The Baltimore InnerSpace Transit Plan

THE FULLY INTEGRATED METRO/LIGHT RAIL/STREETCAR PLAN

Every transit system worth its salt needs an "icon map" that should be plastered everywhere in the system, like pictures of Chairman Mao in China. My first attempt at such a map is the crudely drawn amateur graphics version shown above. You can get almost anywhere in this system from either the Charles Center or Lexington Market Metro Stations, and anywhere at all from one station or the other.

This system relies on the heavy rail Metro Green Line and the almost-heavy rail Red Line to do all the heavy lifting. The Blue and Orange lines are the existing quasi-regional light rail lines.

The Yellow, Brown , Purple and Gray lines are for streetcars, which serve all inner city destinations in a manner that is in harmony with their streetscapes, but which fully connect to the system inside the two major downtown Metro subway stations.

The key to a successful transit system is downtown connectivity, and the key to this connectivity is a comprehensive downtown transit hub built into the "Down Under" parking garage.

The "Down Under" parking garage puts the comprehensive downtown transit hub right where it should be - underneath the middle of downtown, where it can connect to everything. It also allows the portals that bring the transit lines from underground up to the surface to be located as close to the hub as possible.

This maximizes the advantages of an underground transit hub which serves the existing Metro, while allowing the maximum amount of the rail transit system to be built on the urban surface. This saves a huge amount of money on tunneling, while linking the transit lines as intimitely as possible with the surface street activities.

The portals would be located at:

1. South, East and West: Lombard at Hanover Street - just south of Charles Center at an existing parking garage entrance.

2. West: MLK Boulevard at the Franklin-Mulberry Expressway - just west of downtown where it would connect directly to the 16 block Franklin-Mulberry "Edge City" development.

3. North: St. Paul Street near Saratoga - built into a southern extension of the wall that defines Preston Gardens.

To make this comprehensive "Down Under" transit hub as fully functional as possible, it simply needs to be built as part of a relatively inexpensive rail transit system which includes:

1. A short Red Line westward through the Franklin-Mulberry corridor to the existing West MARC Station - approximately two miles.

2. A short Green Line Metro extension east of Hopkins Hospital to a new East MARC Station - approximately two miles.

3. A streetcar system that serves the inner city in all directions -

(a) northward toward Charles Village and possibly Northwood/Morgan State
(b) southward toward Federal Hill and possibly Port Covington
(c) eastward toward Fells Point and possibly Canton
(d) westward toward the Mount Clare B&O Museum and possibly Montgomery Park.

4. New bus transit hubs located at three key locations:

(a) West MARC Station - Franklin at Pulaski Street
(b) East MARC Station - Edison Highway at Monument Street
(c) Lexington Market Metro Station - Eutaw at Saratoga Street

Many intermediate destinations would also be served as well as possible by this arrangement, on the street surfaces and not underground. These most notably include the Inner Harbor along the sections of both Pratt and Light Streets which are to be rebuilt in a manner which is optimum for streetcars, as well as Harbor East, Camden Station and Penn Station.

There are several other keys to making this plan work in the most flexible possible manner: The Red Line should be built to work with either light rail or streetcar vehicles between Downtown and the West MARC station. South of Downtown, the Red Line should then connect to the existing central light rail line toward Camden Station and beyond.

It may also be worthwhile to make the streetcars and the central light rail line compatible, at least in key inner city locations.

Both of the downtown hubs under this plan, at Charles Center and Lexington Market, would provide direct connections between the Metro, light rail and streetcar systems. The Lexington Market hub would also connect directly to the bus system. The Metro would provide connections to the west and east MARC stations, while the light rail and streetcar lines would connect to the Camden and Penn MARC Stations.

CHARLES CENTER "DOWN UNDER" RAIL TRANSIT HUB

This hub would operate on two levels crossing at a right angle, connected by escalators, similarly to the way most modern downtown rail transit terminals operate, such as MetroCenter, Gallery Place and L'Enfant Plaza in Washington DC.

The existing Metro line running east-west under Baltimore Street would be on one level. The other level would incorporate both the light rail Red Line and the various streetcar lines running north-south approximately under what was once Hanover Street in the "Down Under" garage.

The light rail Red Line would extend through this station from under Lexington Street to the west to the Lombard/Hanover portal to the south.

The streetcar lines would make the same connections as the Red Line, and would also run eastward under Lexington Street to the Preston Gardens portal where it would proceed northward along St. Paul Street.

LEXINGTON MARKET RAIL/BUS TRANSIT HUB


The Red Line, which would accommodate both light rail and streetcars, would be built under Lexington Street through the Lexington Market Rail/Bus Transit Hub. The east end of the station would be under the intersection of Howard Street, and would incorporate escalators up to the surface of Howard Street to connect directly to the existing central light rail line.

Accommodations should also be made for a future connection to the Howard Street CSX tunnel, in the event that this freight tunnel is ever to converted to passenger use.

The west end of the new Red Line station would be under Eutaw Street for a connection to the existing Lexington Market Metro Station, either at the mezzanine level of that station, or via a new escalator linkage.

The north end of the existing Metro station, along Eutaw between Saratoga and Mulberry Streets, would be a new bus transit terminal. This would be on State-owned land immediately adjacent to the existing Metro escalators. The Red Line station under Lexington would be accessible via the existing mezzanine under Eutaw. Thus, the Lexington Market Rail/Bus Transit Hub would be shaped like an "L" under Eutaw Street (Metro) and Lexington Street (Red Line). The top (north end) of the "L" would be the bus terminal, linking directly to the existing Metro. The bottom (south end) of the "L" would be the Red Line, linking directly to the existing Howard Street light rail line.




A SAMPLE OPERATING PLAN



To illustrate the high degree of connectivity which this plan offers, here is one of the many ways that such a system could be operated.

I have not included the extension of the Red Line westward from the West MARC Station to Social Security, because I have not seen a way in which it can really work. (I don't like to discuss ideas unless I believe they are do-able). When a viable Red Line plan for Edmondson Avenue and Cooks Lane, or anywhere else, is presented by the MTA or whomever, I will jump on board.

In any event, a westward Red Line extension to Security can be built as a later stage.

For similar reasons, an eastward Green Line Metro extension to Middle River is also possible, but not shown here.

However, an additional Green Line Metro extension southeastward along the Haven Street corridor to Bayview, Highlandtown, Greektown, Brewers Hill and Canton Crossing is included, because it appears to be inexpensive and emminently feasible as the first subsequent extension to the basic plan.

The sample operating plan is as follows. Not all stations are listed.

