are light and airy (see photo above), in contrast with those on most highways. The larger problem is the highway itself. As long as some portion of the "Highway to Nowhere" is retained as a vestige of an interstate highway, motorists will behave as if it is an interstate highway, and people and the adjacent communities must react accordingly.<br />
<br />
There can be no satisfactory "transit oriented development" in such an environment, with or without the rail transit. That is one reason why the communities have suffered and why the Red Line plan failed. The only potential beneficiary of such a plan could be the Metro West project to redevelop the vacant Social Security Administration complex. Since that complex has always been an isolated fortress, it may be be able to function while remaining as a fortress - with whatever pretty new trappings that $118 million can buy as a selling point.<br />
<br />
The only satisfactory solution is to get rid of the entire "Highway to Nowhere", or at least narrow it down to a single roadway. Tearing down just one of the two bridges would eliminate the huge dead space which is now the highway median. A remaining bridge could even be converted to a bike bridge or a transit bridge or a bridge for quiet slow local traffic to avoid the congestion at the MLK intersections below.<br />
<br />
The fact that the city wants to do pretty much the same things without rail transit that they were planning to do with rail transit, along the Red Line corridor, indicates why they are now willing to dispense with new rail transit altogether. This also shows how rail transit has always been oversold.<br />
<br />
None of this means that rail transit can't be worth building, as many other cities have done. It simply means the city needs a good workable plan.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Huge highway changes for Port Covington</h3>
<br />
While Port Covington's proposed light rail spur has been excluded from the proposed 2045 plan, it does includes major highway spending. This is shown in a separate section of the report for funding by the MDTA (Maryland Transportation Authority - that "D" in the acronym makes little sense). That means that toll revenue from the Fort McHenry Tunnel and other toll roads would be used to finance the projects. Ironically and in contrast to the rest of the plan, no price tag is given for these projects, even though a single exact year is specified for all of them - 2029.<br />
<br />
Here is the description given on Chapter 7, Page 36 of the draft report:<br />
<br />
<i>Improve I-95 ramps along approximately 7 miles of I-95 and sections
of Hanover Street, McComas Street, and Key Highway. Improvements
include:</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>1. I-95 Northbound Off-Ramps- (a) Exit 52, new ramp from
Russell Street off-ramp; (b) Exit 53 interchange, new spur from
I-395 southbound ramp; (c) Exit 54, remove ramp from I-95
northbound to Hanover Street southbound; and (d) Exit 55,
reconstruct ramp from I-95 northbound to McComas Street </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>2. I-95 Northbound On-Ramps – new ramp from McComas Street
to I-95 Northbound </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>3. I-95 Southbound Off-Ramps – new ramp from I-95 southbound
to McComas Street westbound </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>4. I-95 Southbound On-Ramps – realign ramp from McComas
Street Westbound to I-95 southbound</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>5. Hanover Street – reconstruction from CSX Bridge to McComas
Street westbound to I-95 southbound </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>6. McComas Street and Key Highway – (a) realign McComas
Street; and (b) widen Key Highway between McHenry Row and
McComas Street </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>7. Pedestrian and Bicycle Connections – (a) new sidewalks along
Hanover Street and realigned McComas Street; (b) shared use
path along Key Highway; and (c) shared use path linking South
Baltimore to Port Covington peninsula.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
All this would clearly cost a tremendous amount of money, at least on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars, and would be over and above the $660 Million Tax Increment Financing which the city has already allocated to pay for other infrastructure projects in Port Covington. Other federal funding was also requested in concert, and as an equal priority, with the proposed expansion of the Howard Street CSX freight rail tunnel, but that was previously rejected.<br />
<br />
Having the tolls of Fort McHenry Tunnel users pay for improvements for a private development such as Port Covington will certainly be controversial, especially since there would be no enhancement of traffic flow for traffic using the tunnel itself, and would most likely make it worse.<br />
<br />
And since the light rail project has been excluded, there will be little access or mobility benefit to the rest of the city.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
A new kind of transportation planning</h3>
<br />
Whatever the outcome of all this, it does signal a new era in regional transportation planning - where traditional large scale simulation modeling of traffic flow on a comprehensive network is replaced by a focus on specific key development areas - in this case the MLK/"Highway to Nowhere" corridor of West Baltimore and the Port Covington area of South Baltimore.<br />
<br />
This is actually a welcome new direction. Transportation should be used to shape our environment and to invest in needed economic development. The old method relying mostly on traffic volume number crunching mainly resulted in self-fulfilling traffic growth and rampant uncontrolled suburban sprawl.<br />
<br />
But doing it with no proposed investment in new rail transit looks like a dead end. Only rail transit, not buses, have proven to be able to shape our urban environment enough to make a real difference. And buses are mostly a short term investment anyway. When buses get old or overcrowded, we simply buy more new ones.<br />
<br />
Too much proposed new spending is also falling through the cracks in the plan. Governor Hogan's huge proposed multi-billion dollar "express lane" plan (which started with the O'Malley/Ehrlich I-95 widening from Baltimore to White Marsh) is largely ignored, as are the profound changes that could come about due to billions of proposed "off budget" upgrades to Amtrak and for a new Magnetic Levitation system. The prevalent attitude appears to be that we will build what we can, not what we should.<br />
<br />
So this draft 2045 regional transportation plan has serious deficiencies. But looking at the bright side, these are not abstract metaphysical problems. The issues are focused on two very real and very important places: The "Highway to Nowhere" corridor and Port Covington. On the other hand, the cynically-inclined would notice that these two areas are each dominated by powerful well-connected developers - Sagamore/Under Armour at Port Covington and Caves Valley Partners at Metro West at MLK Blvd. in the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor. Politics is never far away.<br />
<br />
In any event, the solutions can readily be both tangible and real. There are two steps.<br />
<br />
1 - The plan needs to analyze the needs of the desolate divided "Highway to Nowhere" corridor in its entirety, coupled with the "ReVisioning" of the entire adjacent MLK Boulevard corridor which is already specified.<br />
<br />
2 - The plan needs to analyze the needs of the entire Middle Branch corridor in its entirety. The City is already doing that as an urban design exercise, but it needs to be expanded to a full transportation and economic development study in determine the best investments. The Port Covington plan, a very small portion of the whole, should not simply be treated as a given, especially since development conditions for Under Armour and other prospective tenants are in a constant state of flux.<br />
<br />
The results of these studies should show that the Baltimore region does indeed need to invest in additional rail transit over the next 25 years. This would probably not be the kind of pseudo-DC Metrorail type comprehensive system that was proposed in the 2002 plan and which included the failed Red Line project. Instead, it should be the type of development-oriented transit that can make a real difference for the region.<br />
<br />
Selected links to a few of many related blog articles:<br />
<br />
Greenway linkage including MLK Boulevard and "Highway to Nowhere"<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/09/six-mile-greenway-loop-would-rebuild.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/09/six-mile-greenway-loop-would-rebuild.html</a><br />
<br />
An expanded light rail spur to Port Covington<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/big-port-covington-needs-even-bigger.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/big-port-covington-needs-even-bigger.html</a><br />
<br />
MLK Boulevard redesign for a Pigtown Gateway<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/08/proposed-pratt-to-pigtown-parkway-sooo.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/08/proposed-pratt-to-pigtown-parkway-sooo.html</a><br />
<br />
Integrating Metro West with Heritage Crossing and "Highway to Nowhere"<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/metro-west-should-become-heritage.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/metro-west-should-become-heritage.html</a><br />
<br />
Creating a hybrid streetcar/light rail Red Line<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2013/09/integrating-light-rail-and-streetcars.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2013/09/integrating-light-rail-and-streetcars.html</a></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-86373200460043257592019-06-10T16:38:00.002-04:002021-04-25T09:10:47.868-04:00Which community will inspire a real Middle Branch plan?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Baltimoreans know the drill: Whenever some big new hyped-up "game changer" development proposal comes along, like Port Covington, Horseshoe Casino, M&T Bank Stadium and even the dead Walmart, everything in the past gets swept away - both good plans and bad. So the latest of countless Middle Branch plans now being prepared is like a shot in the dark. Let's enjoy the pretty surrealistic renderings by "world class" architectural firms and then focus on the many (mostly) ignored possible developments that could really make this area take off. Here are six of them.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N5Ep6OGJQc8/XP0HAro390I/AAAAAAAB28s/KegudBD1IsshyEkP_N8BR8CGSgAz1-z3wCLcBGAs/s1600/Middle%2BBranch%2BWest8.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="855" data-original-width="1280" height="427" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N5Ep6OGJQc8/XP0HAro390I/AAAAAAAB28s/KegudBD1IsshyEkP_N8BR8CGSgAz1-z3wCLcBGAs/s640/Middle%2BBranch%2BWest8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">West8 came up with the wildest idea of all - a huge new superhighway on a bridge connecting Port Covington directly to Brooklyn. Cherry Hill would lose its long distance waterfront view<span> and have it replaced</span><span> with a view of a highway. Also note that Harbor Hospital gets to keep the entire waterfront for itself.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u>The <a href="http://www.middlebranchwaterfront.com/site/public-input/" target="_blank">proposed new plan</a></u> is currently at the stage where the three urban design firms are being subject to a competition to determine whose ideas are most favored by the city and the public. The three competing entries are illogically presented in the form <u>of <a href="https://youtu.be/P4RJHdkpFmQ" target="_blank">YouTube videos</a></u> so you get only look at one graphic at a time and must pause the video to give it more than a cursory glance. This may be due to the fact that the city government's computer network has recently been hacked and is out of service, so YouTube is a more reliable medium.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In any event, a competition is a very wrongheaded way of doing it. It is far more important to know which ideas are feasible, economically and environmentally, and most importantly, which ideas can best leverage private investment. This is what the city really needs.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So the real competition is not between design firms. It is between the various portions of the Middle Branch that could attract and leverage greatly needed investment:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
1. Westport</h3>
<br />
Westport was the hottest major development site in town a decade ago, and is still the only one with great light rail access to both downtown and BWI Airport. It is currently out of favor mostly because it is now owned by the Port Covington consortium which wants no competition. It was probably the city's <u>best <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/09/for-amazon-best-of-westport-and-port.html" target="_blank">shot at luring Amazon</a></u>, but the official "shovel ready" site was touted as the Sunpaper's printing press property in Port Covington. Some other critics think Westport's fall from favor is due to the shallowness of the adjacent Middle Branch, and it is to the credit of the current urban design teams that they are showing how this might be used as an amenity, not a liability.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DMxFCm-P2w/XP0Pu5NwcVI/AAAAAAAB284/kzORGA-pZnMGv-ar9OcOjSkByA5YTyFWgCLcBGAs/s1600/Westport%2Bnew%2Bplan.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1280" height="441" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DMxFCm-P2w/XP0Pu5NwcVI/AAAAAAAB284/kzORGA-pZnMGv-ar9OcOjSkByA5YTyFWgCLcBGAs/s640/Westport%2Bnew%2Bplan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Westport waterfront becomes Westport wetlands in the West8 plan, which enables the construction of a boardwalk out into the Middle Branch to a helical lookout (lower left). One narrow channel is dredged to provide access for a water taxi.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Westport is the single most critical geographic link between the north and south portions of the Middle Branch corridor, but the city can't go around spending money without using it to maximize leverage for private investment. It would be extremely foolish for the city to put one penny into making the Westport site more valuable until it gets a real commitment for major private investment... period.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
2. Port Covington</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The part of Port Covington covered by the city's $660 Million TIF tax incentive package is mostly inland rather than directly on the Middle Branch shoreline. The shoreline itself is occupied predominately by a <u>new <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/06/port-covington-in-ten-years-stubbornly.html" target="_blank">whiskey distillery</a></u>, the West Covington nature preserve which the developer has recently converted into a mega-bar after chopping down numerous trees, and by the future Under Armour corporate campus, the offices of which are temporarily housed in the defunct Sam's Club Big Box store on-site.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So while Port Covington is still the "big kahuna" of proposed Middle Branch developments now in active planning, the city has lost much of its leverage to further guide it. Nevertheless, the extent to which Port Covington development takes place will determine how much spins-off to the rest of the Middle Branch. That is now a big uncertainty so at this point, we can only hope.<br />
<br />
There is also one major parcel in Port Covington not owned by the Under Armour/Sagamore consortium, the now <u>vacant <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/01/port-covingtons-big-spinoff-locke.html" target="_blank">Locke Insulator site</a></u> just east of the Hanover Street bridge. This could turn out to be a key property depending on what happens to the bridge, which needs expensive repairs or replacement.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FKldwzX3s48/WVwASXNPsxI/AAAAAAAAt_s/dZPhH3dCOdEVT4qv1cB7jpL9Cf1HwVP2gCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Casino%2BHotel%2BNon%2BVegas2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="850" height="333" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FKldwzX3s48/WVwASXNPsxI/AAAAAAAAt_s/dZPhH3dCOdEVT4qv1cB7jpL9Cf1HwVP2gCPcBGAYYCw/w640-h333/Casino%2BHotel%2BNon%2BVegas2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peter Tocco's photoshopped waterfront hotel veneer for the casino's giant ugly deadening parking garage is still the best solution anyone has shown for this portion of the Middle Branch.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;">
3. Horseshoe Casino Gateway</h3>
<div>
<br />
<u>The <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/casino-entertainment-district.html" target="_blank">Horseshoe Casino</a></u> made a mockery of previous Middle Branch plans when it plopped a 3500 car parking garage directly on the waterfront, while orienting the casino itself toward the strip of gas stations, convenience stores and self-storage warehouses on Russell Street. Then the city added insult to injury by building a new Greyhound Bus station on much of the remaining waterfront green space - a location that has absolutely no relationship to the rest of the city's transit network.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since then, Horseshoe's economic impact has been spiraling downward with the opening of the state's leading casino at National Harbor and a new casino hotel at Arundel Mills. The next seemingly desperate act was to convince Top Golf, a chain of slick suburban driving ranges, to open its first urban outlet on the Middle Branch, where the animal rescue shelter currently resides. It remains to be seen how well the Top Golf concept adapts to an urban waterfront setting.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Resuscitating Horseshoe Casino appears to be a task where the city and state governments urgently need to take an active role, because they already have so much of a stake in it as a source of revenue. But the Middle Branch plan is mute to this.</div>
<div>
<br />
This is the state's only urban casino so it is more sensitive to its surroundings than the others. It needs to overcome bad images people may have of its location and the city as a whole. All the planning so far of the Middle Branch has only made this worse - a place for a stinky incongruous bus station and a huge parking garage that backs onto a highway interchange above a swamp. The pretty pictures in the new plans try to soften this sorry situation but really don't deal with it at all.<br />
<br />
The best solution so far is Peter Tocco's image of a waterfront casino hotel (see above) that serves as a narrow veneer to the parking garage and activates the remaining parkland. It's difficult to find good solutions to this hole that the city and the casino have dug for themselves. There may be other ideas, but no one has presented them.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
4. Cherry Hill</h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Cherry Hill community is where the potential of the Middle Branch has already been most realized and where planning concepts can most easily be tested. If folks want to just spread out a blanket or jog along the shore, they can do that now on the large grassy area north of Waterview Avenue. But not that many do. The key is connecting the waterfront to development, and the only use that does that is Harbor Hospital - not exactly quintessential waterfront activity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1UeLB4MI7A/XP2FAHhmCpI/AAAAAAAB29k/61zn10AXPxc838KV19twGDJTt4VQ3D86wCLcBGAs/s1600/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast%2B5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1UeLB4MI7A/XP2FAHhmCpI/AAAAAAAB29k/61zn10AXPxc838KV19twGDJTt4VQ3D86wCLcBGAs/s640/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast%2B5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My crude Google Earth graphics of waterfront development interspersed with the Harbor Hospital in Cherry Hill has a lot more reality potential than most of the superior renderings of the Middle Branch Plan design teams.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The simplest and probably best solution is simply to encourage Harbor Hospital's ownership to sponsor a development plan for the parking lots and underutilized areas around the hospital that is sensitive to the shoreline. This would encourage more recreational and other people-activity such as just passively hanging out. The hospital has made development proposals in the past, but obviously never got enough encouragement to follow through.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GnSH_lo_h0/XP2E__9GqkI/AAAAAAAB29c/iUTREvzQcpgqnVmMpukyNRECZdlS1LQkgCLcBGAs/s1600/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2GnSH_lo_h0/XP2E__9GqkI/AAAAAAAB29c/iUTREvzQcpgqnVmMpukyNRECZdlS1LQkgCLcBGAs/s640/Cherry%2BHill%2BGold%2BCoast.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another view of possible waterfront development adjacent to Harbor Hospital in Cherry Hill. The Hanover Street bridge leading to Port Covington is shown on the right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div>
Cherry Hill is also the community which would benefit the most from <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/big-port-covington-needs-even-bigger.html" target="_blank">new light rail spur</a></u>, such as an extension of the one in the Port Covington plan. This proposed spur was hyped up when the Port Covington plan was being sold to the public, but has been almost totally left out of the conversation and drawings since then. A longer spur extension to Cherry Hill along with transit oriented development would refocus the interest. The existing light rail station on the opposite side of Cherry Hill is well used, but is not very close or convenient to most the community.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
5. Brooklyn and Masonville</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
It was gratifying to actually see the latest Middle Branch plans extended <u>as <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/green-network-part-1-four-priority_10.html" target="_blank">far south as Brooklyn</a></u>, but the urban design firms did not do much with it. The southern terminus of the waterfront is shown in the plans as the Masonville Cove nature preserve, which has already been meticulously restored as part of the Maryland Port Administration's development. However, this is blocked from the rest of the Middle Branch and the Brooklyn community by a concrete plant, and none of the plans show this as changing in the future. The concrete plant clearly needs to be redeveloped for an active waterfront use.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EKFUfw7VRqM/XP2DVWA5bEI/AAAAAAAB29E/rB0-qwcoK7oJgGNoEqHG1OQUEeE1qzWnACLcBGAs/s1600/Brooklyn%2BMasonville.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EKFUfw7VRqM/XP2DVWA5bEI/AAAAAAAB29E/rB0-qwcoK7oJgGNoEqHG1OQUEeE1qzWnACLcBGAs/s640/Brooklyn%2BMasonville.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Potential Brooklyn waterfront development on the current site of a concrete plant,<br />
as seen from the Masonville Cove nature preserve.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Such a project could be very attractive to a developer seeking a site that is isolated from the usual urban hubub, but still linked in. The linkage to the rest of Brooklyn would be via the site just to the west which is now occupied by possibly the world's most wastefully sprawling urban intersection between Hanover and Potee Streets and Frankfurst Avenue. Efficiently tightening this intersection would free up much waterfront land and for the creation of linkages to Brooklyn, Masonville and northward to Cherry Hill, where traffic on the Hanover Street bridge over the Patapsco River could be greatly curtailed or even eliminated.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
6. MagLev Train Station</h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Cherry Hill appears to be the current leading contender for a Baltimore Station on the proposed mega-billion dollar 300 mph Magnetic Levitation Line between Washington DC and eventually to New York. This is more of an accident of geography than a planning decision, but Baltimore must be prepared to respond with its own intelligent plans nonetheless.<br />
<br />
This station site is wedged between the Cherry Hill Light Rail Station and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and was chosen by engineers because it could be built on an elevated alignment instead of an even more expensive tunnel. But north of this station, it would still need to enter a very large tunnel portal somewhere in the Middle Branch/Westport lowlands area, under the very severe constraints of maglev alignment geometry. The impact on the Middle Branch and Westport could be severe.<br />
<br />
A Baltimore maglev station would be a major boost to the city economy, so serious provisions would be necessary for high density transit oriented development. The most likely site for this would be the existing commercial and industrial uses in this part of Cherry Hill, which is probably not the best from the city's point of view since until now no plan has ever proposed displacing the current uses and jobs.<br />
