Comprehensive Rail Solution

LET'S FOCUS ON WHAT WE REALLY NEED

Freight, intercity high speed rail, and regional transit such as the Red Line - It all needs to be envisioned together, along with the role of Baltimore in the world economy, and between the inner city, our neighboring cities and the suburbs.

Mark Reutter's latest article in the Baltimore Brew is a great starting point for thinking out loud about the chaotic state of comprehensive rail planning in the Baltimore region. The Maryland Department of Transportation's recent award of a $70 million down-payment from the Feds to begin work on the replacement of the Amtrak tunnel in West Baltimore is but a tiny droplet compared to the multi-billion dollar "needs" which have been defined by MDOT and all concerned.

Decade in Review

MARYLAND'S DECADE IN TRANSPORTATION:

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

The most recent installment of Michael Dresser's column in the Sun was an excellent summation of the top ten transportation stories of the past decade. But what really struck me is how little has changed in the past decade. Sure, we couldn't have expected to be driving around in flying cars like The Jetsons by now, but why are we stuck in neutral?

Michael Dresser's list could have been written prior to the '00s instead of after it was over. The names would have been slightly different, but the ten stories could have been just the same.

So now, as another decade turns, let's party like it's 1999 and see how the descriptions on Michael Dresser's own list (presented in his same order) might have read if it had been written before this decade rather than after:

10 - Light rail double tracking - Governor Schaefer had to fire MTA Administrator Ron Hartman for the wildly underestimated cost of the central light rail line and the ensuing cover-up. After about fifty percent worth of cost overruns and ridership underruns later, the line was finally completed in 2006, as it had been originally conceived in the 1980s. Some of the second track had been deleted from the project that opened in 1992 - a deja vu for the single track Red Line tunnel currently planned by the MTA under Cooks Lane.

9 - Continuing deadly carnage on the highways - Will this ever change?

8 - Transportation funding crisis - Gas tax stuck at 23.5 cents per gallon. Read Governors Glendening, Ehrlich and O'Malley's lips: No new gas taxes. The good thing about a lack of funding is that it requires intelligent planning instead of throwing money at the problems. The bad thing is that when real money is not available, planners prefer to throw play money instead.

7 - Inner Harbor water taxi done on the cheap - It's a tiny body of water with big body currents, which is its unique charm. Baltimore is not Venice or San Francisco or anywhere else. Respect it or face deadly consequences.

6 - Ouster of MTA Administrator - Wheels fall off buses, metaphorically and literally. Baltimore transit system ridiculed far and wide. See #10.

5 - Baltimore and Washington compete for the same transit money - Washington cleans Baltimore's clock because they take transit seriously. Planning for Baltimore's Red Line began at the turn of the 2000s and a decade later we still don't have a feasible fundable or workable project.

4 - Bay bridge needs major repairs - What else is new?

3 - Planning to replace Woodrow Wilson Bridge begins in earnest - We should have savored this one. It was most likely the last time a billion dollar project will ever be done in Maryland without tolls. And nowadays, it seems that every project costs in the billions.

2 - Proposed InterCounty Connector emerges as statewide political issue - Governor Glendening tries his best to kill the highway, but it refuses to die. Future Gubernatorial wannabes line up to save it, most notably his handpicked successor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

1 - Baltimore has a dangerous undersized freight rail tunnel under Howard Street - Fixing our entire rail system, not only freight but passenger transit at the local, regional and even interregional magnetic levitation or other future high speed technology, depends crucially on what we do about this obsolete downtown tunnel and the trains that now use it. So ten years later, we have done nothing, and planned almost as little.

Gee, writing this 1999 list was so easy, I might as well write the list for 2019 while I'm at it.

To be continued...

MLK-FMX

A DIRECT SOLUTION TO THE FRANKLIN-MULBERRY STALEMATE DISASTER

The solution: Consolidating all the traffic into the current eastbound roadway to the right, thus freeing the remaining land now occupied by the median strip and the westbound roadway (left) for new transit-oriented development linked to the community.

Nobody denies that the US 40 "Highway to Nowhere" was instrumental in destroying the Franklin-Mulberry community in West Baltimore in the 1970s. But the truly amazing thing is that, three decades later, the City insists on maintaining that highway as-is, even in its so-far futile attempt to rebuild the community around it. That hasn't worked over the past thirty years and it won't work in the next thirty. And rail transit alone can't fix it either, as every other Baltimore area community with rail transit can attest, from Howard Street to Hunt Valley and Owings Mills.

The City is still in a state of denial about the cancerous effect created by this highway. Along with the MTA, they only see the wasteland it created as a vacuum which the transit Red Line can fill (with more parking for MARC commuters). They still cling to the expensive 1970s plan to cover over the highway "ditch" rather than truly repair it, which has been demonstrated to be unworkable by the decades of inaction.

MTA vs LHF Plans

MTA "PREFERRED" RED LINE ALTERNATIVE 4C 

VS. THE "LOW HANGING FRUIT" PLAN

The MTA Red Line philosophy is "one size fits all". And if the shoe doesn't fit, the MTA will spend hundreds of millions of dollars extra to bury as much of the line as they think they might afford so no one has to look at it. If the crammed-in lines don't connect, they'll build yet another tunnel to make people walk between them. Then they'll cram the rest of the line through the communities that they can't afford to bury, whether anyone likes it or not.

The "Low Hanging Fruit" philosophy is a total opposite: Build a rail transit system that fits its environment, so that people will orient their lives to it. Take advantage of the opportunities that have already been planned to make the city more livable, and bring those plans into harmony with the rail transit system. Build transit to transform the city, not to cram it through.