METRO GREEN LINE

Owings Mills
State Center
Lexington Market - bus terminal - transfer to Red, Purple, Blue and Orange Lines
Charles Center - transfer to Red, Purple, Yellow and Brown Lines
Hopkins Hospital
Berea/Biotech Park
East MARC Station - bus terminal
Bayview
Highlandtown/Greektown
Brewers Hill
Canton Crossing

LIGHT RAIL RED LINE

BWI-M Airport
Camden Station - MARC - transfer to Blue and Orange Lines
Convention Center - transfer to Gray and Brown Lines
Charles Center - transfer to Green, Purple, Brown and Yellow Lines
Lexington Market - bus terminal and transfer to Green, Blue and Orange Lines
Heritage Crossing
Franklin Square
West MARC Station - bus terminal

LIGHT RAIL BLUE LINE

Glen Burnie/Cromwell
Camden Station - MARC - transfer to Orange and Red Lines
Baltimore Arena
Lexington Market - bus terminal and transfer to Green, Red, Orange and Purple Lines
Centre Street
State Center
University of Baltimore
Hunt Valley

LIGHT RAIL ORANGE LINE

BWI-M Airport
Camden Station - MARC - transfer to Red and Blue Lines
Baltimore Arena
Lexington Market - bus terminal and transfer to Red, Green, Blue and Purple Lines
Centre Street
State Center
University of Baltimore
Penn Station - MARC - transfer to Brown and Yellow Lines



STREETCAR YELLOW LINE

Northwood/Morgan State
Memorial Stadium
Waverly
Charles Village
Penn Station - MARC - transfer to Orange Line
Mount Vernon
Preston Gardens
Charles Center - transfer to Green, Red, Brown and Purple Lines
Inner Harbor/Light Street
Federal Hill
South Baltimore
Port Covington



STREETCAR PURPLE LINE

West MARC - bus terminal
Franklin Square
Heritage Crossing
Lexington Market - bus terminal and transfer to Green, Red, Blue and Orange Lines
Charles Center - transfer to Green, Red, Brown and Yellow Lines
Inner Harbor/Pratt Street
Harbor East
Fells Point



STREETCAR GRAY LINE

Montgomery Park
Mount Clare
University of Maryland
Camden Yards - transfer to Red, Blue and Orange Lines
Convention Center
Inner Harbor/Pratt Street - transfer to Purple and Yellow Lines
Harbor East
Fells Point

STREETCAR BROWN LINE

Northwood/Morgan State
Memorial Stadium
Waverly
Charles Village
Penn Station - MARC - transfer to Orange Line
Mount Vernon
Preston Gardens
Charles Center - transfer to Green, Red, Yellow and Purple Line
Convention Center - transfer to Red, Orange, Gray and Blue Line
Camden Yards
University of Maryland
Mount Clare
Montgomery Park



And I think I've run out of colors so I'll quit now...

Charles Street Trolley Extension

A STREETCAR NAMED ASPIRE

For the proposed Charles Street Trolley line to truly fit into its own distinct place in the region's transit system, it should be extended eastward along 33rd Street to Baltimore City College, then northward on Loch Raven Boulevard to Northwood Shopping Center near Morgan State University.

This would be a modest expansion to a modest project, but it would increase its scope dramatically, and transform the trolley from being a community-based initiative to one with truly regional significance. It would elevate the trolley into a vehicle for the transformation of the transit system and its aspiration for excellence.

Operationally, it would simply allow the current #3 bus line, which also serves Northwood Shopping Center along Loch Raven Boulevard, to make a much quicker trip to Downtown, allowing it to bypass the more urban Charles Village corridor and let the trolley serve that area instead.

Such a trolley line would serve an expanded "Uptown" corridor that would include not only Charles Village, but Waverly and the Memorial Stadium area, as well as Northwood and Morgan State University. Trolleys are much more suited to serve this type of medium and high density multi-use urban corridor. This would allow the #3 bus line, and also the major #8 bus line on Greenmount and the more meandering #36 bus line, to focus on what they can do better - linking more suburban areas to downtown, while also serving as feeders to the trolley line.

A daunting problem of the current Charles Street trolley proposal is that it provides redundant service to the MTA bus lines that are already in the corridor. This redundancy would no doubt be exacerbated if the trolley line were run by a separate independent entity and not the MTA. Would the MTA work closely with the Charles Street Development Corporation and its trolley offspring to ensure that all transit modes function in concert as a cohesive system? There's not much chance of that happening, since the MTA hasn't even had a proactive role in the streetcar planning, much less in its implementation. They have virtually no stake in the trolley's success. They also have enough trouble running their own shop, much less trying to ensure the success of another independent operator.

The scope of the Charles Street Trolley project needs to be expanded so it is just big enough to make a big impact, and to demand that the MTA adopt it and work to make it work.

EXPANDING THE TROLLEY INTO THE 33RD STREET- NORTHWOOD CORRIDOR

Turning the trolley line eastward onto 33rd Street from the Charles/St. Paul Corridor at Hopkins University is a very natural thing to do, both physically and operationally. Physically, 33rd Street has a very wide median framed by trees that could form an organic canopy for the streetcars to travel under. Operationally, 33rd Street is already a major link for the high-volume #3 bus line between the northeast Loch Raven corridor and the north central Charles/St. Paul Corridor.


The tree canopy of the 33rd Street median would be an ideal place for the Charles Street Trolley line in the Waverly Business District looking west toward Greenmount Avenue.

It seems rather odd, however, for the #3 bus line to make this diversionary shift from one corridor to another on its way downtown. The fact that this shift adds many riders to the #3 line is a strong suggestion that this route would be more appropriate for a streetcar line, which is a transit mode specifically tailored to the needs of a multi-use urban environment, than for the #3 bus line which could then focus on the traditional suburb to downtown radial function. This would be accomplished by running the #3 bus line all the way down Loch Raven instead of making the detour to Charles Village, as would some major improvements to expedite traffic in this area (see blog article on the Jones Falls/Belvidere connection). The #3 line could also then be converted into an express-style "QuickBus" like the recently instituted #40 east-west line.

The Northwood Shopping Center on Loch Raven Boulevard would be a perfect location for a transit terminal to connect the end of the trolley line to the #3 bus line. Located at the southern end of Morgan State University, this shopping center could be re-fashioned into a "college-town" commercial district in the same way as is being done in the district at Johns Hopkins University (also along the trolley line) in a very vibrant and successful way.


Northwood Shopping Center looking toward the big empty former Hecht Company department store, with Morgan State University dorms hovering overhead in the background. This parking lot could be made into a campus main street business district at the end of the streetcar line.

The Northwood Shopping Center has suffered from the same kind of obsolescence as many other old suburban style retail centers. But the surrounding neighborhood is extremely solid, so a redesign that integrates the retail into both the community and the campus could create a sense of ownership and identity among residents and students, instead of allowing the shopping center to be an isolated island of blight and abandonment.

From this point, the trolley line would proceed southward on Loch Raven Boulevard and The Alameda to 33rd Street. All three of these streets have wide attractive medians that are tailor-made for streetcar lines. One of the great things about streetcar tracks is that grass can still grow between the rails, and trees can readily hover over the top to blend into the sylvan setting. This portion of the Northwood and Lakeside neighborhoods could become Baltimore's version of Cleveland's Shaker Heights, conjuring up a lifestyle of gracious trolleys traversing amid gracious mid-century homes.

Loch Raven Boulevard just south of Northwood Shopping Center could become Baltimore's Shaker Heights.

From The Alameda, the trolley line would turn into 33rd Street, thus becoming another part of an educational district of vast potential. Just south of 33rd Street is one of the city's select few truly monumental edifices, the Baltimore City College - also known as the "Castle on the Hill".

The "Castle on the Hill" - Baltimore City College seen on the distant horizon from Loch Raven Boulevard.

This building represents Baltimore's fleeting brush with greatness as a world-class urban center. Baltimore City College is actually a high school, not a college. It's a high school that was referred to as a college, because when it was built in the 1920s, it was part of a lofty ambition to treat high school students as if they were college students.