<br />
The other station option studied by the maglev consultants was downtown, most likely Camden Yards, which is certainly better for the city but billions more expensive. Another <u>alternative <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2019/02/maglev-better-at-patapsco-hill-station.html" target="_blank">proposed here is Patapsco Hill</a></u> adjacent to the Patapsco and Baltimore Highlands light rail stations, just south of Cherry Hill and west of Brooklyn. This would be the least expensive option, especially in the short and medium terms and if it eliminated the need for a very expensive station at BWI Airport.<br />
<br />
A Patapsco Hill Maglev Station would be a major stimulus to the Middle Branch plan and all its surrounding communities, but without undue impacts and pressure on Westport and the northwestern portion of Cherry Hill.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The role of the current Middle Branch Plan</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The design competition for the latest Middle Branch plan has provided some attractive future scenarios that illustrate what a wonderful resource it is, but there are practically no clues as to what the city should do next. The first lesson is the one taught by Dr. Hippocrates: "First Do No Harm". Because harm is exactly what the city has inflicted with its casino and bus station developments and by letting Westport get imprisoned by land speculation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The future is largely in the hands of outsiders: The Under Armour/Sagamore development team in Port Covington, the Caesar/Horseshoe team running the casino, the MedStar team which owns Harbor Hospital, the Japanese/American consortium trying to build a Maglev line, the owners of the Locke Insulator property, the Vulcan Materials Concrete Company and probably some other firms flying under the radar.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The city does have some priorities in the area that cannot wait until outsiders decide what to do, but these are not intrinsic to the Middle Branch plan: The Horseshoe Casino must be fixed so that it is a viable revenue generating competitor with the Arundel Mills and National Harbor Casinos. The proposed light rail spur needs to be planned so that it provides maximum benefit to the city as a whole, not just for Port Covington's speculative plans. And planning and design for the new or improved Hanover Street Bridge must proceed for the maximum benefit to the entire area.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As for the Middle Branch plan, it must be used as leverage to get its best outcome from any and all of the potential investors, and not simply as an end in itself.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TBRCGWT3NCg/XP0Ebt6qCLI/AAAAAAAB28g/Lb21ZWPRA7cH-9oGT6WwuI56V9bpMFd7gCLcBGAs/s1600/Middle%2BBranch%2BPlan%2BHargreaves%2BJones.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="320" height="412" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TBRCGWT3NCg/XP0Ebt6qCLI/AAAAAAAB28g/Lb21ZWPRA7cH-9oGT6WwuI56V9bpMFd7gCLcBGAs/s640/Middle%2BBranch%2BPlan%2BHargreaves%2BJones.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hargreaves Jones interpretation of the ecological evolution of the Middle Branch. Global warming is said to be raising the sea level, but the Middle Branch is being submerged under wetlands.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-19248232022531337532019-05-27T16:03:00.001-04:002020-06-09T08:11:03.200-04:00Woodberry just got bigger - let's build on that<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's a tale of two Woodberries. In historic Woodberry, irreplaceable houses from the 1840s are being demolished. Meanwhile, new high density housing is being built in another Woodberry that nobody knew existed, where the "highest and best use" until now was the city's Stump Dump. Historic Woodberry is a highly livable transit-oriented community, while the New Woodberry is devoid of urban charm - but that's where major new development should be and is happening.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1cmwoyplWUk/XObkvhM03WI/AAAAAAAB26w/CQW61EfSTRQnDJfaQqwqaVDjlmDzk78ugCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/The%2BWoodberry.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="750" height="359" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1cmwoyplWUk/XObkvhM03WI/AAAAAAAB26w/CQW61EfSTRQnDJfaQqwqaVDjlmDzk78ugCPcBGAYYCw/w640-h359/The%2BWoodberry.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Woodberry" - a large standard-issue boxy efficient postmodern apartment<br />
building of the type which is now popular and routine throughout the city.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Real estate developers and agents are the ultimate deciders of neighborhood names and boundaries, making successful neighborhoods grow and others recede. So it is significant that the major new 283 unit apartment building on Cold Spring Lane is being called "The Woodberry" even though it is well over a half-mile from anything else in Woodberry. And that's by trail. It's over a mile away via actual streets.<br />
<br />
The city needs to build on this success and not dwell on any failure in historic Woodberry or anywhere else. But there's no sign that the city has learned this lesson.<br />
<br />
This expansion of what it means to be in Woodberry is particularly significant because the city's most affluent and coveted neighborhood, Roland Park, is actually closer to this new complex than is old Woodberry. And so is Park Heights to the east on Cold Spring Lane, which is (shall we say) reputationally challenged.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Identity crisis - Cold Spring to Woodberry</h3>
<br />
The lack of identity over the years for this stretch of Cold Spring Lane just west of the Jones Falls Expressway has not due to a lack of interest, though almost all the investment has been by the public and quasi-public sectors. Way back in the 1970s, there was a grandiose plan for an entirely "new town in town" called Cold Spring. Much of it was built, but the only part built near Cold Spring Lane was an expensive entrance road which required switchbacks to get northward to the main part of the development up a steep hill southwest of Cylburn Park.<br />
<br />
"The Woodberry" is the first new residential growth since that time. When the architectural rendering shown above was drawn, the large vertical sign on the building was going to say "Cold Spring". But perhaps the developer reconsidered upon realization that Cold Spring Lane is often mentioned in crime reports from Park Heights and other neighborhoods. Hence the latest rendering on <u>the <a href="https://kleinenterprises.com/property-item/the-woodberry/">developer's website</a></u> has the sign changed to "The Woodberry".<br />
<br />
The biggest investment in this area since the new town was the construction of the Central Light Rail line, which runs directly adjacent to the new apartment house, but with the Cold Spring station way down in a gully between the Jones Falls stream and its namesake expressway. It is not conveniently located to the new apartment house, but making it more so would have been difficult. Many proposed plans were drawn up over the years to make this a true "transit oriented" site, but they were apparently too difficult to pull off.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2K6hIUiGEhk/XOv3BFOsrsI/AAAAAAAB274/dIwNyHwRW7ErEu8b5Da-wtZsWZzOtjyCACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9907.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2K6hIUiGEhk/XOv3BFOsrsI/AAAAAAAB274/dIwNyHwRW7ErEu8b5Da-wtZsWZzOtjyCACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9907.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Construction of "The Woodberry" as seen across the Jones Falls and up the hill from the Cold Spring Light Rail Station. The project's large parking garage is now in view, but will be wrapped by the housing units.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Of course, there will be confusion when people try to explain that "The Woodberry" apartment complex is near the Cold Spring Lane light rail station, instead of near the Woodberry light rail station.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Considering the record of virtually total failure for "transit oriented development" everywhere else in Baltimore over the years, this failure is simply a recognition that unless everything is done almost perfectly, it won't work. There's very little room for error, so there's not much point in even trying.<br />
<br />
So The Woodberry is essentially going to be a large, isolated, fortress-like building wrapped around a large parking garage to get people into their cars and quickly onto the Jones Falls Expressway to go wherever they want to go.<br />
<br />
On its own terms, this project looks like a big winner: Great highway access, pretty good transit access, good security, and right next to the beautiful Jones Falls Trail. With those positives, The Woodberry's confusing name and lack of urban charm seem like mere quibbles. The politics even went smoothly by Baltimore's contentious standards. No project is perfect, so why did this one take so long to build?<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Meanwhile, back in the REAL Woodberry...</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A mile south in the real actual Woodberry neighborhood, genuine urban charm seems to have recently become a real liability. Two irreplaceable stone houses from the 1840s <u>were <a href="https://baltimorebrew.com/2019/05/21/historic-stone-houses-in-woodberry-bulldozed-this-morning/" target="_blank">surreptitiously demolished by their developer</a></u>, even while negotiating with the community for their preservation.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eJT48M65G4E/XOv3v6XBD7I/AAAAAAAB28A/OfTwiVDX_tA4j2pQOjsxXY2XjVhkSynGACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9925.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eJT48M65G4E/XOv3v6XBD7I/AAAAAAAB28A/OfTwiVDX_tA4j2pQOjsxXY2XjVhkSynGACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9925.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woodberry site where two historic stone houses were recently demolished. Also shown are three similar surviving houses, two in the background across the street and one recently renovated to the left. The light rail tracks are in the foreground.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The owner of that property must have concluded that the Woodberry "brand" was more of a state of mind than actually living in the kinds of historic buildings that had actually defined the neighborhood. This greatly upset the neighbors.<br />
<br />
The developer wanted to build high density "hipster flats" on this site, where the density is achieved not just by increasing the size of the building, but by making each unit smaller and not providing much off-street parking. This also upset many people.<br />
<br />
This illustrates a problem with "transit oriented development". It calls for a higher density of development than the existing historic buildings can often contain. Near the downtown light rail station at Howard and Lexington Streets, the city developed a plan called the "Superblock" which jeopardized many historic structures. After much controversy and delay, that plan was killed and most of the old buildings have stood vacant and rotting ever since.<br />
<br />
The city must be extremely careful about "transit oriented development" in historic neighborhoods, or it will lead to sudden unwanted demolition such as has recently happened here. The developer will still be able to build high density "hipster flats", but they will be even more out of character with the historic neighborhood, which need development controls regardless of density.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
"The Woodberry" is part of the solution for Woodberry</h3>
<br />
"The Woodberry" apartment project on Cold Spring Lane is exactly the kind of site where high density development can work. But it took almost four decades after Cold Spring New Town and three decades after the light rail line was built for the city to do it.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, it looks like the city has still not learned its lesson, by allowing historic buildings to be demolished while neglecting prime sites that are ideal for high density development.<br />
<br />
Directly across Cold Spring Lane from "The Woodberry" is a property which the city has been using as a "Stump Dump" ever since the new town project was planned. This is an even better site than that of "The Woodberry". It was precisely where the Cold Spring light rail station was originally supposed to be and could easily be relocated, and a bridge could provide safe direct access to the affluent Cross Keys and Roland Park communities and Poly-Western high school.<br />
<br />
But the City government loves its stump dump, where it can dump the stumps of all the large mature trees it chops down throughout the city to accommodate various projects. The city's de-facto plan is to replace large mature trees throughout the city with little twigs that are inadequately supported and maintained. As a nearby example, the trees in a large portion of adjacent Cylburn Park were recently chopped down to build an electric substation.<br />
<br />
This substation will make any future redevelopment of the Stump Dump less attractive, helping the city to keep its Stump Dump as long as possible. It will also increase pressure on communities like the real Woodberry to increase density by knocking down historic buildings and replacing them with "hipster flats".<br />
<br />
The city urgently needs attractive sites for high density growth that will relieve the pressure on existing communities, especially historic communities. The stump dump site would also relieve pent up pressure <u>for <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/04/stump-dump-solution-is-bridge-to-roland.html" target="_blank">development on the nearby sylvan Roland Park Country Club</a></u>. It could also provide <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/green-network-part-1-four-priority_10.html" target="_blank">path for growth toward the Pimlico racetrack site on the other side of Cylburn Park</a></u>.<br />
<br />
The city government tries to avoid expanding its horizons to grow, but The Woodberry is a project that shows the way to do it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eHtq1tG2RCs/XiXycb8TZFI/AAAAAAAB6Do/7mgwjx_c2y8bmGEQYKDe9w9DEeVfCpNtACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Woodberry.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eHtq1tG2RCs/XiXycb8TZFI/AAAAAAAB6Do/7mgwjx_c2y8bmGEQYKDe9w9DEeVfCpNtACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Woodberry.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By popular demand! Here's a context map of the relationship between "The Woodberry" apartment complex and the Woodberry neighborhood, linked by the Jones Falls Trail. The light rail line is in black. (I'm not sure what the blue line is.) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-85933509595969552172019-04-25T09:59:00.001-04:002020-06-09T08:13:15.861-04:00State should move from State Center to Metro West<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The poster child for the downtown office space glut is Metro West, the million-plus square foot complex abandoned by the Social Security Administration. The state should redevelop the Metro West white elephant for state employees rather than continuing to mess with the paper tiger at State Center, with its decades-long stalemate between rebuilding or moving out.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qtuZbSkYrho/Tazg1UnuETI/AAAAAAAABcA/ND8rk8Y6zDg0TF2Lt4MFLyKsE_xpd_59gCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/West%2BBaltimore%2B472%2B%2528880x660%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="880" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qtuZbSkYrho/Tazg1UnuETI/AAAAAAAABcA/ND8rk8Y6zDg0TF2Lt4MFLyKsE_xpd_59gCPcBGAYYCw/s640/West%2BBaltimore%2B472%2B%2528880x660%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Empty Metro West tower with lovely Heritage Crossing in the foreground. They'd be a perfect compliment for each other and would spur revitalization of surrounding neighborhoods if the big bad "Highway to Nowhere" wasn't in between.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Because of the office glut, the proposed rents for the State Center redevelopment became far in excess of the market value, which led to lawsuits from other downtown property owners and the decision by the state to pull out of the State Center deal. Now is the time for the state to finally take advantage of those lower rents at Metro West. There are plenty of things to do with the savings.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Redevelop State Center in small steps instead of the mega-plan</h3>
<br />
The bottom line is that the State Center site has inherent geographic value, while Metro West just a few blocks down MLK Boulevard is condemned to remain essentially worthless unless there is a major intervention, and the state government is probably the only entity which can do it.<br />
<br />
State Center has the advantages of two rail transit stations and being surrounded by stable neighborhoods in Bolton Hill to the north, Mount Vernon to the east, Seton Hill to the south and even McCulloh Homes to the west, which got a major vote of confidence when it was decided to retain its sorely needed low income housing rather than adding to the State Center footprint.<br />
<br />
State Center became a white elephant <b><i>because of state workers,</i></b> who stampede to get out at 5 PM instead of creating a community. The time to try to fix that with infill development such as on the parking lots was decades ago before the offices were allowed to deteriorate. But attempting to create a coexistence of bureaucrats and urban hipsters has always been a far-fetched concept that no amount of subsidy could really accomplish.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5dpNmKsSokg/WyO3tAcNzMI/AAAAAAABN9k/eGFrjKcR2egkd7U2Gk7gNHg7rjJg_6JiQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/State%2BCenter%2Baerial-revised.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1600" height="410" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5dpNmKsSokg/WyO3tAcNzMI/AAAAAAABN9k/eGFrjKcR2egkd7U2Gk7gNHg7rjJg_6JiQCPcBGAYYCw/s640/State%2BCenter%2Baerial-revised.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The scuttled State Center Plan - These office buildings look too nice for state employees, and definitely too expensive. But they'd be perfect for some rich companies if a market ever develops for them away from the waterfront. Light rail station on Howard Street is in the lower right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It's the old story of mega-project "game changers": Spend enough money and expend enough hype and you can purport to solve Baltimore's problems. Even when that strategy has been forced to work in Harbor East or Harbor Point through isolation and subsidies, it really still doesn't.<br />
<br />
The real key to resolution at State Center is simple: Incrementalism. Use minor development projects to start weaving the area into the surrounding communities. Bolton Hill is probably the easiest fix because Dolphin Street is needlessly a six lane highway fragment and can thus be tamed. There are plenty of surface parking lots that can be converted into viable activity centers. With the right infill, making parking more difficult can also be made into a plus.<br />
<br />
Some of the best development parcels are not even part of the State Center footprint, but have simply evolved to be part of the border vacuum between State Center and the surrounding communities. The recreational uses have become fortresses in themselves, which is never a good idea. Recreation should be a unifier not a divider, even if its only among "privileged" members and not the urban masses.<br />
<br />
Yes, the Bolton Hill Swim Club is a fine and exclusive institution. But it should be part of something, and not just sit in gated suburban style between the border of Bolton Hill and State Center. The Swim Club should be redeveloped as part of something larger, so that it has full-time residents who serve as permanent hosts for their friends who come visit for a swim. That's the way to weave it into the city, both socially and geographically, even if it never resembles a public swimming pool such as at Druid Hill Park.<br />
<br />
Pearlstone Park is an even clearer example. Its a dead bad location for a public park, along the precipice leading down to the Maryland Institute / Mount Royal Station gully and across from a sprawling parking garage on Cathedral Street. Much of the time, there is absolutely no activity there.<br />
<br />
The catalyst for a new incremental State Center plan may be to find a new location for Pearlstone Park, so it can be surrounded by "urban eyes" incorporated into new or existing development. Then the existing parkland can be developed in a way that truly compliments the adjacent Maryland Institute and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the dramatic overlook into the historic station in the gully.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JlZShxIMQ0I/XMB0oYTeqpI/AAAAAAAB2c4/w0yrHwbuOjIHxJ_Bsqy8laG9JPTY_bk2QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9646.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JlZShxIMQ0I/XMB0oYTeqpI/AAAAAAAB2c4/w0yrHwbuOjIHxJ_Bsqy8laG9JPTY_bk2QCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9646.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light rail station on Howard Street adjacent to the Symphony Center parking garage, with free parking which flies in the face of "Transit Oriented Development". To the left is vacuous open space.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
An ideal solution may be to weave the new park into the Symphony Center apartments just across Preston Street and its light rail station on Howard Street. This would fix two problems at once, since Symphony Center now doesn't really relate to anything. Symphony Center should have been planned as an integral Phase One of the State Center redevelopment, but instead it's just one of the city's myriad pathetic failures of "transit oriented development". Somebody with some real urban design talent should be able to create a useful active park out of the vacuous open spaces which surround this building.<br />
<br />
Other projects can also proceed on their own timetables, including the adaptive reuse of the Armory for a supermarket and/or other retail and enhancements to the University of Maryland medical system's former Maryland General Hospital, which needs a far better "public face" on MLK Boulevard across the street from the state offices.<br />
<br />
With all the transformative opportunities on the edges of State Center, what happens with the state offices at its heart will be of lesser importance. If state bureaucrats continue to occupy their allegedly squalid offices indefinitely as pawns in a larger political game and stampede to the exits daily at 5 PM, so be it. This could actually work to the area's advantage, in that the state offices occupy its most inherently valuable real estate, so waiting to redevelop it could make it more economically viable for higher densities. After all, the whole reason the State Center plan hasn't worked is bad economics.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Moving state offices to Metro West</h3>
<br />
In stark contrast to State Center, incrementalism will absolutely not work at Metro West. It was built as a fortress compound for government workers and it shows no signs that it could work for anything else. The barriers of that fortress need to come down, mainly by getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere". The building itself is similarly a massive monolith that must be dealt with as such.<br />
<br />
Caves Valley Partners, which bought the complex from the federal government at a cheap bargain auction, has tried to interest the state in the complex, so far without success. This is probably far too monumental an endeavor for any private enterprise that's much smaller than Amazon.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="A design for a 2,200-car parking garage at Metro West was rejected by UDARP Thursday." height="359" src="https://media.bizj.us/view/img/10381938/metro-west-garagesw2017-03-15*750xx1657-932-22-0.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caves Valley proposal for a big parking garage to lure a tenant to Metro West, with a huge Maryland flag draped over it to give special attention to state government. The "Highway to Nowhere" overpass above MLK Boulevard can be seen in the left background.<br /><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
But the state should be up to the task. The building itself should be in far better condition than the existing state offices, since it was maintained by the Social Security Administration which is one of the few institutions on the planet that's even bigger than Amazon. Caves Valley also proposed adding a massive new parking garage, which is the traditional response of developers everywhere in marketing properties, but that's just a sideshow.<br />
<br />
This is a situation where the customary hype for a transformative "game changer" actually applies. Getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere" would actually unleash a development momentum that would reverberate far beyond into West and Northwest Baltimore, far larger than anything that could be unleashed by State Center.<br />