While nowadays, the image of the Baltimore City school system gets constantly trashed by almost everyone, suffering an even worse reputation than the MTA, this magnificent building is a gigantic symbol of everything that this city could and once did aspire to - not just in education but in everything. Just compare the ambitions represented by this cathedral of learning to the school system's current educational goal of attempting to get the citywide high school drop-out rate below 60 percent. And even worse, Baltimoreans are often now literally scared out of their wits by city high school students marauding on MTA buses.

Linking City College to the trolley line would put it directly in the educational chain from Morgan State University, the city's leading historically black college, to Hopkins University, the city's historically almost-Ivy League college, to the midtown University of Baltimore, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Peabody Conservatory.

Across the street from City College, Johns Hopkins has already taken over a vacant city high school and turned it into an adjunct to their campus a mile to the west. What is needed here, again, is to create a seamless physical integration of Johns Hopkins at Eastern with Baltimore City College - to link the architectural glory of the City College high school with the educational aspirations of Johns Hopkins University. Instead of parking lots and vacuous spaces between athletic fields, there needs to be a true campus environment.


Baltimore City College (left) and Johns Hopkins at Eastern seen from the former Memorial Stadium site.

There is plenty of room for links to economic aspiration as well - for new business development to bring the "real world" into this educational nexus. This site was formerly occupied by Memorial Stadium, home of the Orioles and Colts for half a century. When it was torn down in the 90s, there was, of course, talk of lofty ambitions of what could take its place, but the only new construction has been an old-folks housing complex and a YMCA recreational center. Yes, these are great for the community, but they hardly fill the huge acreage or the tremendous potential of this area. The streetcar line could be just the construction project needed to get those ambitions stirring again.


The partially completed but mostly vacant Memorial Stadium redevelopment site, seen from Johns Hopkins at Eastern. The white rowhouses in the background used to be the backdrop behind centerfield (the trees were smaller then), making this one of the American League's toughest places to hit a white ball coming out of the pitcher's hand.

Further west along 33rd Street is the Waverly community, an area that took the role as the local "host" to the Orioles and Colts fans during their long reign. Since the fans left for Camden Yards in the 1990s, the entire Waverly community has felt like aging empty-nest parents whose kids have flown the coop, leaving the big Waverly house disturbingly quiet. Many Waverly folks miss the attention and the hub-bub, while many others have just taken it in with quiet resignation or have left for the old folks housing. The streetcar line would be a stimulating injection for Waverly.

A BRIEF RECENT HISTORY OF BALTIMORE'S TRANSIT ASPIRATIONS

Baltimore seems to veer schizophrenically between super grand visions and modest little gestures. The regional rail transit plan released in 2002 was a grand vision of ridiculous proportions. The City Paper called it "pornography" because it was designed for transit geeks to drool all over it in their wet dreams.

That plan had pretty much the same central corridor rapid transit line from Downtown to Towson that was contained in the 1966 plan. That would have cost a cool few billion in current dollars if it was all built underground as everyone hoped, dreamed and anticipated.

Eventually in the 1990s, Baltimore settled for building the Central Light Rail cheap choo-choo in the Jones Falls Valley, well away from the population centers that would have been served by the previous and subsequent proposals.

The grandiose 2002 plan was supposed to compensate for the shortcomings of the 1990s light rail line, but now in 2008 comes the Charles Street Trolley plan, which is another excursion back to the reality of modest proposals.

Meanwhile, in the northeast corridor, the old 1966 plan called for a major heavy rail DC-Metro style subway line to the suburb of Overlea, which is just outside the city line but was then near the outer edge of suburbia. By the 1980s, this line was scaled back to only go to Memorial Stadium, about four miles north of downtown. At that time, Memorial Stadium was already being contemplated for demolition, but it was widely felt that even in that case, it would be replaced with something suitably ambitious and befitting of the end of a transit line.

By the '90s, that plan was scaled back even more, and the Metro line was extended only to Hopkins Hospital just east of downtown. Ambition again took a back seat.

But the 2002 regional rail plan revived the full-fledged dream and then some. The Metro line was identified for extension to Morgan State University as a high priority project (equal in priority to the Red Line now being studied) as the first phase of a line that would subsequently to extended further northeast to Hamilton, then way out into the suburbs to White Marsh and then looping back southward to the Martin section of Middle River.

Please note that because this would be an extension of the existing line, all built as DC-Metro style fully grade separated heavy rail, and much of it would have to be built underground. It would probably match the mega-billion dollar Boston Big Dig for sheer ridiculous unadulterated balls to even contemplate building such a thing. Needless to say, this insane project has whimpered away into the transit annals of obscurity and slow death.

So now, since heavy rail is no longer in the cards, we are left with no rail transit plan to Morgan State.

STREETCARS: A NEW KIND OF TRANSIT ASPIRATION

The thing that really bugs people about the dismantling of streetcar systems such as Baltimore's in the 1950s and 1960s is that nothing decent took its place. Yes, the streetcar lines were already rotting from neglect at that time, but this went far beyond mere physical neglect to include the entire mismanagement of our cities.

Modern streetcar plans such as on Charles Street are nothing more and nothing less than a new way to look at the city.

The Charles Street Trolley is designed without pretensions to simply fit into the street as attractively as possible, so that people can travel in style along Baltimore's foremost four-mile corridor from Downtown to Midtown to Uptown. The allusions to Manhattan are not a coincidence, so OK - the pretensions are here after all.

What it amounts to is the same as if you're remodeling an entire house, you can't afford to install marble floors and rare Brazilian rainforest paneling in every room. But if you're just re-doing the little powder room under the back stairs, then to heck with it... Go ahead and splurge on the marble tile.

The Charles Street trolley should be expanded slightly from a community project to a new kind of linkage between principal points in Baltimore's urban chain, and so that buses - those vehicles of expedience - can serve the regional and downtown network more efficiently.

It's the same reason that in its heyday, the City of Baltimore built an incredible temple to learning in the Baltimore City College. Can ostentatious Gothic architecture and streetcars be vehicles for aspiration and learning? Yes, they can.

Light St. Paul St.

LIGHT ST. PAUL ST.: BALTIMORE'S MAIN STREET FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

"Main Street U.S.A." conjures up an image of olde-tyme Americana where everything came together in one place. Mythical Main Street handled the most traffic, the most transit and most importantly, was the front door for everything important.

Charles Street was Baltimore's traditional Main Street, but its role was greatly diminished by the emergence of the Inner Harbor as the new focal point in the 1970s. In the six blocks adjacent to the Inner Harbor south of Pratt Street, Charles Street became the back alley behind the big buildings facing the waterfront. This dead space subsequently diminished the rest of Charles Street, since anything not associated with the Inner Harbor became second string, hidden from view and attention.

Beyond that, the fall of Charles Street was commonly blamed on its conversion to one-way traffic flow in the 1950s. Obviously, any street that carries traffic in only one direction loses some of its geographic importance, at least as far as vehicles are concerned (although there's no law about which direction pedestrians must walk in.)

With the advent of the Inner Harbor, Pratt Street (also one-way) was supposed to replace Charles as the city's new Main Street. But Pratt has suffered from its own design flaws, and simply does not have the length and continuity to assume an expanded role as Main Street, commensurate with the scale of Baltimore's new expanded downtown. East of President Street and west of Martin Luther King Boulevard, Pratt is just another local street. Pratt also skirts the historic center of downtown to the north, so any focus on Pratt remains at the expense of the traditional downtown. The Inner Harbor portion of Pratt Street is now slated for redesign, but that will do nothing to expand its geographic significance.