<br />
This blog has provided numerous concepts for the redevelopment of the "Highway to Nowhere", but what is essential is that the transformation must be comprehensive and incorporated into the surrounding communities.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-niRMp2kUzwU/Tay4Qwih84I/AAAAAAAABvU/wHWulaZuhTUQsb9NhT7f1hXVDGdEmgRVgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/FM%2Bat%2BMLK12.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="1364" height="308" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-niRMp2kUzwU/Tay4Qwih84I/AAAAAAAABvU/wHWulaZuhTUQsb9NhT7f1hXVDGdEmgRVgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/FM%2Bat%2BMLK12.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A maximum development scenario for Metro West - Half the "Highway to Nowhere" is retained which can easily handle all the traffic, and new infill buildings are added.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b><u>R<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/12/transform-highway-to-nowhere-into-walk.html">eplacing the highway with a "Walk of History"</a></u></b> would be particularly appropriate if it was anchored by an administrative seat of state government at Metro West.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><u>M<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/metro-west-should-become-heritage.html">etro West is also adjacent to the beautiful Heritage Crossing neighborhood</a></u></b> which absolutely needs to be integrated with its crumbling and dysfunctional surroundings as well as with downtown, whereas next door to State Center, Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon are already doing well on their own and are not worried about their very survival.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H0EhO9EJxjQ/RwKGsbYknpI/AAAAAAAABus/YoR15FSK5owKjLv-FvXVF3D85vXgSN84QCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Lafayette%2BSquare%2B022.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H0EhO9EJxjQ/RwKGsbYknpI/AAAAAAAABus/YoR15FSK5owKjLv-FvXVF3D85vXgSN84QCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Lafayette%2BSquare%2B022.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upton Mansion near Heritage Crossing - There have been many renovation proposals, but it just keeps crumbling.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Many plans have been put forth for nearby buildings such as the abandoned Upton Mansion and portions of Upton and Lafayette Square, but without a major boost in surrounding property value, the benefits are starkly limited.<br />
<br />
Government facilitated the demise of West Baltimore by building the "Highway to Nowhere", so government is the institution that should end it and mend it. And in the forty years since the completion of the highway, only government has built anything in the corridor while the rest of the land has stayed empty. So government is the only logical occupant for Metro West.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, both Metro West and State Center will grow and flourish as little or as much as their economic value allows. At State Center, this process can begin by identifying limited viable projects right now. In contrast, Metro West is a place where only major change can launch the growth and development process that can spread throughout northwest Baltimore. A decision to move the state offices from State Center to Metro West is the major change that would get that process going.<br />
<br /></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-54503470925961285682019-03-29T10:11:00.007-04:002020-10-05T15:50:04.357-04:00An easy-access regional gateway for Patapsco Park<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Regional parks are getaways from urban and suburban life, but too often they either bring the crowding and congestion along with them or else the quiet and solitude is just too hard to get to. At peak times, Patapsco Valley State Park suffers from both problems. It's an important local getaway, but it needs an efficient gateway.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fsph-EOl8XM/X3kPhcImGBI/AAAAAAAB80I/rYMDg-AP7_AowUNKOQ_ngd_fl-I_hB8FwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1116/Patapsco%2BPark%2BSoapstone%2Bext%2Bwith%2Btrees.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1116" height="362" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fsph-EOl8XM/X3kPhcImGBI/AAAAAAAB80I/rYMDg-AP7_AowUNKOQ_ngd_fl-I_hB8FwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h362/Patapsco%2BPark%2BSoapstone%2Bext%2Bwith%2Btrees.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Proposed Patapsco Park Gateway where a parking lot is now located at the unfinished end of I-195 at Rolling Road. Patapsco Park now occupies the top area in graphic below (Soapstone Trail), and would be expanded into the green shaded area currently part of I-195, with its southbound roadway shifted to the red line next to the northbound roadway.</b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7G-UEllTfnA/XQBFCdQS9bI/AAAAAAAB2-g/3azE_PcoKdYYYAfOPdv_niEWQTg4Hf90QCLcBGAs/s1600/Patapsco%2BPark%2BI-195%2BUpgrade%2B13.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1116" height="362" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7G-UEllTfnA/XQBFCdQS9bI/AAAAAAAB2-g/3azE_PcoKdYYYAfOPdv_niEWQTg4Hf90QCLcBGAs/s640/Patapsco%2BPark%2BI-195%2BUpgrade%2B13.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Patapsco Park's current major gateway is a long road off South Street off US Route 1 (Washington Boulevard) near the Relay community. It leads through a "toll booth" and eventually to a fairly large parking lot, near the river and major trails central to the Avalon Area. While this gateway is rather obscure and difficult to find for first timers, it is still "too popular" at peak times. The parking lot fills up quickly on nice weather weekends and then there's no escape valve where overflow traffic can go. What is needed is a more prominent gateway with easy access for as many people as possible, which can handle overflows as easily as possible.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the solution to this problem also addresses other challenges - expanding the reach of the park, extending it towards nearby communities and dealing with the vestiges of I-195, an interstate highway also known as Metropolitan Boulevard whose proposed extension threatened the park in a battle that lasted from the 1970s until fairly recently. It was only in 2011 during ongoing discussions of chronic congestion on Rolling Road (MD Route 166) northward through Catonsville that all parties finally agreed to rule out any future extension of I-195, since it would merely destroy more of the park and push the congestion to any new terminus point such as along Frederick Road between Catonsville and Ellicott City.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Converting an unfinished highway interchange into a gateway</h3>
<br />
The ideal place for a regional gateway hub for Patapsco Park is the triangular parking lot which was built inside the unfinished interchange of Interstate 195 and Rolling Road, where communities and activists made clear that the highway should not be extended any farther. Even though this "park-and-ride" lot is located right on the edge of the park, it is totally surrounded by highways and ramps and thus has no relationship to the park. One of the park's longest trails, Soapstone Trail, is located nearby but is totally hidden and difficult to find.<br />
<br />
The simple solution is to build a permanent ending for Interstate 195 at Rolling Road so that it no longer resembles an unfinished interchange, and no longer surrounds and engulfs the parking lot. The park and the Soapstone Trail can then be easily expanded adjacent to the parking lot and the trail head can be made as visible as necessary.<br />
<br />
The way to do this is to get rid of the ramp which now serves as the beginning of southbound Interstate 195, and replace it with a southbound roadway adjacent to northbound roadway, thus consolidating all I-195 traffic in one place. The eliminated ramp can then be replaced with parkland for the extended Soapstone Trail, right next to the parking lot, which will still have convenient and prominent access from I-195 and Rolling Road on the other two sides.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JLCFoCJnfzA/XQA11czdbVI/AAAAAAAB2-I/ucZVyWdMcv8Xttrr3KGhp-4u0SyYGgXGACLcBGAs/s1600/Patapsco%2BPark%2BI-195%2BUpgrade%2B11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JLCFoCJnfzA/XQA11czdbVI/AAAAAAAB2-I/ucZVyWdMcv8Xttrr3KGhp-4u0SyYGgXGACLcBGAs/s640/Patapsco%2BPark%2BI-195%2BUpgrade%2B11.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 12.8px;">Plan view (to scale) of the proposed gateway. The green shaded area is currently southbound I-195 and would be converted to parkland. Southbound I-195 would be consolidated with northbound I-195 on the red line. The yellow line is an extension of the park's Soapstone Trail (lower left) through the new parkland to the Cera Trail in the UMBC campus (upper and lower right).</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
Expanding the park's "grasp" to UMBC, Arbutus and eventually Baltimore</h3>
<br />
The Soapstone trail can then be extended further eastward beyond the parking lot to proceed under Interstate 195 at its underpass along UMBC Boulevard. It can then connect to the Cera Trail within the UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) campus and to the Arbutus community, thus extending the "grasp" of the park.<br />
<br />
Getting the trail safely across UMBC Boulevard may require further attention. UMBC Blvd has recently had two "traffic calming" roundabouts installed, but that may not provide sufficient relief in the area closer to I-195. Since trail users would only need to cross one lane at a time, traffic "chokers" that neck the roadway down to a width of only about 12 feet may provide the necessary visibility and safety. The portion of Rolling Road with its trail crossing has slower traffic, so a similar solution should almost certainly work there.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The establishment of such a prominent gateway for Patapsco Park would open up other opportunities. Signage to the park from nearby Interstate 95, the main street of the entire Northeast U.S. Corridor, would be straightforward and highly effective. An Information Center in the parking lot could become a very worthwhile project.<br />
<br />
Right now, visitors have difficulty confronting the huge sprawling size of Patapsco Valley Park. The park extends about twenty miles, from the Avalon area near Relay northwestward to the McKeldin Area near Sykesville in Carroll County. This gateway would be commensurate to the vastness of the park itself.<br />
<br />
Patapsco Park should keep growing in the future, expanding by another six miles or so eastward through the Halethorpe Area to Southwest Park and finally to Reedbird and Middle Branch Parks in Baltimore City, which is where the river's mouth flows into the Chesapeake Bay.<br />
<br />
Transforming an essentially useless Interstate highway stub into a park gateway, where citizens banded together to prevent the highway from destroying the park, is also exactly what is needed where Interstate 70 ends at Leakin Park in West Baltimore and Baltimore County. A Patapsco Valley Park gateway would thus be an ideal model for a similar gateway for Leakin Park.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Thanks to Jim Himel for his contributions to this article.</i></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-41282822006729103722019-02-26T08:23:00.000-05:002019-02-26T08:23:26.135-05:00MagLev better at Patapsco Hill Station than BWI Airport<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
An international consortium wants to build a 300 mph Magnetic Levitation train line northward from Washington, DC to Baltimore - for reasons that have practically nothing to do with Baltimore. That's how they came up with the rather strange idea of <u>putting <a href="https://www.bwmaglev.info/images/document_library/reports/alternatives_report/SCMAGLEV_Alts_Report_Body-Append-A-B-C_Nov2018.pdf">Baltimore's station in Cherry Hill</a></u> of all places. If that doesn't succeed, they'll shrug it off as just a first phase prototype misstep and they'll remain focused on the ultimate prize of getting Maglev to New York and then to the rest of the country, while only Baltimore pays for their failure. So it's up to Baltimore to make it work.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6XARDMEevg/V96jOklOYLI/AAAAAAAAD_o/9Y4eFUTPv3gfw0TN4_GaAwUOnRDZoky1gCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Patapsco%2BHill%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6XARDMEevg/V96jOklOYLI/AAAAAAAAD_o/9Y4eFUTPv3gfw0TN4_GaAwUOnRDZoky1gCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Patapsco%2BHill%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patapsco River and Southwest Park as seen from Interstate 895 (lower right),<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">a possible </span>Maglev<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> oriented </span>Patapsco<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> Hill skyline shown in the background.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The obvious reason why the Maglev planners are focused on Cherry Hill is that it is the least expensive option. The station can be built above ground, with light rail access along with barely adequate ramps to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. This project would certainly be a major shake-up to the community, as opportunistic new Maglev related high-end development would attempt to coexist with the current lower income residents, which would no doubt result in a serious culture clash.<br />
<br />
The official plan also calls for an additional underground station at Thurgood Marshall BWI Airport, to demonstrate the connectivity of Maglev to the international air network. This would show that Maglev is "world class".<br />
<br />
No one really knows how the relationship between Maglev and air travel will ultimately shake out, but at least the world community would be able to identify with it. Many of them will want to use Maglev from BWI when they visit the nation's capital, and this will provide a great exposure to America's version of this state-of-the-art technology.<br />
<br />
But ironically, many people see Maglev from the opposite perspective - as a way to significantly reduce air travel in order to reduce air congestion and global greenhouse gasses. So using Maglev to serve air travelers who would then be lured away from air travel would be a contradictory short term solution at best.<br />
<br />
Success would not be measured by how well Maglev serves BWI, but simply by how well it leads to the next step. No ridership projections have yet been published and they would be highly questionable anyway, since there is no real precedent.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, any major new transportation mode becomes its own cultural force, which reshapes the world in its own way. Starting in the 1950s, the new commercial airline industry created the "jet set" of frequent flyers for whom the entire world was their domain. Similarly, automobile travel was creating suburbia.<br />
<br />
So what Maglev eventually does has yet to be determined. MagLev could create a new generation of affluent world citizens who live and work in a place like Baltimore, do business in Washington and regularly go to New York for high energy urban mingling and fun. This would be a welcome relief from a Baltimore that some critics say is forever mired in the rust belt.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Baltimore must look after Baltimore</h3>
<br />
So it's a golden opportunity for Baltimore to be the nation's first MagLev destination, but in the big picture, what ultimately happens to Baltimore will be of little concern to Maglev planners. Trip patterns will simply conform to demands. In the future, trains will be able to whiz through Baltimore without stopping on their way from Washington to New York if that's what the demand dictates, resulting in time and cost savings which will become the bottom line.<br />
<br />
So Maglev planners want to build a BWI Airport Station and a prototypical "real world" station in Baltimore, and they want to build them at the lowest possible cost. So that's what they've designed with the proposed Cherry Hill Station, on an odd vacant parcel under a power line right-of-way. Back in 2007, I proposed <u>this <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2007/04/greyhound-bus-station.html">site for a new Greyhound Bus station</a>.</u> The powers-that-be didn't think it was good enough for Greyhound then, but now it may be good enough for Maglev.<br />
<br />
They've also offered a workable but much higher cost alternative with a station at Camden Yards instead of Cherry Hill. This serves Baltimore's desire for a much stronger local Maglev presence, but it does not appear to meet any of the primary needs of the Maglev planners for the system as a whole. So the Maglev investors will likely treat it as a frill which they will build only if it is paid for by others. So far, the State of Maryland has seen no reason to pledge money to the Maglev project.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, local reactions to the Maglev project have started polarizing as an either/or choice between "jet set" Maglev and priorities for more localized transit needs. But local versus regional transit is a false choice, since Maglev underwriters don't really care about local needs. So local planners must propose alternatives which make them care.<br />
<br />
Here are the primary guidelines for resolving this conflict:<br />
<br />
1. The desired Maglev access to BWI Airport should be provided, but it does not need to be great access. Air travel has many access constraints from security procedures to air congestion. The time savings from high speed Maglev access can and will be very readily eaten up by waits in the security lines or circling the airport. Maglev must not pretend to be some kind of solution to air travel's problems.<br />
<br />
2. The initial Baltimore Maglev station should be planned to maximize its positive local impact at the lowest cost. Just being feasible is not enough.<br />
<br />
3. Even though the city's ultimate goal should be to establish <u>the <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/10/baltimores-maglev-station-must-be.html">best possible downtown Maglev station</a></u>, since this is the chief criterion for long-term success, this probably needs to be a battle for a later time. There simply is no way that an adequate downtown station (such as has been proposed at Camden Yards, or at the Mechanic Theater or Post Office sites) can be built for a comparable cost to the lowest cost alternative. Consequently, the cheaper Cherry Hill station site would be seen as "close enough" to downtown by the project investors, even though it really isn't close enough by any reasonable local standard.<br />
<br />
So a less expensive and more effective alternative to Cherry Hill is needed.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JBHXrGw25dQ/V968Ac3GsOI/AAAAAAAAEAA/0OWoIKExMEo_Ep3KZpEAlmerN8nh7SB2QCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Patapsco%2BHill%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JBHXrGw25dQ/V968Ac3GsOI/AAAAAAAAEAA/0OWoIKExMEo_Ep3KZpEAlmerN8nh7SB2QCPcBGAYYCw/s640/Patapsco%2BHill%2B4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Possible future Patapsco Hill development, just to the south (right) of Patapsco Avenue,<br />
with its light rail station in the lower right and Cherry Hill neighborhood to the east (left). </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Best and lowest cost Maglev station site: Patapsco Hill</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<u>P<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-next-port-covington-could-be.html">atapsco Hill</a></u> is a huge, hidden and largely forgotten site which is now occupied by an ugly, marginal truck storage yard on Patapsco Avenue at the south city line, adjacent to Southwest Park in Baltimore County. It also has two light rail stations which provide direct service to BWI Airport and downtown and is adjacent to Interstate 895.<br />
<br />
This site also happens to be shown in the masthead photo at the top of this blog. The greenery in the foreground at the bottom of the photo is Southwest Park. The shiny mass behind the park is the truck yard, underneath the downtown Baltimore skyline in the background. The Baltimore Highlands neighborhood can be easily seen to the left.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The configuration of the park is such that the MagLev Station could easily be built underground using the most efficient top-down or cut-and-cover technique recommended by the engineers, and when completed, the park could be restored and greatly enhanced on top of it. The light rail line could even be buried and integrated along with the MagLev line at little additional cost, providing the best and most seamless possible connections. The truck yard along Patapsco Avenue would then be a major opportunity for Maglev oriented development, minimizing negative impacts on the existing Baltimore Highlands and Cherry Hill communities.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The two light rail stations would be located at either end of the Maglev station. At the south end, the Baltimore Highlands Station would provide the main connection to BWI Airport, while the Patapsco Avenue Station at the north end would connect to the new development and the existing feeder bus terminal. The current light rail travel time to the airport terminal is 15 minutes, and this could be reduced by several more minutes by eliminating several station stops which many folks in the community want to get rid of anyway. Trains to Cromwell/Glen Burnie could still stop at these stations if desired.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3_OwGuziH7w/V964sdBQI6I/AAAAAAAAD_w/X6NN_xxfEDAHcbkyUvuxLAx_0-P-IlfDACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Patapsco%2BHill%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3_OwGuziH7w/V964sdBQI6I/AAAAAAAAD_w/X6NN_xxfEDAHcbkyUvuxLAx_0-P-IlfDACPcBGAYYCw/s640/Patapsco%2BHill%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patapsco Hill Maglev Station could be built here underneath Southwest Park,<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> along with</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> Baltimore Highlands light rail station relocated from its current site shown in the foreground.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
A Patapsco Hill Maglev Station would be uniquely convenient to the airport, as well as to both downtown Washington and Baltimore. It would thus stimulate related development in a way that no other site could.<br />
<br />
It would also stimulate spin-off development at the long-stalled Westport waterfront located two light rail stops to the north,. Beyond that, it could create an impetus for an entire Maglev oriented development corridor along the existing light rail line, as well as potential new light rail loop to Port Covington and to the Cherry Hill and Brooklyn waterfronts. Baltimore would then be in a position to grow as an integral part of the new Maglev culture as it expands from Washington to New York and beyond.<br />
<br />
This light rail loop concept was <u>first <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/big-port-covington-needs-even-bigger.html">described here</a></u> as a longer version of the Port Covington spur which has been proposed by Under Armour's development company. A Maglev station at Patapsco Hill would justify completing the loop so that its riders would have a direct ride between Port Covington, the Maglev station and BWI Airport.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_NmPXcKSGMg/XHRknrIsyQI/AAAAAAAB2Fs/MnMVOimvzbEIdC1jGsnQVg8nIruYMBMmgCLcBGAs/s1600/Maglev%2BLight%2BRail%2BCorridor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_NmPXcKSGMg/XHRknrIsyQI/AAAAAAAB2Fs/MnMVOimvzbEIdC1jGsnQVg8nIruYMBMmgCLcBGAs/s640/Maglev%2BLight%2BRail%2BCorridor.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maglev-Light Rail Development Corridor, encompassing Patapsco Hill, Brooklyn, Cherry Hill,<br />
Westport and Port Covington. Existing light rail is shown in blue, and proposed loop in yellow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Patapsco Hill would be the lowest cost Maglev alternative, since it would completely eliminate the BWI Airport station and would be over a mile shorter than the Cherry Hill route. It would also facilitate a far more direct alignment as the Maglev line is eventually extended northward toward New York.<br />
<br />
In contrast, an elevated Cherry Hill Maglev Station would create a major alignment problem as it descends back underground to the north, requiring a huge portal which would occupy a large piece of land, most likely along the Westport waterfront. This issue has not been addressed in the most recent Maglev report and could be a fatal flaw of the Cherry Hill station. Even if it isn't fatal, it would seriously reduce the potential development sites available without displacement from the existing communities.<br />
<br />