Baltimore needs a new Main Street that can serve as a focal point for both the Inner Harbor and for the historic downtown center. There is but one street that fills the bill; unfortunately, it has two names - Light and Saint Paul Streets. But this is the street that is poised to assume the mantel of Baltimore's Main Street.

If U2 had been from Baltimore instead of Ireland, they would have probably written a song called "Where the Streets Have Two Names". Such streetzophrenia happens all too frequently in around here, where everything seems to be caused by historic happenstance. But while Light and St. Paul St. suffer from a multiple personality crisis and almost criminally bad urban design, the street has built-in geographic advantages that no other street in Baltimore can match.

Light Saint Paul Street sees it all. It runs right to the front door of the Inner Harbor. It continues northward as the widest north-south street through most of downtown. It traverses the base of Mount Vernon Place. It serves Penn Station directly. It is at the center of the new Charles Village/Johns Hopkins University business district, and then proceeds northward through Guilford, Baltimore's premier neighborhood of fine old free-standing mansions.

South of the Inner Harbor, Light St. Paul St. is a central spine for the Federal Hill Business District and leads right up to the huge proposed Port Covington Edge City between Interstate 95 and the banks of the Middle Branch, which would make a great southern anchor.

Light St. Paul St. should be the street where Baltimore holds its parades. You know, those events attended by civic-minded folks trying to cling to the last shreds of our shared heritage - St. Patrick's Day, Flag Day, Cinco de Mayo, Gay Pride, This 'n' That - while everyone else just curses at the consequent traffic jams. The traffic jams wouldn't be as bad on a redesigned Light St. Paul as they are on Pratt or Charles Street, and Preston Gardens would add a multi-level experience, taking advantage of the retaining wall that topographically bisects it. Who knows? Light St. Paul Street just might turn parades into a mainstream activity again.

THE KEY TO BEING MAIN STREET:

MAKING LIGHT ST. PAUL STREET TWO-WAY

The biggest problem with Light St. Paul is that most of it carries oppressively huge amounts of traffic, but unlike most other such streets, this traffic problem can be rather easily solved.

The width of Light St. Paul varies wildly. It is extremely distgustingly wide in the Inner Harbor, then it remains fairly wide by Baltimore standards for a few blocks on either side, then it gets very narrow for two blocks in the heart of downtown, then it gets extremely wide again through Preston Gardens to Centre Street.

To create a unified, consistently functioning street, it needs to be made two-way throughout this area between the Inner Harbor and Preston Gardens, and slightly beyond. There actually is a service drive along the upper portion of Preston Gardens that flows in the opposite, or "wrong" direction, but this is rather meaningless and deadening in the context of the entire street. Since the overwhelming flood of traffic is southbound, it still feels like a one-way street.

I'm normally against creating two-way traffic flow merely for its own sake, because of the way it often arbitrarily and capriciously screws up traffic flow, but Light St. Paul could really take advantage of it - to bring the street together in a geographically transparent way to create Baltimore's new Main Street. Since it is possible to disperse much of the through traffic that currently plagues Light St. Paul Street, it should be feasible to make it a happy ceremonial two-way street of the type that urban designers drool over and delude themselves into thinking would spontaneously happen if not for the evil intentions of traffic engineers.

The impact of two-way traffic on transit is mixed. Transit riders benefit greatly by the "geographic transparency" of two-way traffic, to be able to get off and on a transit vehicle at the same place. On the other hand, transit usually suffers much more than automobiles from the congestion created by two-way traffic. Transit vehicles must follow a fixed route and cannot escape to avoid congestion. They also often have great difficulty maneuvering in and out of bottlenecks and lanes blocked by stalled or parked vehicles.

Until just a few years ago, there was a substantial political movement to convert Charles to a two-way street, despite the traffic nightmares this would have caused. It was only when the Charles Street Trolley project got serious that the two-way proposal for Charles got scuttled, because two-way traffic flow on Charles would have been even more difficult for streetcars than it would have been for cars. Yes, there were streetcars on two-way Charles back in the olden days, but despite hazy memories of PCC streetcars, Model T Fords, old codgers and Roger Rabbit, modern people would never have put up with how crappy transit really was back then, or how ill-suited it would be to modern society.

Light Street has also been proposed for conversion to two-way flow south of Baltimore Street in the Inner Harbor planning process now being conducted by Ayers Saint Gross and the streetcar planning process now being conducted by Kittelson & Associates. This segment of Light Street is sufficiently wide that the physical constraints of conversion to two-way flow which afflict most downtown streets can be avoided.

Perhaps not coincidentally, it was ASG that had proposed that Pratt Street be widened into a two-way boulevard in the Inner Harbor - a plan which initially received the blessing of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation, the Downtown Partnership and the Baltimore Development Corporation. Fortunately, they all later realized they were wrong, and that Baltimore InnerSpace was right - Pratt Street should not be made two-way. (Maybe someday they will all realize that this blog is virtually always right about such things.)

So what do we do with Charles Street? We're pretty much stuck with one-way traffic flow on the most important parts of Charles Street, south of 26th Street. There is irony in even calling it the "Charles Street Trolley" if Charles is to remain a one-way street. Obviously, the streetcars will only be on Charles in one direction (northbound) and will be forced to use other streets in the southbound direction.

As currently proposed, the southbound trolley route would use St. Paul north of Mount Royal, and then turn onto a street with quintuple identities - a.k.a. Maryland, Cathedral, Liberty, Hopkins Place and Sharp Street.

This would result in rail transit on four successive non-connecting streets (heavy rail under Eutaw, light rail on Howard, southbound trolleys on Hopkins Place et al, and northbound trolleys on Charles. Combined with the proposed non-connections of the Red Line, these perversions would result in sheer confusion. Most people already curse the lack of a connection between Baltimore's heavy and light rail lines, but this would be even worse.

The best solution to this problem is to instead put the trolleys on as much of the proposed two-way Light St. Paul St. as practicable, and then lend this geographic continuity to one-way Charles Street, one short block away.

Everyone seems to agree that Light Street is the obvious best location for the trolley in the Inner Harbor, where Charles suffers from its "back alley" image. Extending the trolley in both directions on the proposed two-way Light St. Paul St. northward through Preston Gardens would create the clearest possible linkage, and avoid the very narrow and congested portion of Charles Street between Saratoga and Mulberry. Keeping the trolley line on Light St. Paul slightly north of Preston Gardens also would bypass the sensitive issues of running trolleys around the Washington Monument at Mount Vernon Place.

The topography of Preston Gardens would also make it the ideal location for a tunnel portal to run the trolley line into the proposed rail transit center in the Charles Center "Down Under" parking garage (see previous blog article). The trolley line would run along the lower side of Preston Gardens, then into a tunnel which would proceed under Lexington Street westward for one block to Charles Street and then into the "Down Under" Garage. At this point, it would meet all the other rail transit lines in an integrated underground transit terminal - the Red Line, the existing subway, the light rail line (which would connect to the Red Line at Lombard Street) and any and all other trolley lines. An impossible Baltimore transit dream would come true, and our nightmare of unconnectedness would end.

The "Down Under" transit terminal would allow the Charles Street Trolley to serve Charles Street in an ideal way, taking advantage of various access points throughout Charles Center, just as with the existing parking garage. The trolley line would also essentially have no conflicts with cars all the way from Centre Street southward to Lombard Street, encompassing nine of the most congested blocks of the entire corridor.

The "Down Under" transit terminal would offer such tremendous benefits that it must be considered the only alternative - until somebody somehow proves that it won't work.

PUSHING THE THRU TRAFFIC ELSEWHERE

The key traffic issues to making Light St. Paul Street two-way are: (a) preventing as much through traffic as possible from getting to St. Paul Street, and (b) getting as much through traffic as possible that remains on St. Paul. to get off before it gets downtown.

There are four major extraneous sources of through traffic on St. Paul:

• CHARLES STREET - St. Paul Street originates as a branch off of Charles Street just south of Cold Spring Lane. Ironically, St. Paul and Charles both have more traffic capacity downstream from this point than Charles can feed from upstream at Cold Spring, which is a very congested intersection. Motorists are largely indifferent to whether they use Charles or St. Paul south of the branch. They can go either way.
• THE JONES FALLS EXPRESSWAY - The very poorly designed ramp from the southbound JFX to St. Paul at Mount Royal Avenue can be closed to prevent a huge infusion of traffic onto St. Paul. There are enough other exits - Maryland Avenue, Guilford Avenue, Pleasant Street and Fayette Street - to handle this traffic. This measure alone would alter traffic volumes and patterns sufficiently to reduce the required traffic capacity on St. Paul Street from three lanes to two.
• PLEASANT STREET - This westbound street, an extension of the Harford Road corridor, ends at St. Paul, where it dumps all its traffic in the middle of the Mercy Hospital complex. This traffic can be squeezed so that most of it will turn onto Guilford Avenue instead.
• LOCH RAVEN BOULEVARD CORRIDOR - This major northeast Baltimore arterial ends in the vicinity of 25th Street and Greenmount Avenue. As a result, much of its downtown-bound traffic ends up on St. Paul Street, via Argonne Drive (39th Street), 33rd Street, 29th Street or various other routes. A Greenmount to Jones Falls connector should be built as a powerful alternative route into downtown (see Belvidere blog article).

There are also two major connections that could be used to siphon off through traffic after it gets on St. Paul Street:

• MOUNT ROYAL AVENUE - St. Paul is wide enough approaching Mount Royal from the north so that a left-turn only lane could be striped to funnel traffic onto eastbound Mount Royal Avenue and then onto southbound Guilford Avenue.
• EAGER STREET - A mandatory left turn only lane should be designated on St. Paul Street at his intersection to siphon off traffic and lead it to the Eager Street ramp onto the Jones Falls Expressway.

These six alternative routes would have the cumulative effect of diverting traffic away from St. Paul Street such that, south of Eager Street, it could be reduced to merely one lane's worth of traffic as it approaches downtown. This would make it feasible to convert St. Paul to two-way flow approximately as far north as Eager Street (or perhaps Madison or Reed Street in order to achieve a smooth transition.)

The primary route for most of the diverted traffic would be the Jones Falls Expressway corridor. It is therefore incumbent that the traffic flow there be handled in a most efficient manner, and not fall prey to some kind of Champs Elysees Faux Boulevard des Prisons.

REDESIGNING LIGHT ST. PAUL TO BE WORTHY OF ITS NAMES

Once the decision is made to make Light St. Paul Street two-way north of the Inner Harbor, and to divert away the excess through traffic, the next issue is how it should be redesigned to take advantage of this. Here are some guidelines:

1. South of Pratt Street - Light Street in the Inner Harbor needs to be drastically narrowed from its current ultra-bloated ten lane width to a more human scale, to take advantage of its direct and immediate proximity to the Inner Harbor. Between Conway Street and Key Highway, this narrowing should be particularly drastic because the volume which is siphoned off onto Conway is so great that there simply isn't that much traffic left. The photo above shows how hopelessly out of scale this portion of Light Street is now.


2. Between Pratt and Baltimore Street - The new design motif for Light Street south of Pratt should be extended northward to Baltimore Street. This is the best way to finally achieve a long-time urban design goal - to bring the feel of the Inner Harbor into the heart of downtown. This segment of Light Street is sufficiently wide to afford the street designers' much latitude to achieve this goal.

3. Between Baltimore and Lexington Street - In the two blocks north of Baltimore Street to Lexington, Light St. Paul is too narrow to provide a lot of options, but some kind of linkage needs to be made.

4. North of Lexington Street - Here, St. Paul widens again into Preston Gardens. The first and southernmost block must be drastically redesigned as the gateway to Preston Gardens from the center of Downtown and to be a real people magnet. Currently, the traffic islands in this area look superficially nice with green grass and seasonal flowers, but the area is totally devoid of any human-scale activity, a scandalously inexcusable urban design nightmare no-man's land (see blog article on Preston Gardens).

5. Lexington to Centre Street - In the five blocks of Preston Gardens, there must be complete continuity. The traffic islands, loop ramps, and the Orleans Street Viaduct should no longer be allowed to cut off pedestrians. There should also be some kind of urban design motif on the north end of Preston Gardens at Centre Street which establishes unity with the all-important south end at Lexington Street. (These photos show the massive excavation for the Mercy Hospital expansion.)


6. North of Preston Gardens - The photo above shows the north end of Preston Gardens at Centre Street, with the Washington Monument peaking over the tops of the buildings in the upper left corner. At Monument Street, one block north of Centre Street, there should be some kind of design motif which creates a direct linkage between St. Paul Street and Mount Vernon Place. This should also create a unity between St. Paul and Charles Streets - creating a sort of parity between Charles, Baltimore's Main Street of old, and St. Paul - the new Main Street upstart.

7. North of Mount Vernon Place - Here, the distinction between the old and new Main Streets will become blurred as Charles and St. Paul will remain as a one-way traffic couplet.

In sum, all this should make it perfectly clear that Main Street-edness is not a zero-sum game, and that every street can benefit from optimizing the traffic patterns. While most of the attention until now has been lavished on trying to restore Charles Street's past pre-eminence, and while the environment of Light St. Paul St. has a vast potential for improvement, both streets can benefit greatly by each doing what each can do best.

Red Line Down Under

THE RED LINE SOLUTION AT LAST: PUT IT IN THE CHARLES CENTER PARKING GARAGES

I've finally figured out how the Red Line should be done: The Red Line can be connected from the Franklin-Mulberry Corridor to Fells Point without destroying the neighborhoods and without costing a huge amount of money.

At the same time, the Red Line can be connected to everything else that needs connecting and can create yet another fantastic new transit-oriented development opportunity in the process.

The key is in the inner, inner, inner realms of Baltimore Innerspace.

Here is the door that fits the key: The "Down Under" parking garage entrance opposite the intersection of Lombard and Hanover Street, at the south end of Charles Center.

This parking garage entrance should be turned into the portal to the Red Line tunnel. The Red Line should run all the way through the "Down Under" parking garage, which is an amazing underground edifice which extends underneath the entire length of Charles Center from Lombard Street northward to Lexington.

Back in the early to mid 1960s when Charles Center was built, designers didn't really know how to build parking garages yet. So they built a huge catacomb of parking underneath the entire eight square block Charles Center redevelopment area. When it was under construction, it looked like a huge asteroid had hit downtown Baltimore.

There is no reasonable need for parking to be integrated into the urban form in such a way, but planners and architects really didn't know that yet. They also didn't know that they didn't need to provide a dozen or so entrances to this parking that pop up at various points along Charles, Baltimore, Fayette, Hopkins and other streets, thereby screwing up the intersections and sidewalks.