In contrast, a Patapsco Avenue Maglev Station and light rail spur would open up a huge amount of <u>prime <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/09/top-ten-sites-for-amazons-east-coast.html">waterfront development property in Cherry Hill and Brooklyn</a></u>, with the additional attribute of remaining in close proximity to large lower income working class populations, which is something that cannot be said for most of Baltimore's current growth areas which have perpetuated the "Two Baltimores" segregation.<br />
<br />
And incidentally: That link is to a post in the context of presenting alternate sites for Amazon's East Coast headquarters. Now that Northern Virginia has won that competition and New York has blown it, a Baltimore site within a 15 minute Maglev ride of Washington would become Amazon's next best choice. With the New York debacle, Amazon (and Mayor Pugh) should now have a new appreciation for the local support which Amazon received from Baltimore communities (most notably Old Goucher).<br />
<br />
The Patapsco Hill Station site is also far enough from downtown that it would not preclude an additional station near the heart of Downtown Baltimore when the Maglev line is eventually extended northward. <u>The <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-shot-tower-maglev-station-would.html">Shot Tower / Post Office site as recommended here</a></u> would be an ideal complement, since it is at the opposite end of downtown.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Getting Maglev moving</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The most important priority must simply be to get the Maglev project moving. The international investors see the entire United States as a fertile "blank slate" for their technology, unencumbered by competition from conventional high speed rail which already has a stronghold in Europe and East Asia. The existing Amtrak Northeast Corridor line would be complimentary, not competitive, since its inherent speeds will remain far slower. Amtrak's main advantage will always be that it has far more stations and will thus accommodate much shorter trips than Maglev.</div>
<br />
As its first destination, Baltimore needs to play an integral role in getting Maglev going and determining what benefits Maglev can provide. The city's geographic place has always been it's greatest strength.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
A Maglev station at Patapsco Hill is where this role can best be played at minimum cost and maximum benefit.</div>
</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-66944086870351388622019-01-25T09:31:00.004-05:002023-12-29T17:20:33.015-05:00Fixing Preston Gardens to create a true neighborhood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Downtown has recently been touted as experiencing a transformation from just an employment and tourist destination to being a true neighborhood. But such a transformation will require much more than just a collection of new and converted residential buildings.<br />
<br />
The basic problem was defined in an excellent <u>Sun <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0104-downtown-baltimore-20190103-story.html" target="_blank">op-ed article on January 4, written by Bill King</a></u>, President of the City Center Residents Association. In a nutshell, downtown's new residents are tending to huddle inside their luxury apartments with their on-site amenities, thus conceding the streets to the heavy traffic, squeegee kids and whatever. What downtown needs to become a true neighborhood is its own outdoor communal living room that doesn't feel like a vestige of the office population that abandons it in the evening.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zXZWCYvV5oc/XEodnYnGIvI/AAAAAAABRHY/ScJ7oIe3_PknseGmU85ZxaYi1uIS4qF3ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9859.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zXZWCYvV5oc/XEodnYnGIvI/AAAAAAABRHY/ScJ7oIe3_PknseGmU85ZxaYi1uIS4qF3ACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9859.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preston Garden's winding stairways are art in themselves and the buildings frame the space in a way that is reminiscent of New York's Central Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The ideal place to create such a living room would be Preston Gardens - an airy and in some ways elegant five block linear park located along downtown's the new residential spine between Light Street in the Inner Harbor, northward to the signature art deco masterpiece at Ten Light Street, and onward to St.Paul Street toward the traditional historic Mount Vernon neighborhood. Preston Gardens is probably the closest that Baltimore gets to having its own version of New York's Central Park. But the problem is that Preston Gardens simply doesn't work.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Am68oIV7S9w/XEfQZ2rMmrI/AAAAAAABQ1k/Z9Wh2X4PC2seJJmjwf8WP8VjEnUKKciigCLcBGAs/s1600/Preston%2BGardens.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Am68oIV7S9w/XEfQZ2rMmrI/AAAAAAABQ1k/Z9Wh2X4PC2seJJmjwf8WP8VjEnUKKciigCLcBGAs/s640/Preston%2BGardens.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">South block of Preston Gardens between Lexington and Saratoga is in no way a garden or a park.<br />
It's a pair of triangular islands defining huge intersections that only serves to cut Preston Gardens off from downtown.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Part of Preston Gardens has even had a recent makeover, although that didn't even attempt to address any of the inherent issues that prevent it from being a successful urban space. The renovation was on the two blocks of upper St. Paul between Saratoga and Mulberry, which are isolated from the rest of the corridor and not critical to making it work as a whole. So at best, the makeover turned out to be a blown opportunity.<br />
<br />
Preston Garden's biggest ongoing urban design disaster is its southernmost block, south of Saratoga to Lexington Street, and closest to the center of downtown. This block consists of one vast confusing intersection at Lexington, some head-in parking, and two isolated triangular traffic islands. The two triangles are "green space" that's supposed to be parkland, but they are almost impossible to get to, and they're so barren that there's no reason to go there anyway.<br />
<br />
Since this is block that's closest to most of downtown, it serves as an extremely uninviting gateway that destroys the accessibility and tone of the entire five block park which extends to the north.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tjMKDPqM7EU/XEofEPDGe4I/AAAAAAABRHk/-yAiFS_R1N4GsU9_4YJ3PxWaK_8EQP7MACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9891.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tjMKDPqM7EU/XEofEPDGe4I/AAAAAAABRHk/-yAiFS_R1N4GsU9_4YJ3PxWaK_8EQP7MACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9891.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This triangular island is the isolated and extremely uninviting gateway to Preston Gardens from the heart of downtown. It needs to be enlarged so that its slopes can be resolved in creative ways to provide pedestrian access across the streets and to the upper and lower sections beyond to the north.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The solution</h3>
<div>
</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<img border="0" data-original-height="944" data-original-width="431" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--cBX9ubbUb8/XEegu-j0gmI/AAAAAAABQ1Y/xrh-gCbatN8BC2gEv1WzyyeyqhMsPKYhQCLcBGAs/s1600/Preston%2BGardens%2Bmod.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proposed realignment of the intersection of Upper and Lower<br />
St. Paul and Lexington Streets to create a larger, usable and<br />
more accessible park space at the south gateway to Preston<br />
Gardens. Potential crosswalks are shown by the red lines.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To key to making this southernmost block of Preston Gardens work is to shift the eastern leg of Lexington Street northward to create a reasonably compact and conventional intersection that pedestrians can actually cross safely.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This would then allow the triangular island which extends northward to Saratoga Street to be widened so that it can become useful parkland.</div>
<br />
The slope of this triangle will provide both a challenge and an opportunity for its design as parkland. It needs to provide paths for users to both the upper and lower sections of Preston Gardens, thus creating a unifying whole. This is the only place in the five block park where this can be done.<br />
<br />
As park users traverse between this area and the north, they should be able to use the grade change to comfortably choose whether they want to be in the upper or lower area. This would also be facilitated if Saratoga Street can be closed within the park, making it a seamless experience. This depends on resolving traffic circulation issues.<br />
<br />
Parking also needs to be addressed. It should not be allowed in places where it encroaches on the available parkland, but there are also places where it is currently banned but could be allowed to create a buffer between the park and the moving traffic.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Traffic Patterns</h3>
<br />
Traffic volumes in this area seem to be subjectively very high, but this is more a function of the conflicts between the various traffic streams than their actual numbers. The cross street, Lexington (in the lower middle of the graphic above), actually has a very low traffic volume, but since it intersects St. Paul right at the spot where its upper and lower roadways converge, the impact of the conflicts is much greater than the volumes would indicate.<br />
<br />
A traffic study would be necessary to determine exactly how to accommodate traffic in a way that enables the Preston Gardens parkland to actually serve users and pedestrians, but the key requirement is to resolve the separation of the two legs of Lexington Street to the west and east sides of St. Paul Street from each other.<br />
<br />
The west leg of Lexington needs to be to be taken out of the St. Paul intersection altogether, greatly simplifying and consolidating its operation. This should be do-able because Lexington to the west consists of only a single block to Charles Street, and doesn't exist in Charles Center beyond that. So there is no actual thru traffic. Options would be to make Lexington one-way westbound, or to require eastbound traffic to make a mandatory right turn onto southbound St. Paul.<br />
<br />
The next issue is what to do with Saratoga Street (near the top of the graphic at right). Its traffic volume is also rather low. The largest cross street volume is probably the eastbound (left to right) zig-zag movement from Saratoga to Lexington, which would be accommodated far better in the proposed relocated and consolidated Lexington intersection. The other Saratoga Street movements can be addressed on a case by case basis. Most of Saratoga east of Charles was once one-way eastbound, with westbound movements added through later tweaks, so there is flexibility.<br />
<br />
But the most important traffic issue is accommodating pedestrians. The steep topography in this area would be best resolved by closing this small portion of Saratoga altogether, and diverting this traffic elsewhere.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Creating an Inner Harbor to Mount Vernon Greenway</h3>
<br />
The goal of urban design for Preston Gardens should be to make it an integral part of the corridor that extends all the way from the Inner Harbor, the city's anchor and premiere attraction, to Mount Vernon, the city's most classic traditional downtown neighborhood. This will enable downtown to take its new place as a full fledged residential neighborhood in its own right.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zW2sqttD8S4/XEsTdyywNrI/AAAAAAABRIQ/Ssik-JbZNY09HPv7YM4jPyLXK_OHV6WoQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9863.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zW2sqttD8S4/XEsTdyywNrI/AAAAAAABRIQ/Ssik-JbZNY09HPv7YM4jPyLXK_OHV6WoQCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9863.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preston Garden's pedestrian pathway just ends when it gets to the underpass under the Orleans Street Viaduct, an absurd arrangement that has been allowed to exist for over 80 years. There is plenty of room to extend the sidewalk inside the underpass because there is no need for four traffic lanes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Besides the problems discussed above at the southern end of Preston Gardens, there is also a serious problem at the north end, caused by the imposition of the Orleans Street Viaduct built over eighty years ago. The viaduct was just plopped over Preston Gardens, cutting off its pedestrian paths. But it is a relatively simple matter to restore these connections and narrow the St. Paul underpass and improve its lighting to accommodate pedestrian spaces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DkYCjDPmxYY/XEohhrI7rJI/AAAAAAABRHw/mjibC00cUOE1T6RemYg5ryh1Xi0s3WlFgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9892.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DkYCjDPmxYY/XEohhrI7rJI/AAAAAAABRHw/mjibC00cUOE1T6RemYg5ryh1Xi0s3WlFgCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9892.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extremely spacious brand new sidewalk on Light Street half-way between Preston Gardens and the Inner Harbor. The art deco Ten Light Street apartments are just across the street at the extreme right (with the red banner). Looking south is the very slender high rise Questar Tower in the Inner Harbor background.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Urban design is more of an art than an applied science, so it is beyond the scope of this technical approach. But clearly among the main strategies is to think comprehensively, rather than on a place-by-place basis. Traffic planners can help design the necessary physical linkages, and the urban designers can then provide design themes and create uniform motifs for things like sidewalk materials, benches and other street furniture and hotel drop-off areas.<br />
<br />
In contrast, the city's recent impetuous demolition of the McKeldin Fountain demonstrates the "destroy first, plan later" approach. The huge fountain and its appurtenances were demolished because a few people didn't like it, even though its original purpose (if not its execution) were exactly what was needed - creating a large physical attraction to attract attention beyond the harbor itself. Most recently, the new urban space which replaced the McKeldin Fountain has been used as a snow dumping area, a fenced junk storage area, and an impromptu parking area for a lucky few privileged parkers.<br />
<br />
In any event, the surviving McKeldin Park still provides an opportunity to create a successful urban park space suitable for the new downtown residents, as opposed to tourists, taking advantage of opportunities to fix the traffic patterns on Light Street and narrow its street widths.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KJIs61Ubv5A/V3ujbkFUp6I/AAAAAAAADh4/MmLW6ocqBcY40gJOWtgnyhvv4dlofcxygCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/McKeldin%2BPark%2BPlan16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KJIs61Ubv5A/V3ujbkFUp6I/AAAAAAAADh4/MmLW6ocqBcY40gJOWtgnyhvv4dlofcxygCPcBGAYYCw/s640/McKeldin%2BPark%2BPlan16.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Above is my concept for the Inner Harbor portion of the greenway, separating the high volume Light-to-Conway connection from the Light Street thru traffic, described in blog posts<b><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/get-rid-of-wide-light-street-from-past.html" target="_blank">here</a></u></b> <u><b>and <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-new-park-from-questar-tower-to.html" target="_blank">here</a></b></u>. This greenway would be separate from the Inner Harbor in order to have its own personality, linked more to the nearby residential communities, including the new Questar Tower, Harbor Court, Otterbein and South Baltimore.<br />
<br />
In his Sun article, Mr. King cites Harbor East as the model for creating a viable neighborhood in the central core of downtown. But each neighborhood needs to have its own distinct personality, and not be merely an imitation. People want to live in downtown Baltimore because it is unique and has historic character and architecture that Harbor East does not have. The city simply needs to take advantage of it.<br />
<br />
<i>This is my 200th post on Baltimore InnerSpace - whew - </i><br />
<i>Here's what I said about<b><u> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2007/01/preston-gardens.html" target="_blank">Preston Gardens way back in January 2007.</a></u></b></i><br />
<i><b> </b>(not all that much different)</i></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-46219523325703293522018-12-19T08:58:00.000-05:002018-12-19T09:58:18.387-05:00Pimlico poised to repeat success of Camden Yards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Populous, the lead planner for the new Pimlico Racetrack, is the same firm that designed Oriole Park at Camden Yards in the late 1980s. That's the ballpark that revolutionized baseball, and now along with a planning team orchestrated by the Maryland Stadium Authority, they're set to do it again. The key is planning for real people in a real community and city, not just for horse players.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kdvDfA5KpN8/XBmEC7k6y-I/AAAAAAABQ0U/blzp2EiDFHYedoizjkE7PAP8Oc_CBJgFgCLcBGAs/s1600/Pimlico-conceptualized-drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="563" height="343" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kdvDfA5KpN8/XBmEC7k6y-I/AAAAAAABQ0U/blzp2EiDFHYedoizjkE7PAP8Oc_CBJgFgCLcBGAs/s640/Pimlico-conceptualized-drawing.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The proposed Pimlico plan, oriented to the local street grid and providing numerous development sites.<br />
Northern Parkway and Mount Washington are to the left (north), while Park Heights is to the top,<br />
beyond Belvedere Avenue and to the right beyond Winner Avenue. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<u>T<a href="https://www.mdstad.com/studies/pimlico-race-course-study-phase-1-2" target="_blank">he new Pimlico plan</a></u> is a recognition of economic reality, not some romantic notion of what horse players want or just another huge politically driven subsidy giveaway. Such a subsidy giveaway is what happens now at the Laurel Racetrack, where a tiny portion of the public gets big league subsidized prize purses for its minor league sport. History and need demand that money and attention should be rightly directed to Pimlico.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The Preakness drives everything</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The real big money action is with the Preakness Stakes, Baltimore's annual Super Bowl of horse racing that attracts world-wide attention. In contrast, the rank-and-file horse players see The Preakness as just a diversion. But to the public at large, and the people throughout the nation and the world who define Maryland's public image, the Preakness is everything. So The Preakness is what defines and drives the new Pimlico plan.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Yes, the Preakness is only once a year. Therefore, Pimlico should be redesigned for activities that cater to people who want to be at the home of the Preakness on the other 364 days, not just to people who want to attend horse races on some of those 364 days. That's the huge distinction.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The Stronach Group can continue to run Laurel Racetrack for its small niche of horse players if they wish, but the State of Maryland needs to put its dedicated subsidy money into Pimlico, driven by the annual world class Preakness event. Or Stronach can support Pimlico with this funding instead of Laurel. Either way, the state's subsidies will support the Maryland horse industry and the world class Preakness event that drives the city and state's image.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://f44c4d152f9b04bcde94-53259ab646af1d6d029cfc8d2d093f08.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/Pimlico-rendering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://f44c4d152f9b04bcde94-53259ab646af1d6d029cfc8d2d093f08.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/Pimlico-rendering.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pimlico plan, showing the racetrack related infrastructure, including the multi-purpose clubhouse<br />
and streets that would extend thru the track infield when not closed for events.<br />
Also shown to the upper left is a concept for the Lifebridge campus extension into the site.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Pimlico's geography</h3>
<br />
Currently, Pimlico has an image of being in the midst of a scary crime-ridden ghetto, but this is totally opposite from what the area's inherent geography provides, which is ripe for redefinition. The race track is currently just plopped down in a manner that isn't oriented to anything, so people create geographic associations in their own minds. The Park Heights neighborhood is nearby and regularly gets bad publicity when bad things happen, so Pimlico's image suffers in tandem.<br />
<br />
Of course, that's a huge problem with Baltimore in general, and the only way to fix it is to actually make the geography work better. Just like Pimlico, Baltimore has areas with better images and with worse images. Pimlico happens to be adjacent to the affluent Mount Washington neighborhood, the prosperous Sinai/Lifebridge health campus and the unsung but beautiful Levindale neighborhood. Even the Cylburn Arboretum, Jones Falls Valley and the city's premiere Roland Park neighborhood are relatively close and can provide support. These provide the raw material to make the geography work.<br />
<br />
In my previous Pimlico posts, I tried to devise ways to reorient the racetrack to take better advantage of its geography, but I missed the simplest and most direct way to do it. I assumed that the orientation of the track itself was fixed, in order to retain any remaining historic architectural elements which may need to be preserved.<br />
<br />
But the Pimlico planning team and its plan participants wisely concluded that the most crucial part of its history was simply being where it is - the geography. It is the land itself that is special and unique to the century of history for which Pimlico is known.<br />
<br />
All the planners had to do to take advantage of that was simply rotate the racetrack by 35 degrees, to reorient it to the surrounding urban street grid, so that a development plan could be devised to create suitable transitions to the communities. That way, all that is good and special with Pimlico and with the communities can flow together. The history of one becomes the history of all.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V9GGtqci1vM/XBmBlnpqNHI/AAAAAAABQ0I/zA7r4xcbFiYLLq9ZQfoo6m_VGN50X_KrgCLcBGAs/s1600/Pimlico-districts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="615" height="522" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V9GGtqci1vM/XBmBlnpqNHI/AAAAAAABQ0I/zA7r4xcbFiYLLq9ZQfoo6m_VGN50X_KrgCLcBGAs/s640/Pimlico-districts.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pimlico site plan, showing proposed development and streets through the infield. "P" is retail center off<br />
Park Heights Avenue, "O" is residential off Belvedere Avenue, "Q" and "R" are related to Lifebridge Health Campus.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There are numerous design elements which can be used to promote this. Most fundamental is the extension of the urban street grid into the site in all directions so that they become truly integrated. This includes a ring road that is concentric to the race track itself, so that anyone on the site can become fully conscious of the track. The streets will even be extended across the track into the infield area, which will become the prime parkland and recreation area of the surrounding communities. All of this will be designed so that all elements can be closed as necessary for events, especially the Preakness of course.<br />
<br />
The second crucial design element will be the design of the clubhouse itself, which will be the critical central "anchor" for various events and activities all year around, for anything that wants to take place in an environment where sacred horse racing history took place.<br />
<br />
There will also be specific uses, like retail, offices, a hotel and the Lifebridge health complex which takes advantage of the fact that Baltimore is known for its world class health care industry. Much still needs to be analyzed regarding this, of course. Lifebridge would be responsible for its own land use planning, which is not addressed in the current plan. Care must be taken by Lifebridge to avoid the egregious mistakes that Johns Hopkins has made with its physical campus planning that resulted in a fortress mentality and alienation of the surrounding communities. The bottom line is the creation of sustainable jobs and economic development.<br />
<br />
Many people have suggested that all this development could happen without the racetrack, but in that case, this would be just another big vacant lot in a city that is full of them. There would be no particular reason for people or businesses to locate here rather than somewhere else, like the suburbs. But being part of the Pimlico racetrack campus is priceless.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Comparison to Oriole Park at Camden Yards</h3>
<br />