But the '60s were a heady time, when urban designers actually thought that overhead walkways would be great places for pedestrians, leaving the ground and underground for the cars. And the huge "Hamburgers" building which hovered over the top of Fayette Street referred to menswear, not lunch.

The huge catacombs of parking under Charles Center are now obsolete, and are ready for their new 21st century life.

The "Down Under" garage should be totally transformed to accommodate the Red Line from the parking garage entrance at Lombard and Hanover Street, shown above, to an entrance to the Charles Center Metro Subway two blocks north at Baltimore Street under the Mechanic Theater (another dead '60s relic), then two blocks further north through the rest of the "Down Under" garage to Lexington Street.

Underneath Lexington Street, starting at Liberty, the Red Line would turn west into its own new tunnel, with a new station between Howard and Eutaw, where it would have a transfer connection to the light rail line above Howard Street, and again to the Metro at the Lexington Market station. The Red Line would then continue westward in its own tunnel and would surface in the Franklin-Mulberry Corridor west of MLK Boulevard.

Here's the great part: The entire gigantic eight square block "Down Under" garage would thus become a huge underground transit-oriented development site, with potential pedestrian connections to everything imaginable. Most of the existing automobile access points could be maintained for access, service, and maintaining the normalcy that auto traffic has been shown to provide. In this way, the "Down Under" would not be just a vast isolated underground cave. It would truly be an extension of the city into a fourth dimension, with full interaction with the other three dimensions.

Truly creative opportunities would open up. Think "Underground Atlanta" or underneath Michigan Avenue in Chicago, extending northward from Millennium Park to the Magnificent Mile. Think of shopping and think of pedestrian spaces. But of course, always think of Baltimore first.

Think of anything EXCEPT dingy parking garages like the kind where TV murders always happen.

The intersection of Lombard and Hanover Streets is the perfect place for an underground transit portal. Such portals are extremely difficult and expensive to build, and yet this one is already there, just waiting to be used !!!!!!!

Once the Red Line emerges from "Down Under" at his portal onto the surface streets of Lombard and Pratt, it can easily branch in all directions. The light rail aspect of the Red Line could continue by turning two blocks westward on Pratt and/or Lombard and then connecting to the existing light rail line toward Camden Station, Camden Yards, Westport, Cherry Hill, Glen Burnie and the airport.

The streetcar aspect of the Red Line could turn eastward onto Pratt Street to the Inner Harbor, then further east to Fells Point and further south to Federal Hill, Locust Point, Port Covington or wherever our ambitions lead us.

The Red Line would in effect function in a similar manner to the Market Street streetcar tunnel in Center City Philadelphia, which then fans out in various directions once it comes to the surface in West Philly.

All Red Line trains would use the main trunk line from the Route 40 West Corridor, into downtown, then into the "Down Under" garage, and then out of the ground at the Lombard/Hanover portal. The mainline of the Red Line would be light rail - once it emerges at Hanover/Lombard, it would proceed southward from Camden Yards to the airport. The branch lines would use streetcars, emerging from the same portal, and proceed eastward to Fells Point, southward to Port Covington and anywhere else.

In summary:

• Fells Point, and South Baltimore would get single vehicle streetcars which would preserve the fragile functions of their narrow and small scaled streets.

• West Baltimore would get light rail trains which would be truly regionally oriented.

• The only new tunnel required would be less than a mile from Route 40/MLK Boulevard to Lexington/Liberty Street.

• There would be a great new urban space under Charles Center.

• And everything would be interconnected.

50 Foot (Wo)man

LET'S QUIT WHINING ABOUT HIM/HER


It's called the "Arts and Entertainment District", and that doesn't mean pablum anymore. We're well into the age where specific art and entertainment no longer appeal to everyone. Especially in a place that calls itself a city. We want Baltimore to be that kind of place.


So let's quit whining about that tall man/woman in front of Penn Station. (S)he seems to be shrugging her shoulders at us, as if (s)he can't figure out what all the fuss is about. (S)he just happens to be very tall, that's all. (S)he's here, and (s)he can't get any shorter.


The criticism is getting out of hand. In a recent incredibly idiotic editorial, The Baltimore Sun even blamed the Penn Station man/woman sculpture on President Bush and his band of evil neo-con hucksters.


The only art and entertainment that we all seem to agree on is the terminally pathetic, like Brittney Spears, who sells more magazines now that she is an icon of vapid stupidity and talentlessness than she ever did when she was hot.


We're also fascinated by the affect that Jessica and Giselle had on Tony Romo and Tom Brady in not winning the Super Bowl, and whether they played the role of football's version of Yoko Ono. I happen to hate Yoko Ono, but I realize that those kinds of artistic celebrities who are famous for being famous seem to be a biproduct of big successful cities. They don't hang around on the farm.


Andy Warhol is perhaps the best example of a postmodern artistic leach. I think that the big Andy Warhol "Last Supper" thing that the Baltimore Museum of Art paid big bucks for is kinda ridiculous, but I'm not going to complain. And the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems, which means the whole postmodern irony thing has a lot of staying power.


We used to have local "characters" like Wally Orlinsky, Hymie Pressman, Melvin Perkins, Charlie Eckman and Mr. Diz who provided the real-time performance art. Some old timers like Dan Rodricks and Mike Olesker even lament their passing. We can and should bring back their memories and use them to sell the city, but it will have to be in a postmodern in-yo-face context where someone will complain about them and blah, blah, blah...


Right now, around the corner on Charles Street from the tall (wo)man in front of Penn Station are a couple of large self-consciously artsy billboards of a similar ilk. Billboards are generally considered a "bad" medium and a blot on the landscape and all that, but recall that the glitz and glamour of Times Square was built on seemingly obnoxious billboards.


Here, the really high billboard has the Natty Boh man proposing to the Utz Potato Chip girl with a Smyth engagement ring. I guess it's clever. Whoever came up with it probably thinks so. It has a local ring to it, which is good for Baltimore.


Below it is a cheeky billboard for the Baltimore Opera, which is definitely an institution with artistic ambitions: "Opera: It's better than you think. It has to be." I've heard that the longtime opera veterans are complaining that the newbies are now laughing at the wrong moments of their cherished operas. That's a prime example of postmodern irony. The laughing is probably from folks who are attracted by ads like this. The Baltimore Opera reaps what it sews.


And so do we all. Get used to it. It's the Baltimore Arts and Entertainment District, hon. It's better than boarded up slums. It has to be.

Quarantine Landfill

BALTIMORE'S BIG SUR

The mountains meet the sea. The city skyline unfolds before you. A majestic bridge spans the channel. Huge exotic birds congregate to celebrate the bounty.

Welcome to Baltimore's Quarantine Landfill, high above Hawkins Point - a national park in the making. Nature took millions of years to create the Grand Canyon and its surrounding mountain ranges, but mankind's natural predilection for throwing things away should lead to much faster glory.


The Quarantine Landfill actually consists of several mountain peaks, thus emulating its natural counterparts. At least one of them should be opened to tourists and gawkers as soon as possible. Just build a road to the top, with an observation deck and a gift shop. The view of the Chesapeake Bay, the Key Bridge, the Baltimore city skyline and the surroundings will be spectacular.


So also will be the view of the remaining landfill, which is still a work in progress. The surface of the moon doesn't look as alien as this landscape. The chemicals in the air are even more otherworldly. Birds love it. Who says that wildlife is threatened by the chemicals that mankind spews forth?

Once Mount Baltimore National Park Phase I is opened to the public, all eyes will be focused upon the view of adjacent Mount Baltimore National Park Phase II. We should build the remaining landfill as high as possible. The state of the art in advanced soil mechanics should be put to the test to pile the remaining trash higher and higher and higher - a height as near to God as mankind can muster. Melt the wings of Sisyphus as we fly toward the sun.

So as Baltimore begins its latest recycling program, please remember that no piece of trash should be left behind. We should dedicate all of it to making the Quarantine Road landfill as tall and magnificent as possible.

Red Line

REV ON THE RED LINE

I must admit that I am all Red Lined out. I've said just about everything here that I have to say about the Red Line, and anything more at this time would simply be a negative dump on the MTA and their entourage. None of that is needed, because the Red Line as they have defined it probably cannot be built and will die under its own weight.


I'm still talking about the Red Line in spite of this, in the context of the Envision Baltimore online forum that I have been plugging in my "links" to the right. This is a more interactive forum, and suits the fact that what we need right now is to reach some kind of actual consensus, and not just have somebody blogging who thinks they have all the answers.


The Red Line is extremely important, most pointedly in order to determine just how and if Baltimore is actually going to GROW in the 21st century. There have been some recent articles and letters in the Sun and elsewhere about what can be done with the Franklin-Mulberry corridor wasteland, and they haven't even mentioned the Red Line !!!!! One guy wanted to put a salt dome there, while another wanted to erect a William Donald Schaefer monument to "arrogant bullheadedness" 1970s planning. Come on folks, let's get serious about the future !!!!!!!


What it all boils down to is that we have built a very nice "new Baltimore" centered around the waterfront that is dependent upon automobiles and monster parking garages. Baltimore has gone pretty much as far as we can go with this idea. It is far too late to build a transit system that is merely an "alternative" to this lifestyle, especially if that transit system is going to be mediocre in any way.




What we need to grow in the Franklin-Mulberry corridor and other places like Westport and the Bayview-Canton Edge City is a whole new environment, where transit is the predominant mode in the same way that elevators are the predominant mode for getting to the 50th floor of a high rise building. For that we need superior transit, tailored specifically for the new environment and connected directly to the ancillary transit system that can take you to Washington DC, New York and other places where it is really starting to get difficult to drive.

I still have lots of things to say about other parts of Baltimore, but 2008 needs to be the year of the Red Line.

Bayview

Greektown as seen from Bayview - with parking lots in the foreground and (left-to-right) Canton Crossing, Brewers Hill, and the Crown Building on the horizon. Interstate 895 is in a gully just behind the hedge.

BAYVIEW TOO

There has recently been a minor victory for the forces of reason and logic in transit planning. The Baltimore Metropolitan Council and Maryland Transit Administration have both extended their 2015 Red Line plans to include the Hopkins Bayview Research Park. What the MTA has finally done is extend their Red Line from Canton to Bayview on the old vacant freight railroad right-of-way between Canton Crossing and Highlandtown. So at long last, it appears that they actually like the routing that I have been pushing for years, at least as far as how it would physically exist.

The rail plan's most obvious and glaring need has been corrected - to establish, in our lifetime, a rail transit connection to an East Baltimore MARC station, so that the MARC system can have some semblance of integration with Baltimore's regional transit system - something that is taken for granted in Washington, DC and most other cities with actual functional regional transit systems.

The MTA Red Line alignment now coincides with the BaltimoreInnerSpace proposed Green Line alignment between the Greektown-Highlandtown station at Eastern Avenue (lower left) and Bayview. My plan proposes a transfer at this point to Bus Rapid Transit at the south end of the billion dollar I-95 express toll lanes (shown in blue). The land highlighted in purple is proposed transit-oriented edge cities. To the right, east of I-895, is the current Hopkins Bayview campus. This should be expanded into the central area west of I-895 and north of Greektown, and made integral to both.

But the MTA still apparently thinks I am a raving idiot for wanting to connect this segment directly from Bayview to the Hopkins Hospital Metro via the high powered Amtrak right of way, which would take Metro trains only about 5 minutes plus 3 more minutes to get downtown, with very little new tunneling necessary. The MTA still wants to run their Red Line route from Bayview (very expensively) under and/or (very slowly) on the surface of streets in the waterfront neighborhoods (very disruptively) from Canton or Highlandtown to Patterson Park to Fells Point to somewhere downtown that is not close enough to the existing subway (very inconveniently).

The MTA's waterfront Red Line also does not encourage new development where that development has not already been happening anyway, even without good transit, so that the new residents and workers have already become accustomed to depending on their cars. This waterfont development is thus not truly transit-oriented.

I will admit that the new MTA route to Bayview actually has one advantage over mine. It does not require splitting the line in order to serve Bayview. All trains would serve all stations. That is also an improvement over the original 2002 MTA plan which had the Red Line split off into two branches at Patterson Park, with one going southeastward down Boston Street to Canton and the other going eastward on Eastern, northeastward to Bayview, then southeastward to Dundalk. That would have been even more expensive and awkward.

So I have learned a lesson from the MTA and their army of consultants. As a result, I have slightly modified the routing of my Green Line extension so that it shall continue along the Amtrak right of way a bit farther east from Orangeville to Bayview, and then curve back to the southwest along the same abandoned freight railroad siding used in the MTA plan, and then as due southward as previously proposed to Highlandtown, Brewers Hill and Canton Crossing.

My proposed Metro Extension, showing its relationship to the existing line between Downtown and Hopkins Hospital to the west, the I-95 express toll lanes now under cosntruction to the northeast (in blue), and a future network of transit-oriented edge cities from Orangeville to Bayview to Brewers Hill to Canton Crossing (in purple).

Bayview should thus be an integral station along the line that includes the following stations:

Charles Center Station - Existing Metro Downtown station, already built, on the way to Owings Mills.

Shot Tower Station - Existing Metro subway station.

Hopkins Hospital Station - Existing Metro subway station at Baltimore's biggest employer.

Berea/Madison Square Station - New above-ground Metro station on Eager Street serving two very important but rather forgotten neighborhoods.

Orangeville MARC Station - at Edison/Monument Streets, this is the best place for an East Baltimore MARC station because it could be easily integrated into a comprehensive feeder bus terminal and would have an easy 6 or 7 minute ride to the Charles Center Station, thus making the
MARC line to Cecil County an integral part of the Baltimore region transit system and thus able to intercept long distance regional automobile trips. Orangeville also has a tremendous acreage potential for transit-oriented development.

Bayview Station - Probably the station area that is most at the policy crossroads for either continuing its auto-oriented maximum-parking configuration, or becoming a truly urbanized transit oriented edge city.

Highlandtown/Greektown Station - The proposed transit station on the Eastern Avenue overpass just east of Haven Street would be the centerpiece for two vibrant transit-oriented urban villages. Highlandtown and Greektown would be poised to become the true Fells Points of the 21st century, as the "other" (original) Fells Point evolves into a touristy fantasy playground.

Brewers Hill Station - This is where the real development action is happening NOW, defying the negative real estate market of 2007. The big question is whether its further development to the east will sprawl into the industrial wasteland of what is now a sea of parking spaces, or whether it will be truly transit oriented.