Back in the 1980s, Populous was known as HOK and had just come from planning the new Comiskey Park for the Chicago White Sox, when it was selected to plan Camden Yards. The Chicago stadium plan was the typical "giant ashtray" plopped into the site in a way that totally alienated it from the surrounding communities. Unfortunately, the initial concepts for Oriole Park at Camden Yards were the same concept. Even the distinctive historic thousand foot long B&O Warehouse, which ultimately became the signature design element of the stadium, was eliminated from the plans. This was simply considered the accepted thing to do at the time.<br />
<br />
But everyone wanted something better. Spending a day at the ballpark should be far more than just about the baseball game. It should be a communal experience, with other people and with the city itself.<br />
<br />
The rest is history. The stadium was designed around the warehouse and oriented to the street grid and the downtown neighborhoods. Instead of a generic round ashtray, the stadium fits into its space with distinctive angles and facades. It's not a historic stadium like Wrigley Field or Fenway Park, but it's a historic place, which is even more crucial.<br />
<br />
A whole new breed of ballparks has followed suit, but Camden Yards was the first and most distinctive. Promotion doesn't just focus on the Orioles (which is fortunate considering how bad they were this year), but on "Birdland", the stadium place itself. Fans come from all over the country and even the world to experience Camden Yards. Its sometimes a bit unnerving to see so many excessively exuberant Yankee and Red Sox fans, but they spend money in Baltimore and help the local economy.<br />
<br />
More lessons have been learned in designing sports stadiums around the country since then, and Oriole Park has not done a great job of exploiting related development opportunities surrounding the ballpark. The Hilton Hotel is not admired much, and the Middle Branch Gateway Entertainment District has not been very successful yet, unless you call Royal Farms-style gas convenient stores a success.<br />
<br />
But now at Pimlico, Baltimore has another prime opportunity to do it right and make history again. It's not just about horse racing or baseball, it's about urban life.<br />
<br />
<b>>>> Selected previous Pimlico and Camden Yards posts:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/05/stable-pimlico-neighborhood-for-one.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/05/stable-pimlico-neighborhood-for-one.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/fix-pimlico-and-preakness-shutdown.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/fix-pimlico-and-preakness-shutdown.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/camden-yards.html">https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/camden-yards.html</a></div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-91238379254143975082018-11-27T14:39:00.000-05:002019-05-27T19:00:55.199-04:00A Shot Tower Maglev station would transform the city<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OmcahP-Z0Pk/W_yrGI1NqbI/AAAAAAABQzU/6DzrjxYZte4M3Pgib4b2fnOSrO2NDZPOgCLcBGAs/s1600/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1116" height="362" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OmcahP-Z0Pk/W_yrGI1NqbI/AAAAAAABQzU/6DzrjxYZte4M3Pgib4b2fnOSrO2NDZPOgCLcBGAs/s640/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Footprint for proposed MagLev Station shown in blue, now the central post office, at the<br />
south end of the Jones Falls Expressway (shown at right). Metro subway is in green under Baltimore Street. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
A brief local history</h3>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.)<br />
<br />
Simply put, the highway wasn't built to a pedestrian scale, and it probably never will be.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The real key is getting rid of the regional post office</h3>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for moynihan train station images" height="434" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/1280x868/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fandrewbender%2Ffiles%2F2016%2F10%2Fpenn-1200x675.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Future New York train station on site of former central post office, across the street from the current Penn Station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Riding MagLev into Baltimore should be a major <i style="font-weight: bold;">event. </i>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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WluKMKxYPeY/W_yqt_jFY6I/AAAAAAABQy8/Ho2rRjnM_usmecyE7XgTNjbu3gzP1WoaACLcBGAs/s1600/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WluKMKxYPeY/W_yqt_jFY6I/AAAAAAABQy8/Ho2rRjnM_usmecyE7XgTNjbu3gzP1WoaACLcBGAs/s640/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map view of proposed MagLev Station adjacent to intersection of Metro (green) and <br />
proposed central light rail extension (orange) from Penn Station to the north to Harbor East to the south (bottom).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Rail transit connections</h3>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sAjp9LVAPzk/W_yq-ovzyYI/AAAAAAABQzM/X5txzsjpcKwaGASp7O6dylJM8_iQniAsgCLcBGAs/s1600/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sAjp9LVAPzk/W_yq-ovzyYI/AAAAAAABQzM/X5txzsjpcKwaGASp7O6dylJM8_iQniAsgCLcBGAs/s640/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MagLev Station footprint in blue, Central light rail extension in orange and Metro subway in green. <br />
View is looking south toward Harbor East at the top.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
MagLev Station Alternatives</h3>
<br />
When measured by the station location criteria in the <u>latest <a href="https://www.bwmaglev.info/images/document_library/reports/alternatives_report/SCMAGLEV_Alts_Report_Body-Append-A-B-C_Nov2018.pdf">MagLev study report</a></u> released this month, the Shot Tower / Post Office site comes through with flying colors.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <u>the <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/10/baltimores-maglev-station-must-be.html" target="_blank">Mechanic Theater site which I had proposed here</a></u>. 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WtN6WBUqcRg/W_yqeedFQKI/AAAAAAABQyw/SlNKwJuyN58yamzhE74xyjylFrf86zwqQCLcBGAs/s1600/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WtN6WBUqcRg/W_yqeedFQKI/AAAAAAABQyw/SlNKwJuyN58yamzhE74xyjylFrf86zwqQCLcBGAs/s640/Shot%2BTower%2BMaglev%2BStation%2B4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Closer view looking south down President Street extension of I-83, with post office in the lower left<br />
next to historic St. Vincent DePaul Church (white tower) and Shot Tower (brown brick tower).<br />
South of Baltimore Street (green) are subway entrances on both sides of President Street, which can also serve as <br />
MagLev Station entrances. The one to the right (west) has direct access to the Inner Harbor along Market Place.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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.<br />
<div>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
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.</div>
</div>
</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-37377041317309206792018-11-14T15:25:00.000-05:002018-11-18T20:47:13.897-05:00With Amazon HQ2, MARC should be extended to Virginia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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.<br />
<br />
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".<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94mlkRhxzdw/W-x7OxPTe1I/AAAAAAABQxk/v5ChhdItmN4W-WJwXWxc3ScR5Bb1uHtWwCLcBGAs/s1600/MARC%2Bextension%2Binto%2BVirginia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-94mlkRhxzdw/W-x7OxPTe1I/AAAAAAABQxk/v5ChhdItmN4W-WJwXWxc3ScR5Bb1uHtWwCLcBGAs/s640/MARC%2Bextension%2Binto%2BVirginia.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Extension of MARC "Penn Line" from DC Union Station to the Amazon Crystal City Headquarters<br />
in Arlington, Virginia and three nearby stations, made possible by electrification of the Amtrak line. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Baltimore and DC will both be suburbs of Northern Virginia</h3>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <u>S<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/04/new-marc-stations-northmt-royal-upton.html" target="_blank">andtown, Upton, Mount Royal</a></u> and <u>V<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/06/violetville-best-future-marc-station.html" target="_blank">ioletville</a></u> could join the existing West Baltimore Station near the "Highway to Nowhere".<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
New rail relationships between Amtrak, MARC and VRE</h3>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/11/raising-zillions-for-northeast-corridor.html" target="_blank">see this blog post</a>)</u>.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Many other capacity and flexibility improvements will also be warranted as development and ridership grows, but electrification is a start.<br />
<br />
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.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-44881365590058794722018-10-30T10:18:00.001-04:002018-10-30T10:18:14.325-04:00Baltimore's MagLev Station MUST be Downtown<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The engineering report for the high speed Baltimore-Washington Magnetic Levitation train station alternatives will be released soon, with three basic options - two of which are merely waterfront development sites. Downtown is the only option which makes any sense, the only location where it can serve the entire Baltimore region as a whole and lead to broad-based growth.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESwYdscKAug/W9eRK0O7e9I/AAAAAAABQwk/sMaDHpssPKocBavHUaWbXU8hwqho7Ea5wCLcBGAs/s1600/Maglev%2BStation%2BSites2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ESwYdscKAug/W9eRK0O7e9I/AAAAAAABQwk/sMaDHpssPKocBavHUaWbXU8hwqho7Ea5wCLcBGAs/s640/Maglev%2BStation%2BSites2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three candidate MagLev station locations: Only downtown would have integrated access to the entire city and region.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Baltimore was built around downtown. All the region's transportation infrastructure has always emanated from downtown, including the street, highway and transit systems. MagLev is supposed to revolutionize Baltimore's place and role in the U.S. Northeast Corridor with 15 minute travel to Washington at up to 300 mph and eventually to New York. The entire region must benefit from this, not just isolated places.<br />
<br />
Port Covington and Westport, the two alternatives outside downtown, are isolated places - former industrial and railroad properties shielded by the waterfront. The primary reason they have been considered attractive for billions of dollars of investment by their developers, supported by the city taxpayers, is that they are separated from downtown.<br />
<br />
Traffic access to both Westport and Port Covington are zero-sum games that rely almost completely on highways that are already at or near capacity. Westport's highway connections include at-grade railroad crossings. Port Covington's connections require relocating and expanding the I-95 ramps in a way that would simply reduce the capacity for through traffic.<br />
<br />
In contrast, downtown is served by a comprehensive and open-ended transportation network - spokes on a wheel which extend outward in all directions. Development has always followed these spokes. MagLev would simply be a continuation of the historical development patterns that have always been the framework for the city's growth.<br />
<br />
Every neighborhood in the city and suburbs is defined to a large extent by its geographical relationship to downtown. Growth areas of earlier eras such as Mount Vernon, Upton, Charles Village and even Govans are defined as being midtown and uptown. As downtown's roles have evolved over the years, these relationships have evolved with it. Major downtown redevelopments like Charles Center, the Inner Harbor, Harbor East and Harbor Point have in turn created challenges for these communities to grow as well.<br />
<br />
But what would happen if suddenly, Westport or Port Covington became the primary focus? There is very little historic linkage between these areas and most of Baltimore. Some linkage can be created via the central light rail line, with perhaps a spur, but this is hardly the kind of comprehensive connectivity that would be needed. The geographic boundaries of Westport and Port Covington are both limited and finite.<br />
<br />
Downtown is also the only place that has the kind of rich complex web of land uses, interests and ownership that can truly respond to the challenges of MagLev and ensure that its benefits are as broad based as possible. All interests would get to decide how they want to respond to take advantage of MagLev.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Westport/Port Covington development monopoly</h3>
<br />
A huge problem with Westport and Port Covington is that both are essentially owned and controlled by the same single individual - Keven Plank, founder and majority owner of Under Armour. That is far too much control to give a single person.<br />
<br />
The first phase of Port Covington development is supposed to proceed in late 2019 or 2020 - a relatively low density mixed-use complex adjacent to the newly completed whiskey distillery on the waterfront. This would be followed by much more ambitious and higher density development later, anchored by a large Under Armour corporate campus, as defined by a carefully crafted long range plan which was developed to get approval for $660 Million in city Tax Increment Financing.<br />
<br />
But recent events make this questionable. Under Armour's growth has recently plummeted. Plank was highly aggressive in attempting to woo Amazon in its current highly publicized HQ2 campaign. When that failed, Plank's development team reportedly put its hat in the ring for a new arena to replace the old Baltimore Arena downtown.<br />
<br />
This kind of Port Covington one-track mentality definitely hurt the city's effort to attract Amazon. The city has <u>many <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/09/top-ten-sites-for-amazons-east-coast.html" target="_blank">other great development sites</a></u>.<br />
<br />
And this would essentially have necessitated the carefully crafted Port Covington master plan to start over at square one. A MagLev Station would require the same. An athletic wear campus, whiskey distillery and medium density development would not be the best uses in proximity to a MagLev Station.<br />
<br />
Westport's future potential would be even more constrained. Plank's development team has indefinitely suspended all the ambitious Westport development plans which were prepared by the defaulted previous owner Patrick Turner, and they are content to simply the large waterfront property sit vacant until they deal with Port Covington. But unlike Port Covington, there is a small adjacent moderate income neighborhood which has essentially been held hostage by this, victims of all this fuzzy future speculation.<br />
<br />
The Westport community has been very open minded about preparing for future development challenges, working for years with Patrick Turner to create the best possible plans for all. But a Westport MagLev station would be beyond any small community's ability to plan for change. If Westport was chosen for the MagLev Station, the community would be turned inside-out overnight.<br />
<br />
From the standpoint of MagLev's development impacts, Westport and Port Covington really can't be considered separately. Westport would be Port Covington's secondary real estate market, and vice versa, owned by the same Plank consortium. They are essentially the same alternative. And downtown is the only other choice.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
MagLev for the masses</h3>
<br />
The need for <u>M<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/02/maglev-for-masses-5-basic-rules.html" target="_blank">agLev to serve everybody</a></u> cannot be overemphasized, and is a primary reason why the station must be downtown rather than on any isolated development site. It cannot be merely a plaything for the rich. Yes, some relatively well-to-do will use it to commute to Washington, but its role needs to go far beyond that, especially as it is eventually extended toward New York and elsewhere.<br />
<br />
In determining how various income groups would be affected by MagLev, distinctions need to be made between development and transportation impacts. The limited finite geographical size of Westport and Port Covington means that high income people would be able to dominate the speculation. In contrast, downtown areas immediately around the station would be most attractive for the high rollers, but as distance increases in all directions, lower income folks spanning the entire region would be able to take advantage as well.<br />
<br />
That brings us to income effects of the MagLev system itself. The huge multi-billion cost of MagLev is irrelevant to how it would stratify income groups. Capital cost is committed up-front and is a "sunk cost". This is now all rail transit works. When the cost of the proposed Red Line tripled, no one thought that would have an effect on whether rich people would ride it.<br />
<br />
Once MagLev is up and running, the challenge will simply be to attract as many people to use it as necessary to fill all the seats. Naturally, if service is of a sufficiently high quality, rich folks will be attracted and the operators will try to set the fares to get as much money from them as possible. This is what Amtrak does with its Acela trains, which are barely faster than the regular trains (mostly by skipping stops) but have double or triple the fares.<br />
<br />
This is also the same as the distinction between first class and coach air travel. The long-term trend has been for airlines to cater increasingly to the lowest class, with cheaper fares and treating the masses like they're crammed into cattle cars. Since the popularization of air travel in the 1950s, there has been only one major attempt at a service exclusively geared to the upper class - the supersonic Concorde, which was a total failure.<br />
<br />
MagLev will be nothing like the Concorde, because it will be a truly high capacity mode of transportation. Its propulsion will be on the guideway, not on the vehicles, so operating cost per vehicle will be low, leading to a push to maximize the number of trains. So for the rich and not so rich alike, the high frequency of service will be at least as important as the speed.<br />
<br />
Everyone will want to take maximum advantage of being able to arrive at the station whenever they please and board a train as quickly as possible, rather than being slaves to a schedule. Sure, there will no doubt be a high fare first-class service that provides priority boarding and nicer seats, and maybe free booze if there's time for it, but that's about the only extent of the class distinctions.<br />
<br />
Amtrak will have to adapt as well, emphasizing shorter distance trips between stations that don't have MagLev. The distinctions between Amtrak and commuter railroads will then blur or even disappear. This is already apparent in Amtrak's long range capital improvement plan, which only attempts to raise travel speeds by small increments. Commuter rail ridership is already concentrated more on higher income groups, while less frequent riders cover the entire income spectrum. So the cheapest MagLev fare between Baltimore and Washington may eventually be not much more than a typical Amtrak fare. MARC may go to a single base fare no matter how many miles you ride, just like MTA buses.<br />
<br />
So MagLev needs mass appeal, as much as any mass transit does. That can't be provided at Port Covington or Westport. It can only be accommodated downtown, where the entire regional transportation system converges.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gTI_CX4UMqs/W9dhQJCRhiI/AAAAAAABQwM/wnXBmD4PuEA6cnwXcq-Kcc1rQNOqjNL0gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9460.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gTI_CX4UMqs/W9dhQJCRhiI/AAAAAAABQwM/wnXBmD4PuEA6cnwXcq-Kcc1rQNOqjNL0gCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9460.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mechanic Theater station site looking west from Redwood Street across Charles Street.<br />
The curved roof of the Charles Center Metro Station entrance at Baltimore Street is seen to the right. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Best downtown station for MagLev and Hyperloop: Mechanic Theater site</h3>
<br />
The obvious location for a <u>M<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/10/mechanic-theater-demo-pit-starts.html" target="_blank">agLev Station is the former Mechanic Theater site</a></u> at Charles and Baltimore Street at the exact traditional center of downtown, right at the Charles Center Metro Station. Whenever the old Baltimore Arena is finally demolished, sooner or later, the station can then be linked to the central light rail line. Other good candidate sites may also be available, but they must be near the center of downtown.<br />
<br />
The criteria for a station on Elon Musk's proposed "Hyperloop" system are pretty much the same, and the same station should be designed for both. It is now apparent, however, that Musk's business plan is to emphasize incrementalism in his proposed system, rather than attempting to build an expensive, high speed, high capacity line all at once. It is also increasingly likely that the initial segment won't serve Baltimore at all, and may be in southern California. So, there will be a "learning curve" before major decisions need to be made. This should complement MagLev quite well.<br />
<br />
Musk's system will initially use slower "skates" that operate up to 150 mph, about half as fast as MagLev or Hyperloop, covering stations which are closer together and off the main "trunk" line. This would create more of a tree with branches than a single high speed corridor. Thus Musk's system could feed MagLev, the same way conventional transit does.<br />
<br />
Baltimore must prepare for the future of transportation no matter what eventually happens. The only way to do that is to plan for a high speed rail station in the heart of downtown.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-56353264414154216802018-10-17T14:37:00.000-04:002018-10-17T22:06:50.377-04:00Squeegee scene solution: City at the crossroads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Downtown intersections are now a microcosm of life in the city, with everybody getting into the act - not just drivers, bikers, buses and pedestrians, but "Squeegee Kids", poor "homeless" solicitors and monitors from the presiding "ruling class". The basic rules are observed, ignored, debated, stretched to the limit or violated by all, but remain inevitable nonetheless. It all seems complex but it's really simple.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGNVnZBm95s/W8c9Fw7OW1I/AAAAAAABQvk/yLdlrp7yg60KwHBk2MrNaIIKi9R9jHIHwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGNVnZBm95s/W8c9Fw7OW1I/AAAAAAABQvk/yLdlrp7yg60KwHBk2MrNaIIKi9R9jHIHwCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9629.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lombard Street looking west from South Street through downtown. "Do Not Black Intersection" sign is overhead.<br />
All signals say green, but traffic is blocked enough so that pedestrians are jaywalking.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The life cycle is the traffic signal cycle</h3>
<br />
The basic pulse of the city is regulated by traffic signal timing. Green and red lights cue every actor in the street drama to move in and out of the action. Downtown street life in Baltimore is divided into discrete 110 second cycles in peak periods which each contain a green, yellow and red light for each direction.<br />
<br />
The 110 second cycles provide some green time for traffic in each direction to move, but also quite a bit of time to stop. There's red light time when you're supposed to stop, plus additional time when you <i><b>must</b></i> stop because traffic is blocked.<br />
<br />
Everybody uses this extra time for whatever they can. Through traffic must sit, or perhaps proceed into the intersection and block it. Bikes and scooter riders can swing onto the sidewalks and become pedestrians. Pedestrians can jaywalk. Some drivers may check their cell phones. And "Squeegee Kids" and panhandlers can go to work.<br />
<br />
The city touted the benefits of its upcoming downtown traffic signal timing improvements which were supposed to go into effect before enforcement of the new "block the box" traffic violation rules, but has now apparently given up on that. So this week, $125 fines for motorists who find themselves stuck inside an intersection began, without the aid of new better signal timing. City officials merely whimpered when their timing tweaks failed this summer, so then they said they'd put it all back the way it was. That's no progress.<br />
<br />
The problem is that in a tight urban street grid, traffic signal tweaks are a zero-sum game at best, much like most other programs that attempt to slice up the urban pie. Giving more green time to one street means less green time for the other street, and all streets carry users of all modes. It can't be done on an individual intersection basis either, since traffic flow must be measured by the capacity of the system as a whole.<br />