Canton Crossing Station - This station would tie the regional transit line back into the waterfront, at the location where it can really make a difference. Charles Center to Hopkins Hospital currently takes 3 minutes. This line would add about 4 minutes more to get to the new East Baltimore MARC Station, 2 more minutes or so to Bayview, and maybe 4 minutes more to Canton.

Compare that to the MTA plan, where vehicles could spend longer at one traffic light than they may take between two stations in my plan. The MTA plan would be functionally obsolete before it is even finished.

BEYOND BAYVIEW

The Bayview to Canton corridor will be the "end of the line" for regional rail transit to the east for a long, long time. The Baltimore Metropolitan Council plan says this in its long range plan for the year 2035, because it shows no more transit during that time. But even more compelling is the fact that the state is now building the billion dollar I-95 express toll lanes in that corridor. No regional rail transit project will be able to compete with express buses that can go 65 mph to White Marsh and beyond. Nor should they try.

The I-95 express lanes will need to be extended beyond the existing construction limits in order for them to be useful. Sooner or later, the State will have to acknowledge this. It will make no sense to attempt to attract traffic into the billion dollar express toll lanes when this traffic will just hit major congestion at either end of the line.

This realization will NOT require that the new highway construction be extended. It will be more effective (and a whole whole lot cheaper) to simply designate existing lanes at either end of the billion dollar boondoggle for exclusive use by the express lane users, including buses.

So the proposed Bayview rail transit station should be seen as a natural terminus for the express toll lanes. Transit riders should be able to quickly ride the Metro extension from Downtown and Hopkins Hospital to Bayview, then transfer to express buses to ride in the new express toll lanes to White Marsh, Fullerton, Perry Hall, Fallston, Bel Air, Elkton or wherever. This transfer is shown in the photos here by the connection betweeen the Green and Blue Lines.

Making Bayview an intermediate stop between Canton, Hopkins Hospital and Downtown also has some great advantages. None of the stations in East Baltimore would be more than three stations away from Bayview or MARC. Making the Bayview station an integral link rather than the end of the line as the MTA has done, there is nowhere left to go to extend the system.

It is unfortunate that nobody at the MTA or MDOT has thought this far ahead. They are still thinking of rail transit in terms of an end in itself, and highways as being another end to themselves. Both need to be integral parts of a comprehensive transportation system.

Accordingly, the rail transit component must be able to link MARC riders, express bus riders, and local bus riders as quickly as possible with the remainder fo the system. The rail transit must consist of short segments that tie the entire system together quickly and efficiently, rather than meandering around the congested waterfront streets to serve people who have already moved into their Fells Point houses and offices with every intention of getting around in their cars.

BAYVIEW - THE PREQUEL

So Bayview is at a critical juncture in the evolution of travel patterns for the surrounding area. The Hopkins Bayview campus is growing rapidly but is still at the stage of filling up vast open spaces with surface parking to serve its predominately auto-oriented workforce.

In the future, as these surface parking lots are slated for infill development, the critical decisions must be made as to how many monster parking garages should be built to serve the new buildings and the workers who are already using the surface parking lots.

We must make sure that the future of Bayview is urban, to minimize the need for monster parking garages and maximize the human-scaled walkable environments.

The best way to do this is to tie Bayview into Greektown, and to make the transition zone between the two now-disconected areas the focal point for the new regional rail transit line and the express bus line to White Marsh. This transition zone is the space west of Interstate 895 and to the west of the existing Bayview campus.

Vacant parcel north of Lombard Street to be used by the proposed regional rail transit line.

Some of this area is already slated for urban development, particularly a truck teminal just north of Greektown, west of Oldham Street, and south of Lombard Street. In addition, the large parcel just north of Lombard Street between the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroad tracks is vacant and for sale. This parcel is right where the MTA has recently proposed putting the Red Line extension to Bayview.

But the really key parcel for bridging Bayview and Greektown is the MTA bus yard itself, located between Oldham Street and I-895. The bus yard is a constant annoyance to the Greektown community, with empty buses from a large part of the entire MTA service area coming and going at the begining and ends of their runs, and with heavy bus maintenance going on at all hours of the day and night.

MTA bus yard shown from Bayview toward the Oldham Street rowhouses in Greektown, with Downtown in the background. This bus yard is the critical link to integrating Bayview with Greektown and creating a seemless walkable transit oriented community.

The bus yard will be an extremely valuable and attractive parcel for development which essentially allows Bayview to become part of Greektown. A new pedestrian friendly road should be built over I-895 north of Eastern Avenue which should become a new east-west spine of Greektown and Bayview.

Another important parcel is the current Norfolk Southern truck to rail terminal north of Lombard Street and west of I-895. The new MTA Red Line alignment to Bayview also goes through this parcel. The Norfolk Southern freight terminal should be moved southward where it can serve freight from the waterfront, just as the CSX intermodal terminal at Sea Girt does. This parcel can also connect to the property south of Lombard via an opening underneath the Lombard Street bridge, thus making it part of the new urban area contiguous with Greektown and Bayview.

Under the Lombard Street Bridge. The land in the foreground is already slated for new urban development. On the other side of the bridge is the Norfolk Southern truck terminal, through which the regional rail transit line would run. All of this should be tied together with Bayview and Greektown with walkable transit-oriented urban development.

Looking eastward toward Bayview and I-895 from this same point.

This Norfolk Southern property would be ideal for a transit station that connects between the regional rail transit line and end of the I-95 express bus lanes. Transit oriented development would flow seemlessly from this multi-modal transfer station to the Hopkins Bayview Research Park and Greektown. Folks would be able to walk safely and comfortably between all three - such as walking to work in Bayview and to lunch in Greektown.

Once this is accomplished, the central focal point of Bayview will no loger be perceived as being in what is now construed as Bayview at all. The central focal point of Bayview will be at a location that is almost in Greektown. Perhaps Bayview will even seem like it is part of Greektown rather than an island "campus" unto itself.

We will be re-inventing history. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city came first and then the suburbs. But in Bayview, Johns Hopkins has developed the suburbs first, with new buildings surrounded by seas of parking. The challenge in the 21st century will be to create a transit oriented urban center so that these Bayview "suburbs" are no longer the area's focal point and identity. The key is to build the urban center around which the suburbs can revolve.

This concept is also the key along the entire "collar" of Baltimore's inner city - to build a ring of new high density walkable transit-oriented developments that relate to the areas just inside it - Canton, Highlandtown, Greektown, Orangeville, Berea and Madison Square - while attracting major new development to areas that can handle it rather than disrupting the existing urban neighborhoods.

This is also a major reason why the regional rail transit system should be built along this transitional "collar" area rather than along the crowded urban waterfront streets in Fells Point, Patterson Park and other areas.

Heritage Crossing

HERITAGE CROSSING:
RE-OPENING THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Heritage Crossing, immediately northwest of Downtown, has been strongly criticized because it is not sufficiently urban for an inner city location, is too sparsely populated, and removed a much needed portion of the City's low income housing supply. The winding streets of detached and semi-detached houses set amid generous green spaces that replaced the high rise low income projects does look very out of place next to the tightly packed rowhouses around it.

Contributing to its image as an out of place enclave of suburbia in the middle of the city is the fact that its eastern and southern borders are a virtually impenetrable wall created by MLK Boulevard and the Franklin-Mulberry Expressway. In the photo above, the historic Perkins Spring gazebo is set against a backdrop that includes not only suburban-looking housing but also a large grassy mound of dirt that insulates the community from the expressway.