<br />
But what really happened is that the city officials remained quiet until city drivers started to speak up in protest. That hadn't happened in a while. Bike riders, transit riders and pedestrians have all raised their voices - but not the "cagers", as the bike lobby calls people who sit in cars surrounded by a ton of protective "shiny metal boxes" (as The Police sang - not the Baltimore Police, but Sting and his band on the "Synchronicity" album).<br />
<br />
At worst, many "cagers" reacted against the bike riders. That was not a smart move. Everyone is in this together. And on the Pratt/Lombard one-way couplet where traffic demand is heaviest and tempers are shortest, bikes are only allowed to use the bus lanes and are not given lanes of their own. Big buses win on the intimidation factor, while many bikers have become adept at weaving in and out of the bus and car lanes and sidewalks, as have riders of the new motor scooters, while the "cagers" can only seethe with envy.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
"Squeegee Kids" graduate from a short to a mid-term issue</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The big benefactor of recent events will be the "Squeegee Kids" who wash windshields while drivers are stopped waiting at intersections. According to the law, these kids are illegal solicitors who violate traffic laws, as are the increasingly present panhandlers. But also starting this week, the Downtown Partnership plans to place security guards at intersections to "monitor" the actions of these solicitors at a cost of approximately $3000 per week (according to the Oct 12 Sun).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This should be of great benefit to those who conduct their solicitations in an orderly and friendly way, legitimizing their activity which until now has taken place outside of the law. The threat of arbitrary, capricious and apparently random law enforcement, including vigilante "road rage" by offended drivers, should now be curtailed. One may argue that the $150,000 per year might be better spent on more constructive employment or other activities, but paying this money to the security guards is essentially just that.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since the city also spends a lot of money on traffic enforcement personnel, one may also contend that all these costs are getting too high. One could also add the fact that downtown businesses pay extra taxes above the city's already sky high property taxes to support this as well. Running Baltimore is expensive. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now we can also add more traffic enforcement to these costs. The new "block the box" campaign will keep motorists waiting at the intersections even longer, giving the panhandlers and "Squeegee Kids" even more time for their solicitations. For motorists, staying out of the intersections isn't easy. It is difficult to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you in bumper-to-bumper traffic, especially when it's a bus, truck or SUV. You may also see a traffic gap fill up quickly by someone switching lanes or turning right on red, which although mostly illegal downtown, is less enforceable than blocking the box.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Each additional expense and cost added to the operating budgets further solidifies the status quo and makes all this a middle term rather than short term issue. It's no longer just reactive. The panhandlers and "Squeegee Kids" are becoming further entrenched in the city's culture and have their own subcultural identity. This then adds to the city's "Two Baltimores" image - black vs. white, rich vs. poor, visible vs. hidden, and the semi-segregated "White L" geographic zone.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's all on display. For whatever reasons, the "Squeegee Kids" are far younger and overwhelmingly black, while the panhandlers are much older and surprisingly much whiter for a city that is two-thirds black. There seem to be differences among the panhandlers between appearing positive versus looking pathetic, although "God Bless You" is a favorite catch phase among both. (Religion emerges in any morality play.) On the other hand, the "Squeegee Kids" may be expected to convey more of air of entrepreneurial professionalism and legality under the watchful eye of the security monitors.</div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Long range plans were a joke</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The long abandoned long range plan for Pratt Street, celebrated by the urbanists at the time, was to convert it to two-way traffic. This would have made things far worse for everyone, despite including some widening which would have made the sidewalks narrower and prevented the current construction of new retail frontages on some blocks. Traffic patterns and flow were barely even a consideration.</div>
<br />
There was also a plan to eliminate the connector from Light to Calvert Streets adjacent to Harborplace and replace it with a wider Light Street south of Pratt. This did lead to the demolition of the McKeldin Fountain, but no traffic changes. To the contrary, the mandatory left turn lane on Pratt from Light to Calvert was recently eliminated and converted to a thru lane, coupled with the widening of Pratt downstream from Calvert by eliminating the flag court and taxi stand. This has in fact resulted in some improvement in traffic flow at some expense to pedestrians, but not enough to quiet the irate motorists.<br />
<br />
The best way to think about long range planning is to realize that what we have now is the result of all the city's previous long range plans. One previous generation's school of thought was that pedestrians should be shifted from streets to their own "skywalks". So much for that. More than ever, signalized intersections remain the tableau of urban life.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Making intersections work: Lead, follow or get out of the way</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So it all simply comes down to how to make signalized intersections work. The basic principle won't change: East-west moves, then north-south, then east-west again. It's not a matter of who you are - a car driver, pedestrian, bike rider, solicitor, squeegee kid or presiding representative from the Downtown Partnership. Even driverless cars are still cars. Sure, they'll be smart enough to not block the box, but that just increases the opportunity for drivers of old cars to do it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's not who you are, it's where you're going. And it's all up to the traffic signal to dictate when you'll be going there: Go on green, stop on red, and transition on yellow.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The basic problem is that the transition time has gotten far too long, stretching out far beyond the three or four seconds of yellow time between green and red. Transition time now includes any time the intersection box is blocked and any time the light says green but it might as well say red because we can't move anyway.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Our windshields are too dirty only in a metaphorical sense.</h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The resolution of all these intersection conflicts is far more basic than any of this. It's simply a matter of reducing green time to what is actually usable. And then reducing red time to that which is actually necessary to move everybody who's going the other way. Relative allocations won't change much. </div>
<div>
<br />
Yes, people will still get stuck inside the intersections when signals say they shouldn't be there. A pedestrian won't make it all the way across the street. A solicitor will try to do his business in less time than he does now. For all that, like other conflicts in life, we should not rely on whether a traffic light says green or red. We don't really always rely on traffic signals right now anyway. People violate the rules simply because they can.<br />
<br />
We should rely instead on basic social rules. Let a slow pedestrian cross the street. Let a panhandler get out of the way. What else are you going to do? Run him over? Let social rules evolve based on peer pressure. Squeegee Kids know not to clean windshields when traffic is actually moving. People will get the message.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The basic solution is to shorten the signal cycles</h3>
<br /></div>
<div>
The solution to all this is simple. Simply reduce the city's traffic signal cycle lengths from the current peak standard of 110 seconds. Center City Philadelphia does it all - stop and go - in 60 second cycles. Baltimore can too. Shorter greens and reds would make everyone more purposeful.</div>
</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-21076761818622744822018-09-13T14:54:00.002-04:002020-12-08T21:11:23.928-05:00Save Lexington Market: Salvage success from failure<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Patricia Schultheis' excellent <u>op<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0913-lexington-market-20180912-story.html" target="_blank">-ed in today's Sun</a></u> presents a crucial challenge: Saving Lexington Market. Everything from rats to general urban decay have been threatening this venerable historic institution for years. Now is the moment of truth when it must be fixed.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vOFaYsowQ88/W5pyarRbiNI/AAAAAAABQu0/F2sjVrlGYVE6BwCMZ-SxopT8sJoTATepgCLcBGAs/s1600/Lexington%2BMarket.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="398" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vOFaYsowQ88/W5pyarRbiNI/AAAAAAABQu0/F2sjVrlGYVE6BwCMZ-SxopT8sJoTATepgCLcBGAs/s640/Lexington%2BMarket.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 1980s Lexington Market addition was built in the bed of Lexington Street,<br />
and did not stem the decline of the surrounding area. (Flickr file: picssr.com )</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The most obvious part of the general urban decay is the way the west side of Baltimore has become the "wrong side". While Harbor East, Harbor Point and other major development and renovation have flourished on the east side, the west side has been left in the dust. But fixing this disparity, as essential as it is, will take too long to save Lexington Market <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/07/east-dominates-west-baltimore-fixing.html" target="_blank">see blog post)</a></u>. Long range plans are great, but retail is a fleeting and fickle economic sector.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The roles of Harborplace and State Center</h3>
<br />
The best solution is to to take advantage of the vacuum created by two of the city's other recent urban failures: Harborplace and State Center.<br />
<br />
Harborplace started to great fanfare in the 1980s as a modern imitation of Lexington Market. Initially, it was a grand success as a "festival marketplace", but that era is long over. Its new painfully slow reboot <u>(<a href="http://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/02/no-inner-harbor-end-game-for-dormant.html" target="_blank">see blog post)</a></u> has abandoned that concept entirely in favor of cookie-cutter national franchises in a suburban strip mall type of configuration. This will soon be reinforced by a new expanded flagship Whole Foods supermarket in Harbor East which is now under construction.<br />
<br />
Harborplace helped suck the life out of Lexington Market, but now Lexington Market can return the favor, while displaying the real unique urban grassroots grit that Harborplace once strived for but never really attained.<br />
<br />
Secondly, there is the failure at State Center, one stop north on the Metro and two stops on the light rail. The "anchor" of the massive State Center development, at least as far as publicity and public favor was concerned, was supposed to be a major supermarket. One report suggested the project could support a market as large as a hundred thousand square feet, which is Wegman-sized and far larger than any other supermarket in the city. But hype and false optimism have been longstanding pitfalls of this ill-fated development.<br />
<br />
More recently, a new larger modern replacement for the nearby Eddie's Supermarket on Eager Street in Mount Vernon has been approved, and this appears to be more in tune with reality.<br />
<br />
Again, Lexington Market can take advantage of that failure. Modern supermarkets like Wegman's are now incorporating aspects of old markets like Lexington Market, like stalls of fresh and ready-prepared food, again returning the favor. But Lexington Market can offer authenticity that the modern chains can never hope for.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Design challenges: New vs. nostalgic</h3>
<br />
Designing a "new" Lexington Market from the ground up creates risks of contradiction. A brand new market may simply imitate the urban past and suburban present, the same way the current designs have imitated Lexington Market. There is a fine line between recreating the past and merely imitating it.<br />
<br />
That's why the design of the new Lexington Market is so crucial. Physically, there is already practically nothing truly historic about the existing market to build around. The new market's recreation of the past cannot rely on physical preservation.<br />
<br />
The addition to the market built in the 1980s did not work in this regard, although it appeared to be a valiant attempt. The major mistake seems to be that the 1980s addition was kept almost totally walled-off from the 1950s main market, preventing the two areas from interacting and creating something new that combined the best of both.<br />
<br />
So this time, the designers have decided that an entirely new market should be built, instead of trying to combine the old and new. The consensus has agreed that this is the right way to proceed, although there are risks. In her Sun article, Ms. Schultheis describes the current design proposal as "third rate". That seems harsh, but the design of the new market is so crucial that as many different design perspectives as possible should be considered.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6Fm9yFgvAL8/X9AwgkkYeqI/AAAAAAAB9ls/AnHjZn3CXzIYzoidaOyIbPFZzVxsNcJQACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="1000" height="414" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6Fm9yFgvAL8/X9AwgkkYeqI/AAAAAAAB9ls/AnHjZn3CXzIYzoidaOyIbPFZzVxsNcJQACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h414/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption">Proposed all-new Lexington Market. Major design concepts are that it is glassy and multi-level.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><br />One basic design concept is that such an urban market should be a three dimensional multi-level space. That is the basic distinction that separates successful unique markets from cookie-cutter supermarkets. This is part of what made Lexington Market's 1980s addition a half-hearted effort, and what the new Lexington Market needs to achieve to succeed. Maximum advantage should be made of the fact that its two street frontages, on Eutaw and Paca Street, are on levels of about a story apart <u>(<a href="http://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-new-lexington-market-needs-grand.html" target="_blank">see blog post)</a></u>. The subway mezzanine under Eutaw Street also creates room for yet another level.<br />
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Also on the plus side, the pendulum has definitely swung back in favor of urban markets. The latest to capture the attention of urbanists is now under construction in downtown Seattle. As much as possible should be learned from the experiences in other cities. But on the other hand, most of these have benefited from the overall revitalization of their surrounding areas much more than Lexington Market can.<br />
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So the new Lexington Market must help to create revitalization trend, rather than just benefit from it. It must be the catalyst for change. Yeah, we've all heard that before, from the failed "superblock" development to the revitalized Hippodrome Theater. But Lexington Market hopefully has the power to really do it.<br />
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Lexington Market was once at the center of things. Now it must help create a new center, where east, west, north and south Baltimore come together.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Free light rail could jump-start the streetcar system</h3>
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Here's an idea that could be a major help: Reinvent the light rail line between Penn Station and Camden Yards as a streetcar line. Buy a few new improved low-floor vehicles to help give it a new image and perhaps add a new stop at Antique Row in Mount Vernon. Make it free in this area, since its difficult for the MTA to check fare tickets in this downtown zone anyway. Also encourage free parking in the stadium lots at Camden Yards whenever there is no sports event. What have we got to lose? The spur to Penn Station now carries practically nobody anyway.<br />
<br />
The really great thing about free light rail is that it requires the MTA to do absolutely nothing. Just don't enforce the fare ticket requirement in the free area, and then announce and promote that fact.<br />
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This may be just the thing to give the city's proposed streetcar system the jump-start it certainly needs. It would also blur the distinction between light rail and streetcars which would give light rail a major boost. The failed Red Line can then be born again as a combination of light rail and streetcars which serves a Lexington Market transit hub <u>(<a href="http://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/lexington-market-metro-transit-hub.html" target="_blank">see blog post)</a></u>.<br />
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Riding the old streetcars was an integral part of Lexington Market's glorious past traditions, which may be its biggest assets to save it.<br />
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Again, the theme is to salvage success from failure. Baltimore has had plenty of the latter. Now it's time to benefit from it.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-70362648100734125302018-09-07T15:28:00.000-04:002018-11-30T09:58:55.086-05:00Port Covington is Under Armour's Kaepernick<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Social rebels like new Nike pitchman Colin <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.4">Kaepernick</span> come and go, but Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.5">Covington</span> will be around forever, with or without Nike rival Under Armour's corporate identity. Nike's new ad campaign has gotten massive buzz, but buzz is all it is. In contrast, Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.6">Covington</span> is a real place where Under Armour has made a billion dollar bet with <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.7">somebody's</span> money that it can vault itself to the top of the sportswear world and turn Baltimore around at the same time.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colin Kaepernick sacrificed pro football for social reform. Then Nike hired him to sell shoes and sportswear.<br />
So rival Under Armour should double down on Port Covington and Baltimore. </td></tr>
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Pundits speculate on how Nike's bet on <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.8">Kaepernick</span> will affect its dominant but dormant brand, the similarly languishing National Football League that he sued for conspiring against him, and oh, maybe promote human equality a little bit as well.</div>
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But Baltimore is an actual epicenter of all the social problems that <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.10">Kaepernick</span> purports to stand against. And Under Armour has put down roots in Baltimore, betting its entire corporate identity on this place. Baltimore has thousands of Colin Kaepernicks, just without Nike contracts.</div>
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The only problem is that Under Armour's massive bet was <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.11">sooooo</span> three years ago. Since then, Under Armour has merely hunkered down in Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.12">Covington's </span>abandoned Sam's Club big box store behind a massive security barrier, while the site's best piece of land was used to build founder Kevin Plank's whiskey distillery side-project. They also tried to sell Amazon on a less desirable property now occupied by the Baltimore Sun, but to no avail.</div>
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And the rest of Baltimore has merely gone on its separate way. Under Armour couldn't resolve the Freddie Gray riots or stop the police from "taking a knee". And Under Armour's corporate value took a major hit as well.</div>
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Similarly, <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.13">Kaepernick's</span> one-man "take a knee" campaign also languished until Publicity-Mill-in-Chief Donald Trump made him one of his issues, which of course, constitutes the publicity pinnacle. Only then did many fellow football players from all over the NFL start "taking a knee" during the National Anthem in emulation of <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.14">Kaepernick</span>. That is what has kept <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.15">Kaepernick</span> in the news. Nike isn't quite as big as Trump, but they'd sure like to be.</div>
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At this rate, one wonders whether even Impeachment might be good for the Trump brand, regardless of how well it works for the country. After all, Impeachment didn't hurt Bill Clinton.</div>
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Meanwhile, Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.16">Covington</span> has become just another big real estate venture being quietly pitched to various developers, just like Trump did back in the old days before starring in <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.17">NBC's</span> "The Apprentice". It's the same "Art of the Deal". Oh, the irony.</div>
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The bottom line from all this is an old trite tried-and-true one: "There is no such thing as bad publicity". The truth of that trope has certainly been debated many times since PT Barnum allegedly first said it, but now that sportswear giant Nike is betting on it, Under Armour needs to listen.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KTL0ax5yLLU/W5LKx9NHpPI/AAAAAAABQuc/yhfoymUOMWQDCkjmsIHHr08J4767UlNGgCLcBGAs/s1600/Port%2BCovington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="358" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KTL0ax5yLLU/W5LKx9NHpPI/AAAAAAABQuc/yhfoymUOMWQDCkjmsIHHr08J4767UlNGgCLcBGAs/s640/Port%2BCovington.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The planned Port Covington development just below Interstate 95 would become a new downtown,<br />
with Under Armour's corporate campus on the southern tip at the water's edge.</td></tr>
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"Just Do It"</span></h3>
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So here is what Under Armour should do: Bet on Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.18">Covington</span> and Baltimore in a big way. Not with hundreds of millions of dollars of future Tax Increment Financing money, but with something even bigger: The magic of hype.</div>
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Treat Baltimore as Under Armour's social consciousness cauldron and treat Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.19">Covington</span> as one and the same. Social issues are cool and so are we! Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2rr.20">Covington</span> is thus a cool place where we can all be close to the cutting edge. But not too close. And of course, we'll all be wearing Under Armour from head to toe...</div>
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Thus, Under Armour's plan for Port <span id="m_3861698230603855021:2um.48">Covington</span> now appears to be more useful as a publicity icon and less so as an actual plan.</div>
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And the real plan will be whatever actually gets built and how it actually benefits the city and its citizens as a whole.</div>
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<b><i><u>>>> <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/search?q=port+covington&max-results=20&by-date=false" target="_blank">Search Baltimore InnerSpace for all posts about Port Covington</a></u></i></b></div>
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Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-41820506634848079042018-08-27T10:47:00.002-04:002020-06-09T08:24:01.282-04:00How to fix transit: Create a culture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Elections are a major part of our common culture, even as they become more divisive among contrasting subcultures. Mass transit illustrates conflicts among subcultures as well.<br />
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Transit was a fairly big issue in the June Maryland primary election as the Democratic candidates attacked Republican Governor Hogan for killing the Red Line in favor of the BaltimoreLink bus reorganization plan. I had hoped Ben Jealous could offer a positive course of action from this after winning the Democratic primary <u>(<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/05/politicians-start-acting-like-you.html" target="_blank">see blog story</a>)</u>, but he has offered so many things to spend money on that transit has gotten lost in the shuffle.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTHsKA_AdtM/XEiAb0M_14I/AAAAAAABQ1w/5f9cd90SxnIPNqvCnRb_fEBinNhfnSQuwCLcBGAs/s1600/Transitway%2BHogan.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="300" height="482" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xTHsKA_AdtM/XEiAb0M_14I/AAAAAAABQ1w/5f9cd90SxnIPNqvCnRb_fEBinNhfnSQuwCLcBGAs/s640/Transitway%2BHogan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
Publicity image for Hogan's BaltimoreLink plan was a nonstarter with the City administration.</div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
But the only thing it really portrayed was a nice calm "transit subculture" in the middle of West Baltimore Street.</div>
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Interfactional conflicts</h3>
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But recently things have gotten worse for transit as suburban communities have lobbied for cuts in transit to try to fight crime. In White Marsh to the northeast, they want to cut late night bus service. In Ferndale and Linthicum to the south, they wanted to cut light rail service.<br />
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While transit advocates push for better transit, people in these communities believe that transit is actually doing <i>too good</i> of a job of transporting criminals and troublemakers. So they want worse transit. Of course, they'll never say it like that. They'll say they want the right transit to serve good productive people. And they're right about that - all suggestions aside of racism and "dog whistles" and that negative kind of talk. ("Dog whistle" is a terrible term - if only racists can hear the whistle, how and why do their critics hear it and keep carping on it?)<br />
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Here's how the problem should be stated in a useful constructive manner: Transit ridership is far too low (<i>not</i> too high). Transit should be good enough to attract far more people, not just the criminals who exist in any population sample. Poor transit is perceived as only serving "other people" - just a social welfare service for people with no choices. Good transit serves a cross section of all of us, or at least it could offer an attractive option for those it serves.<br />
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Unfortunately, fixing transit in the suburbs is a daunting challenge, because activity and development are just too dispersed. Rail transit was hoped to be the answer, but it hasn't been. Rail was intended to attract transit oriented development, tailored to people and activity that promotes transit. That has been a failure throughout the metropolitan area, in both the city and suburbs alike.<br />
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The proposed light rail Red Line was similarly doomed, offering no substantial transit oriented development plans. Instead, it called on vague promises of "unity". Great expense was planned for tunneling to enable the Red Line to link the more affluent southeast waterfront to the worst wasteland in West Baltimore around the "Highway to Nowhere". Transit ridership is poor in both areas. That was a shotgun marriage, not unity.<br />
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Getting more affluent people to ride transit is another daunting challenge. This recalls a ridiculous TV commercial the Maryland Transit Administration ran some years ago showing a bus full of guys wearing suits and ties riding up Broadway past Johns Hopkins Hospital. And the MTA didn't even run buses on Broadway back then! BaltimoreLink at least fixed that, with some long-needed connections to the Metro Station there.<br />
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Pretending that transit is for the affluent is just fooling ourselves. If income is a major selection criterion, transit riders will inevitably be poor. When asked why they use transit, most riders simply say, "because I don't have a car" or maybe "because parking is too expensive".<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Subculture as a tool</h3>
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The solution is to make culture a major selection criterion for transit. Even Hopkins realizes that. Hopkins decided to run their own bus system serving areas where they feel that their particular culture is strong. Many other institutions have done the same thing, including the city government's own Charm City Circulator bus system serving the areas the city wants to promote (which also encompasses Johns Hopkins turf).<br />
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This has led to attacks that these shuttles avoid black and/or poor areas of the city, and these accusations are justified. The markets and service areas of these shuttles are defined very narrowly. Only Hopkins people are allowed to use the Hopkins shuttle, and the same sort of rules apply to other institutions as well.<br />
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While it is inevitable that transit riders will be a subculture, it should be defined as widely as possible - attempting to avoid parameters such as race and income. It should not be defined as "us" versus "them".<br />
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As much of the transit system as possible should be redefined on these terms. All of the shuttles run by institutions and governments should be combined so that they are open to anyone (<u>s<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-sort-out-bus-system-circulator.html" target="_blank">ee blog story</a></u>). They will then become their own system, and redundancy among them and with the larger MTA system can be eliminated or at least reduced.<br />
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The MTA's BaltimoreLink bus restructuring is at least a small step toward this. The major routes have been redefined by colors. The intention for this was good, but the colors are not displayed enough to really work to identify the routes. Catchy names would be better at defining the cultural identity, such as the "Banner" route designated by the city for their circulator bus to Fort McHenry (home of the "Star Spangled Banner").<br />
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Details are often difficult. The MTA tried to move a major transfer point away from North and Greenmount Avenues after complaints that it was a "bad area", but then they got more complaints and had to move it back.<br />
<br />
The whole "transformative" nature of BaltimoreLink was overhyped due to its timing soon after the death of the Red Line (<u>s<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/06/skeptical-of-baltimorelink.html" target="_blank">ee blog stories here</a></u> <u>a<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/10/hogans-transformative-transitway.html" target="_blank">nd here</a></u>), and its new bus lanes were largely limited to colored pavement and new signs at existing bus lanes. Letting transit pre-empt the traffic signals won't work downtown, because there are buses going in every direction.<br />
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Any truly significant bus reorganization must incorporate the Charm City Circulator system and the various shuttles run by institutions. It must embrace these and many other subcultures.<br />
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Transit oriented development also needs to be considered a new subculture as well. Rail transit simply cannot be successful without it. The Baltimore Sun, which was one of the most vocal proponents of the Red Line, has essentially now given up on rail transit. They're also huge proponents of the State Center redevelopment, even though they have minimized the economic benefit impact of transit (two rail lines, not just one!) to support the project.<br />
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The Sun hasn't admitted as much, but their recent conclusions are essentially based on no longer believing in transit oriented development as a driving force. That's why it must be treated as a subculture - a large niche, but not fully coinciding with the metropolitan area's overall culture. The era of the stereotypical "Mister 9 to 5" riding transit from the suburbs into downtown Baltimore is largely over.<br />
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Developments like State Center must be scaled to the projected size of this subculture. Developments which have already occurred in this area nearby next to the State Cultural Center and University of Baltimore (Mount Royal) light rail stations have already done this, albeit very poorly, with far too much dominance on parking garages.<br />
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The same is true for transit oriented development at Port Covington, Westport, Howard/Lexington, Perkins Point and the "Highway to Nowhere".<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RTMhlY_tO08/WZOTbh6XhBI/AAAAAAAAuvk/jRqKXXPzWEwF9oqG_O1Kzys39i-3UMCGACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Harlem%2BPark%2BRed%2BLine%2B850px.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="845" height="366" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RTMhlY_tO08/WZOTbh6XhBI/AAAAAAAAuvk/jRqKXXPzWEwF9oqG_O1Kzys39i-3UMCGACPcBGAYYCw/w640-h366/Harlem%2BPark%2BRed%2BLine%2B850px.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Harlem Park Red Line Station as portrayed by Marc Szarkowski in the middle of what is now the "Highway to Nowhere". This is about the zillionth time I've used this image to portray an ideal transit culture.<br /><br /></td></tr>
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Culture = Sum of subcultures</h3>
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In sum, subcultures are the key to better transit for everyone. For rail transit, transit oriented development must be integral to the planning process and to the project's identity. The Port Covington light rail spur must be planned and designed in concert with the development instead of as an afterthought.<br />
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For any future Red Line, the city must confront the future of the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor. The city acts like it loves that stupid useless highway, but a successful Red Line really can't coexist isolated in its median strip. The proposed Red Line was like a cheap streetcar at a high heavy rail price. Since it would inevitably be slow, it must be tailored to its subculture (<u>s<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/highway-cavern-can-forge-new-city.html" target="_blank">ee blog story</a></u>).<br />
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The huge Perkins Point project on the east side offers a great opportunity to tailor rail transit to a mixed income clientele, which is more important than being fast (<u>s<a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-perkins-line-best-bet-for-southeast.html" target="_blank">ee blog story</a></u>).<br />
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And overall, the inner city bus system should become a consolidation of all the shuttles run by the city and its institutions. This would bring hospital workers, students, tourists and other subcultures into the transit mainstream and provide better service for all.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-82357980293509050882018-07-23T10:51:00.000-04:002018-12-19T10:17:54.310-05:00East dominates West Baltimore: Fixing the disparity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There's a very revealing contrast these days between how planning is being done in East Baltimore versus West Baltimore. East is the booming side of town, while west gets the crumbs. The Southwest Partnership plan reveals how the west needs to step up its game in order to get into the action.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdPku0NH_uo/W1M9W7Auz3I/AAAAAAABQnE/BVU7AznCgu002uihQuuNmc-R_uO-iYb3wCLcBGAs/s1600/2018-07-21%2B%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1116" height="346" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdPku0NH_uo/W1M9W7Auz3I/AAAAAAABQnE/BVU7AznCgu002uihQuuNmc-R_uO-iYb3wCLcBGAs/s640/2018-07-21%2B%25282%2529.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Cite - West Baltimore's flagship development. Phase One in the foreground is almost completed,<br />
with proposed future phases shown looking north along Schroeder Street toward the "Highway to Nowhere".</td></tr>
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East Baltimore's planning process has been much more comprehensive and much more attuned to eliminating the divisions between various areas. The biggest developments - Harbor East, Harbor Point and Hopkins Hospital - are already almost completed at the periphery and are driving the areas in between.<br />
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In contrast,<u> <a href="http://southwestpartnershipbaltimore.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Southwest-Partnership-Vision-Plan-.pdf" target="_blank">Southwest Partnership's plan</a></u> has ignored the huge Metro West project and the adjacent "Highway to Nowhere" which are by far the most crucial development issues which must be resolved. The big project nearing completion is the first phase of La Cite (shown above) which is on what is now the periphery of the redeveloped area. Its future expansions would be even farther out on the periphery.<br />
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But on the plus side, the planning process in West Baltimore seems to be much more open and grassroots. Of course, what we hear includes a lot of spin and perceptions.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Important things are happening in East Baltimore</h3>
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The big recent news for East Baltimore is that the Perkins Point project has just been awarded a $30 million HUD grant to get things moving, one of only five cities nationwide. That's from the "evil" Trump Administration which can do nothing right according to its many vocal critics. But c'mon, our president is a real estate developer, and his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is Doctor Ben Carson from Johns Hopkins Hospital, which neighbors the project.<br />
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The details of the project are still extremely sketchy, considering its official price tag of $889 million (call it a billion) including redevelopment of Somerset Homes and Old Town, and the many years it has already been gestating. Geez again, I've said almost as much on this little blog, without even trying, as the city has said on its official website - <u> <a href="http://www.baltimorehousing.org/perkinsproject">http://www.baltimorehousing.org/perkinsproject</a></u><br />
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What it looks like is that they just grabbed some impressionistic renderings of any of the zillions of new boxy generic three or four-story postmodern residential buildings that are going up in almost any growing city.<br />
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After decades of failures, this project just has to succeed eventually. The planners know what they're doing. The disastrous mid-century model for low income urban housing "projects", inspired by both Le Corbusier and Le Soviet Union, typified here by Perkins Homes to the south and Somerset Homes (already demolished) to the north on the Central Avenue corridor, is finally coming to an end.<br />
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Old Town is where the project history goes back the farthest, starting with the 1968 riots, followed by a dead-end shopping mall project. This was followed by years of crazy plans proposed by very important city people like Walter Sondheim, who wanted to knock down the Jones Falls Expressway to link Old Town (and the prison district) directly to downtown and Mount Vernon. There were big ideas to reconvert the big storm drains under the Fallsway and Central Avenue into actual rivers, with the heavy traffic zipping along on either side of them.<br />
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But the inevitability of the whole Perkins-Somerset-Oldtown plan is assured by the way the deck was stacked for the Harbor Point project at the south end of the Central Avenue corridor. That project was given a massive jolt by massive subsidies to the Exelon office building for its flagship, despite the fact that Exelon was legally obligated to locate in Baltimore anyway.<br />
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Can you imagine what kind of massive jumpstart could have been provided to West Baltimore if the Exelon building had been built somewhere on the west side of downtown? Alas, it's like another recent story - the hapless Orioles were practically forced to trade Manny Machado, by far their best player, to a rich pennant contender (LA Dodgers) for some future "maybes".<br />
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The planning concepts for the Perkins Point project are the kind that are gradually seeming simply like basic common sense as they are being brought out, but were certainly not that way beforehand.<br />
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Take the name: Perkins Point. You heard it here first. The Beatty Development Group (same developer as Harbor Point) has named his project subsidiary Perkins Point Partners. There's Fells Point and Harbor Point, so there has to be Perkins Point. The die is cast.<br />
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Then there's the concept of linking Old Town to the Hopkins Hospital campus and the Central Avenue corridor. After decades of conventional wisdom that said that what Old Town needed was a better linkage westward to downtown, what has actually happened is that downtown moved eastward instead.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-57d1f280/turbine/bs-bz-old-town-mall-20160908-001/750/750x422" height="360" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beatty plan for Old Town, showing the extension of McElderry Street<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> toward the Hopkins Hospital Dome Building</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> at the top of the graphic. Orleans Street goes from the lower left to upper right.</span></td></tr>
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The Beatty/Perkins Point team still hasn't trumpeted this concept, but you can see it if you look closely at their meager graphics that have slipped out. In their sketch above, the densest development complex of the entire project (shown in blue) is at the fulcrum between Old Town and the Central Avenue corridor, with a street view corridor at McElderry Street through to the Hopkins Hospital campus which is not shown just beyond the background. <u>I <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2011/06/old-town.html" target="_blank">showed this idea first on this blog.</a></u> As crummy as my graphics are, the Beatty version for the billion dollar project isn't a whole lot better.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfA6QNutMIU/V-v1O-OKUlI/AAAAAAAAECI/9g6AKep1TwsCvJCCYRuQqPHiC1EleyO7QCLcB/s1600/Jones%2BHopkins%2B17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfA6QNutMIU/V-v1O-OKUlI/AAAAAAAAECI/9g6AKep1TwsCvJCCYRuQqPHiC1EleyO7QCLcB/s640/Jones%2BHopkins%2B17.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baltimore Innerspace graphic proposing an Old Town plan that does the same thing as the subsequent Beatty plan<br />
- creating a spine to Hopkins Hospital along McElderry Street, but extending west it to the Jones Falls Expressway,<br />
Sun Calvert complex and Mount Vernon in the foreground. Orleans Street is on the right (south).</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ironically, the Beatty plan now opens up to Johns Hopkins, but turns its back on Downtown, which has previously been considered the necessary anchor. Their plan ought to have strong connections to both, but downtown is now considered so minor and secondary that it's not considered worth dealing with. The planned redevelopment of the Sun Calvert Street complex ought to help change that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then there's transit. The conventional wisdom was that the Red Line light rail project was crucial to the city's future development, especially southeast. Then just when the Red Line seemed to be at its peak project momentum, Harbor East developer John Paterakis (who had worked closely with Beatty) forced the planned station serving his area to be moved out of the key Central Avenue corridor to a hidden spot near Little Italy. So obviously, it wasn't crucial at all. All the development already had all the momentum it needed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But the greatest irony was that once Governor Hogan killed the Red Line, practically no one did anything to try to revive it. <u>Sure, <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2018/05/politicians-start-acting-like-you.html" target="_blank">they all bellyached, but that's all.</a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So leave it to me, of all people... The far more expensive east leg of the Red Line is dead but the far better and more cost effective west leg can and should still be built. <u>An <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-perkins-line-best-bet-for-southeast.html" target="_blank">east streetcar spur</a></u> from a west side Red Line should be built through the Inner Harbor to Bank Street and Broadway, at the south end of this project where Perkins Point will abut Harbor East and Fells Point.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What's really happening is that all the essential stuff is being hammered out quietly behind closed doors, and the public stuff will be revealed only as needed according to some deliberate strategy. The big anchors are Harbor Point to the south and Hopkins Hospital to the northeast, and they're totally wired in to what's happening, of course. That's almost always how development really gets done.</span><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Southwest Partnership Plan ignores what's most important</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now look at the west side of town, where the Southwest Partnership has conducted a commendably open planning process and has released lengthy reports chocked full of lovely graphics illustrating a glorious future for their heretofore neglected and under-performing area <u>- <a href="http://southwestpartnershipbaltimore.org/about-us/the-plan">http://southwestpartnershipbaltimore.org/about-us/the-plan</a></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The quality of the Southwest Partnership reports' graphics put the Beatty graphics to shame. But all this raises suspicions. Some of it just elicits an "oh, c'mon" kind of reaction. One graphic of West Baltimore Street, the old traditional commercial spine, shows that someone has decided to get rid of all the on-street parking and replace it with bike lanes. Presumably, the bus stops would be gone too. Did anyone actually think about this? Who drew this up and why?</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XxR9H2okZAI/W1M10zpG_RI/AAAAAAABQm4/bdhL2y_WL-oQDxt9EiNN__mYVLvBwKGnACLcBGAs/s1600/2018-07-21%2B%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="884" height="436" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XxR9H2okZAI/W1M10zpG_RI/AAAAAAABQm4/bdhL2y_WL-oQDxt9EiNN__mYVLvBwKGnACLcBGAs/s640/2018-07-21%2B%25281%2529.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Southwest Partnership's "illustrative" plan for West Baltimore Street,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> eliminating all parking and replacing it with bike lanes. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This graphic includes an odd disclaimer: "Renderings are illustrative, meant to capture Baltimore Street’s potential." Yeah, it's illustrative of how to make West Baltimore Street into a ghost town. But this is so silly and incidental that it can probably be safely ignored.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">More importantly, it seems that the bigger and more crucial the issue, the more gingerly they tiptoe around or avoid it. This does play into a political strategy. The issues people care most about are the ones near where they live, even if they're not crucial. This then allows the biggest issues to be addressed behind the scenes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The biggest issue in West Baltimore right now is what to do with the giant hulking <u>million-plus square foot <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/02/metro-west-speculation-on-highway-to.html" target="_blank">Metro West complex</a></u> formerly occupied by the Social Security Administration. Time is ticking away as it deteriorates. This will affect all of West Baltimore, with potential for thousands of jobs at stake, but it is on the geographic periphery of the Southwest Partnership area so it is totally ignored in their plan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But you can be sure it is being analyzed and negotiated in detail behind the scenes, between the city and the high-powered developer, Caves Valley Partners.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of its main questions is what to do with the "Highway to Nowhere", which bisects the site and runs right through the main building. This aborted Interstate highway is the single thing which is most often cited as having caused the downfall of West Baltimore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Line was then planned for fifteen years until 2015 without seriously considering what to do with this highway which surrounded the proposed transit line. The city even totally closed the highway for months so that the state could do some Red Line "site prep" at its west end between Payson and Pulaski Streets. But now, having an actual developer involved makes it real in a way that the Red Line never was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, the Southwest Partnership plans are mum about all of this. It's on the periphery of their area so they feel it can conveniently be ignored. This is a mistake. The law of "border vacuums" demonstrates how things on the periphery can have the most dramatic effect on the surrounding areas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In contrast, the East Baltimore plans have confronted the border vacuums. For many years, the clamor was to get rid of the Jones Falls Expressway because of its effect as a border vacuum on Old Town. And now, the peripheral Hopkins Hospital and Harbor Point sites, which were border vacuums for many years, are seen as the crucial anchors for the new development between them.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qZNlV2tKlgU/W1MzfE8GjsI/AAAAAAABQms/CC-5acgg_DI7FVfDNRnOssqRd5GisxU_ACLcBGAs/s1600/2018-07-21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="973" height="394" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qZNlV2tKlgU/W1MzfE8GjsI/AAAAAAABQms/CC-5acgg_DI7FVfDNRnOssqRd5GisxU_ACLcBGAs/s640/2018-07-21.png" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Southwest Partnership overview plan. "Highway to Nowhere" is in the upper left,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> culminating at the Metro West development at the "MLK BLVD" label.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Southwest Partnership plan overview graphic (above) puts this in perspective. The "Highway to Nowhere" is depicted by barely visible drab gray streaks along the upper left border of the plan. This is the very essence of a border vacuum. At the top of this, the same kind of shadowy representation is used for the Metro West complex (right where the word "MLK BLVD" is displayed). The plan thus ignores Metro West.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But the plan essentially acknowledges the highway's border vacuum by putting a new very high density housing complex right along the highway (Mulberry Street). Such intense high value developments are a good way to deal with border vacuums. The only problem is that this is normally done along waterfronts or other high value borders, not along a horrible highway which has been depressing property values since even before it was built.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The plan doesn't even recognize the Red Line plan, even though their process started before that project was precipitously killed. The local Red Line Station had been planned and engineered between Carey and Calhoun Streets, just off the left side of the graphic, and nowhere near the high intensity development. There was a total lack of coordination between Southwest Partnership, the city and the Red Line planning team.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now after well over a decade of planning, the first phase prototype of this high density housing is nearing completion with the new La Cite residential building at Schroeder Street between Fayette and Saratoga (see top graphic). This is being built in what seems like a peripheral low value area now, but is supposed to be a central high value area eventually. Some of us are skeptical.</span><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Problems with "Border Vacuums" - racial and otherwise</span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In East Baltimore, the Perkins Point project eliminates border vacuums, while the Southwest Partnership plan would just ultimately make it worse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The primary means that the southwest plan offers to enhance property values is through mass housing demolition to create new development sites and parks. This is painful and expensive, and even inhumane. Blocks slated for demolition usually have some crumbling houses, but also houses that are being steadfastly and bravely maintained by residents who have invested their lives in their neighborhoods. This plan has far too much of that. Hundreds of houses would be knocked down, including many with good residents that are in good condition, but just happen to be in the path of the plan. This kind of plan is what has given "gentrification" a bad name.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Instead of mass demolition and displacement, the more proven way to enhance property values and get development going is to build the major projects on the periphery first, with strong linkages to spur the rest of the development after that. Property values can then often rise sufficiently to spur rehabilitation of existing houses rather than demolition. This is what has happened in much of Baltimore, but much more on the east than on the west side of the city, and is virtually absent in the Southwest Partnership plan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To do that in West Baltimore, dealing with the "Highway to Nowhere" and Metro West must be of the utmost priority, to create momentum to stimulate the rest of the revitalization in between. Here's how I outlined <u>a <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-westbalt-port-covington-for-working.html" target="_blank">blueprint several years ago</a>.</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is even more crucial in the <u>neighborhoods <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2017/03/metro-west-should-become-heritage.html" target="_blank">north of the "Highway to Nowhere"</a></u>, most notably Harlem Park, Lafayette Square and Sandtown, which don't have downtown and the University of Maryland Biopark as anchors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One could even cynically argue that the Southwest Plan serves to retain the "Highway to Nowhere" as a racial barrier - black to the north and white to the south. The plan does work hard to eliminate such a racial barrier four blocks south at Baltimore Street, which was getting increasingly solid before the Biopark development. But will the racial barrier simply move northward?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Unfortunately, this is another instance where East Baltimore is serving as a model for West Baltimore. In East Baltimore, Fayette Street has been a traditional racial dividing line, but the Hopkins EBDI Plan is now essentially moving this racial border northward about seven blocks to the Amtrak tracks. Railroad tracks and major highways are much more solid barriers than are mere streets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another major border vacuum is the north edge of Carroll Park <u>at the <a href="https://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot.com/2014/02/b-mount-clare-first-mile-plan-from-brew.html" target="_blank">historic B&O Railroad "First Mile"</a></u> right of way. This has gotten more attention in the southwest plan than has the "Highway to Nowhere", but it still dances around the issues.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The earlier draft of the plan was worse, promoting a physical barrier around this rail right of way, with only a very unwieldy pedestrian bridge connecting the north neighborhoods to the park, or some new lights inside the Carey Street underpass that doesn't connect to the park anyway. These tenuous connections ignore the very concept that the plan promotes to build parks in the first place, to provide the most convenient possible proximity to residents.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Virtually all great urban parks from New York's Central Park to Boston Common have strong continuous access to their neighbors so that the park can serve as their extended living room. In Baltimore, Patterson Park is the prime example.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The southwest planners gave various rationales for their barriers, such as security or railroad regulations or to accommodate the freight train switching for an intermodal truck terminal that had previously been planned for Morrell Park. None of these rationalizations were or are in any way defensible or insurmountable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The more vague language in the current version is a sign of hope. In addition, support has been building for a hike/bike trail in this right of way to connect to the Gwynns Falls trail. This could be part of a truly transformative six mile greenway loop that could go all the way to the "Highway to Nowhere" corridor and the lush green edge of MLK Boulevard adjacent to downtown and the University of Maryland campus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, the plan still shows far more mass demolition of housing in the Mount Clare neighborhood just north of the park than is necessary or justifiable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In sum, the rules of planning should be relatively simple: Minimize demolition, save the subsidies for where they're really needed, increase property values, deal with border vacuums, and above all - think comprehensively.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">East Baltimore has been much more successful at following these rules than West Baltimore. And unfortunately, secret sneaky behind-the-s</span>cenes negotiations have probably helped too.</div>
</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26974845.post-62621972597599685862018-06-26T08:42:00.000-04:002018-06-26T10:10:57.822-04:00Violetville: Best future MARC station suburb?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Signs for the future show great potential to build a MARC commuter rail station just inside the city line near the very attractive Violetville neighborhood. Violetville could become the very best railroad suburb in the whole Baltimore-Washington corridor.<br />
<br />
Violetville has always been one of Baltimore's quiet strong working-class neighborhoods, which the city economy used to have in abundance but now has only a few. But whether Violetville can continue to resist the negative trends that continue to plague the city is an open question.<br />
<br />
The key to making a Violetville Station a special place is to provide no parking - just part of a great neighborhood. Think of Harry Potter's Hogsmeade or Twilight Zone's Willoughby.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PiWXWzLz7Zc/WzFwH9JahGI/AAAAAAABQhc/_p4egXmgxTwRSX_Ux2SyoE_enwJ6_5A4ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PiWXWzLz7Zc/WzFwH9JahGI/AAAAAAABQhc/_p4egXmgxTwRSX_Ux2SyoE_enwJ6_5A4ACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9739.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Site of a potential Violetville MARC station, looking south from Wilkens Avenue.<br />
A landlocked industrial site is to the left and Southwestern Boulevard is to the right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The station would be located along Southwest Boulevard, Baltimore's original "Highway to Nowhere" which was supposed to get cars from US 1 through the city until the 1950s when the Harbor Tunnel Thruway was built.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br />Fixing Southwestern Boulevard</h3>
<br />
Very recently, the state finally completed a connection to the Beltway from Southwestern Boulevard, reducing it to a single lane in the process, thus finally recognizing that it's not a thruway anymore. Until a few years ago, Southwestern Boulevard looked like a poorly designed freeway, with 50 mph speed limits on some portions despite having uncontrolled crosswalks and pedestrian routes to the Halethorpe MARC rail station and other local destinations.<br />
<br />
Crosswalks should not coexist with a 50 mph speed limit. If a motorist was actually to conform to the law, he'd have to slam on the brakes from 50 mph whenever a person was present in a crosswalk. No one did, of course. So Southwest Boulevard was a death trap.<br />
<br />
The new improvements finally correct another major design flaw which had required Beltway-bound traffic to filter through Arbutus via local Leeds Avenue. This had also stood since this portion of the Beltway was built in the 1950s.<br />
<br />
This long overdue change contrasts with the short city portion of Southwest Boulevard next to Violetville, which still looks like a grossly overdesigned freeway. Since such a design seldom exists in a vacuum, large semi-trailer trucks have spontaneously decided to use it as a parking lot and "rest area". Fortunately, the Oaklee neighborhood just to the west has managed to get this banned from their side of Southwest Boulevard (opposite Violetville and the railroad tracks), and truckers are no longer allowed to leave dis-attached trailers which created a longer term problem. Still, the constant presence of a long line of parked trucks prevents anything attractive from going into the strip of land between Southwest Boulevard and the Amtrak tracks.<br />
<br />
But Southwest Boulevard can indeed be easily downsized to serve as a human-scaled front door for a train station and new housing, and create a narrow civilized link between the Violetville and Oaklee neighborhoods on either side of the<span style="font-family: inherit;"> street. <span style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">All the traffic in both directions can easily be consolidated on the west (currently southbound) roadway with room left over for drop-offs, eliminating the roadway closest to the station.</span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnlblJ-_yvA/WzFx0So9avI/AAAAAAABQho/llSd1zBdcFYvwoDUsUuLB-BsgtmOsiy7gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnlblJ-_yvA/WzFx0So9avI/AAAAAAABQho/llSd1zBdcFYvwoDUsUuLB-BsgtmOsiy7gCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9734.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Southwestern Boulevard looking north in front of impromptu truck parking, behind which is a beautiful virgin forest.<br />
All the traffic in both directions could easily be consolidated on the left roadway, with room left over for drop-offs. <br />
The proposed Violetville MARC station would be on the right beyond the forest. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Violetville's fate</h3>
<br />
Violetville is sufficiently isolated from the truck and highway problems which has served the neighborhood well thus far. However, the neighborhood is far more vulnerable and dependent on the future success or failure of the city as a whole.<br />
<br />
Violetville has that in common with its two other smaller closest neighborhoods, Oaklee and Kensington, which are also somewhat isolated, although not to the same extent since they are adjacent to Arbutus in Baltimore County, which has a whole different public sector support system - schools, taxes, services, etc.<br />
<br />
In particular, Kensington has extremely attractive single family houses, nestled into a small wedge between Wilkens Avenue, Loudon Park Cemetery, a small part of Yale Heights and the huge, fortress-like Charlestown senior housing complex on the edge of Catonsville.<br />
<br />
Can these three neighborhoods continue to seem like lands that time forgot? In a city that has lost a third of its population, where the economy keeps getting more stressed and people continue to get older and move (such as to nearby Charlestown senior complex), this is doubtful. Change is a constant.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oSfgGn06fgc/WzFzqxZVPKI/AAAAAAABQh0/98SEO4xeMIA_lztu51Snn65YTcYKojahACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oSfgGn06fgc/WzFzqxZVPKI/AAAAAAABQh0/98SEO4xeMIA_lztu51Snn65YTcYKojahACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9746.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Big dead tree hovering over houses on Rock Hill Avenue in Violetville.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Here's a living metaphor: There is currently a huge dead tree hovering over a row of houses on Rock Hill Avenue in Violetville. It was once a beautiful healthy tree that provided shade to the neighborhood, but now it threatens the houses. No one has chopped it down. If a strong wind blows it down, it could severely damage the houses and perhaps the people in them. After such a catastrophe, would the houses be worth enough to get rebuilt, or would they just languish as a cancer for the neighborhood as a whole, as has happened in much of the city?<br />
<br />
Of course, I'm not a tree expert and I haven't measured the risk. But this kind of metaphor has played out in many other neighborhoods throughout the city - to bad results. Having insurance is not enough. If the neighborhood is not worth investing in, the wise economic decision for victimized residents would be to simply take your money, move out and live elsewhere, regardless of the insurance check, leaving behind yet another neighborhood that needs help.<br />
<br />
All neighborhoods have ups and downs, and it's usually difficult to recognize the tipping point. The nearby Cardinal Gibbons High School closed several years ago and it's not easy to measure that impact. On the other hand, St. Agnes Hospital has continued to grow. Things are seldom static even if they might appear that way.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Creating a MARC identity</h3>
<br />
So let's look at the long range trend. Much of Baltimore, away from Hopkins and the harbor, still does not have a strong identity. Perhaps Violetville, Oaklee and Kensington are economically strong enough to withstand what continues to bring down much of the rest of the city. But maybe not.<br />
<br />
At some point, the best course may be to build a MARC rail station along the Amtrak tracks and establish these neighborhoods as viable suburbs for commuters to Washington, DC. This has been tried at the city's other three commuter rail stations, at Penn Station, Camden Yards and West Baltimore, but this is very well where it might work best to take advantage of the fact that Washington continues to boom as a world capital while Baltimore struggles.<br />
<br />
In fact, this could become the best transit-oriented community in the entire Baltimore-Washington corridor. Virtually all of the other MARC station communities have competing and conflicting interests that Violetville would not have. Camden Station is downtown, and the CSX Camden line as a whole can't offer good enough service. The Penn Station area did not take off until arts and education supplanted commuting as the primary focus. West Baltimore, Halethorpe and BWI-Marshall are oriented to drive-in riders. The stations closer to Washington don't have enough of an economic advantage over other suburbs.<br />
<br />
The isolation of Violetville, Oaklee and Kensington would work to their advantage in creating an environment that can truly work well with suburban transit commuting. The existing residential areas would remain virtually as-is. There would be no big oppressive parking lots or garages and no pressure to build them. New higher density residential development would be located closest to the train station, and specifically tailored to transit commuting, meaning that only a negligible amount of auto traffic would be generated.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A7tuhM80Y7Y/WzF1JA0FmnI/AAAAAAABQiA/QTyz_qMpo58xQmtQVSC5sZR3X6NZOUBzgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A7tuhM80Y7Y/WzF1JA0FmnI/AAAAAAABQiA/QTyz_qMpo58xQmtQVSC5sZR3X6NZOUBzgCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9722.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kensington neighborhood, one of the city's hidden gems. <br />
A building of the huge Charlestown senior living complex can be seen above in the distance.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Planning a Violetville MARC Station</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
A Violetville MARC Station would be laid out in a roughly similar manner to the recently rebuilt Halethorpe Station just over two miles to the south, except without the large parking areas. These would be replaced with new housing oriented the station. Southwestern Boulevard would be narrowed to a single lane in each direction to create more space and a better environment for this development, as well as an easy pedestrian crossing between the neighborhoods. The main entrance to the station would also be from Southwestern Boulevard.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f8Z3TSORMUQ/WzFOlvH_TPI/AAAAAAABQhQ/YJYDBVNlVfot9eHH_g0C-HUq87gEQmHSACLcBGAs/s1600/Violetville%2BMARC%2BStation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="1366" height="296" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f8Z3TSORMUQ/WzFOlvH_TPI/AAAAAAABQhQ/YJYDBVNlVfot9eHH_g0C-HUq87gEQmHSACLcBGAs/s640/Violetville%2BMARC%2BStation.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proposed Violetville MARC Station area shown in orange, straddling Amtrak tracks. The main entrance<br />
would be off of a narrowed Southwestern Boulevard (US 1) to the west (left).<br />
A neighborhood entrance would be located to the east of the tracks. Adjacent parks would be on each side<br />
of the tracks to the south - the existing Violetville Park to the east and a new wooded passive park to the west..</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
From Violetville, on the other side of the tracks, there should probably also be adjacent new residential development that replaces the industrial complex behind the houses on Haverhill Road. This would include a pedestrian connection over or under the tracks, so that the station is accessible from the rest of Violetville.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zw6QrX2cHrA/WzF4NPkQJJI/AAAAAAABQiM/0eugHS-M5UsDU-tmiP3Vcruc6zdk0xn6ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zw6QrX2cHrA/WzF4NPkQJJI/AAAAAAABQiM/0eugHS-M5UsDU-tmiP3Vcruc6zdk0xn6ACLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9675.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Violetville MARC Station site under the power poles,<br />
as seen from landlocked commercial operation located behind houses on Haverhill Road.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The development should also have an orientation to the Violetville Park to create more of a "people presence" for the park and foster its use and maintenance. The park is now hidden from almost the entire neighborhood, which discourages safety and encourages neglect. At present, the softball fields and tennis courts are in very poor condition, and even on a recent beautiful summer Sunday, hardly anyone was there. It would be advantageous to make the maintenance of this park the legal and financial responsibility of the new development.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eySpb0Ictys/WzF5mw4vYuI/AAAAAAABQiY/KY-RVtr-TWg2C8KzlpYpNFULd7fvGiZygCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN9699.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eySpb0Ictys/WzF5mw4vYuI/AAAAAAABQiY/KY-RVtr-TWg2C8KzlpYpNFULd7fvGiZygCLcBGAs/s640/DSCN9699.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Violetville Park looking toward the adjacent railroad tracks under the electric poles. <br />
The park's softball fields and tennis courts are not maintained.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Surprisingly, there is also a large (nearly five acres) virgin forest area between the railroad tracks and Southwestern Boulevard, interrupted only by the adjacent constant lineup of trucks. An intelligent design for the new development and the station could also incorporate this forest into the Violetville Park, to create an open space for peace and contemplation to augment the current space for more active uses. Of course, economic realities would dictate what could actually be done, but on the other hand, nothing should be done unless it's of high enough quality to be beneficial.<br />
<br />
South of this park and an adjacent cemetery and entering Baltimore County, there are other industrial areas that may eventually be redeveloped as well. The vast majority of this is east of the tracks with good direct access to well-used Benson Avenue, and so any changes would be of a lower priority.<br />
<br />
The Violetville MARC Station would serve trains on the outer two of the four tracks, which make all the stops between Penn Station and BWI-Marshall Airport, before continuing to New Carrollton and Washington, while the two inner tracks would serve higher speed Acela and Regional Amtrak trains that would not stop here.<br />
<br />
In sum, a new MARC station would provide the kind of major future option which is not afforded to most Baltimore neighborhoods, and Violetville could become the nicest station in the whole Baltimore-Washington corridor.<br />
<br />
Willoughby and Hogsmeade only exist in our imaginations, but Violetville is real.</div>
Gerald Neilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03765375014163120449noreply@blogger.com1