Low Hanging Fruit Plan

THE BEST, SIMPLEST AND MOST EFFICIENT RAIL TRANSIT PLAN - TO REPLACE THE MTA'S CONTRIVED CONTORTED "PREFERRED" PLAN

For years, the MTA and their cohorts have been accusing their opponents of trying to disrupt the Red Line process. What we're really doing is trying to make the process work.

After numerous delays of their own, the only way the MTA was able to come up with something that looked even superficially feasible was to inflate the ridership numbers at the last minute, after submitting lower numbers to the Federal Transit Administration in their Alternatives Analysis and Draft Environmental Impact Statement. While inflating the ridership numbers by increasing future population and employment projections, the MTA got rid of two stations and narrowed the tunnel under Cooks Lane to a single reversible track, in their last ditch effort to make the cost and benefit numbers work.

Thus, the MTA's "preferred" Red Line alternative was something that no one preferred during the process, based on data that was unavailable. Nor would anyone ever want to "prefer" their plan.

Hilton Terminal

Hilton Terminal: The only solution to the west end Red Line mess

Nobody else has a solution, so I'll just have to do it. This plan original appeared in March in Baltimore Brew.

Now the MTA has said they need to save money by building only a single track tunnel under Cooks Lane. Obviously, if the MTA can't build a decent tunnel under Cooks Lane, that means they really can't build a tunnel under Edmondson Avenue either, which has become a non-negotiable demand of the surrounding community. But if the MTA ignores this demand, they will probably end up in court and the Red Line will die a slow death.

So in the spirit of reconciliation, I offer this plan. (I don't know why people think of me as a troublemaker. I only want to help.)

The Red Line should end at Hilton Parkway, where it will still serve the Edmondson communities, but it will not ram its way into them. Then build a terminal station/parking garage/Leakin Park Gateway where part of the obsolete Hilton Parkway interchange now stands on land that once belonged to the park.

I've sketched the rough concept in the Google Earth image above. The colors are:

RED - The Red Line - ending in a widened median of Edmondson Avenue at Hilton Parkway.

YELLOW - A multi-level structure built on what is now the north half of the Hilton Parkway interchange. The top level would be new parkland with a playground, commercial kiosks serving transit riders, and a gateway entrance to the rest of the park. The lower levels would be parking.

This photo shows the grade differential between Hilton Street (above) and Hilton Parkway (below) which enables the construction of an almost invisible parking garage in the hole created by the interchange. The houses in the background would then look out on parkland instead of a highway interchange.

MAGENTA - Hilton Parkway, straightened out and narrowed into the westernmost underpass under Edmondson Avenue. The ramps south of Edmondson would be unchannelized to accommodate traffic now using the ramps to the north.

BLUE - The existing southbound ramp from Hilton Parkway to Edmondson Avenue, which would be adapted to carry two-way traffic including some vehicles now using the ramps. It may be necessary to feed all southbound traffic from the north into this road to nullify the potential conflicts at the north end. A short bridge over the parkway below would provide access to the parking garage.

GREEN - New pedestrian and bike paths through the new parkland on top of the parking deck, leading to the Gwynns Falls Greenway shown in the upper right corner, at the Leon Day Park playfields off of Franklintown Road. Connections to this path would be provided over the top of Hilton from Harlem Avenue (shown, upper left) or Denison Street, as well as inside the existing underpass under Edmondson now used by northbound Hilton Parkway traffic.

Here is the Hilton Parkway underpass seen from the south, with Edmondson Avenue on top. Traffic would be consolidated into the road going through the left tunnel, and the right side would be renovated for pedestrians and bikes. If Edmondson Avenue can be widened sufficiently, a stairway up to the transit station in the Edmondson median could be provided.

This photo shows the gorgeous Gwynns Falls Valley which is now all but invisible and inaccessible to the community because of the interchange. The new pathway from Hilton/Edmondson to the Greenway Trail would be just to the left of this photo and the railroad tracks.

Implementing this plan would enable the Red Line to work with the community instead of tearing it apart. It would also save a ton of money compared with what the MTA wants to do (a squeezed force-fed unworkable Red Line), and two tons of money compared to what the community wants to do (an underground Red Line).

Something Borrowed, Something Red

A RED LINE PLAN TO HARBOR POINT -

AND A DIRECT ROUTE TO COMPRHENSIVE RAIL TRANSIT TO EVERYWHERE

Revised diagram showing Fayette Street Red Line thru Downtown to Harbor Point, Orange Line to Jones Falls Valley and Yellow Streetcar System

Here's a Red Line plan that unlike the MTA preferred plans, would be rather easy and cheap to build, would provide tons of flexibility, would be very politically popular, and doesn't propose anything stupid.

Better yet, the MTA has already done most of the basic alignment planning on most of it, so they wouldn't be able to give their usual knee-jerk response about Red Line plans being outside their scope. In fact, most of this plan is assembled from other people's plans, not mine (with just a couple of exceptions where I don't know of any other plans.)

The best part is probably that this is a great way to create a comprehensive rail transit system relatively quickly, probably at no more cost than the piecemeal partial plan the MTA wants to do.

So without further ado, here is the full phased system, starting with:

1 - RED LINE LIGHT RAIL UNDER FAYETTE STREET

The Red Line would be built as light rail in a short tunnel under Fayette Street, where it would have a reasonably easy pedestrian linkage with the existing Charles Center Metro Station just to the south. It would emerge out of the ground just east of this point near Gay Street, adjacent to City Hall. It would stay on the surface of Fayette Street eastward to Central Avenue, then proceed southward on Central Avenue to the waterfront at Harbor East, where it would enter the vast undeveloped Harbor Point property (formerly Allied Chemical). The final termination point would be near the intersection of Caroline and Thames Street at the west end of Fells Point.

The Red Line would thus hit all the right spots - the Charles Center Metro Station, Harbor East, Harbor Point and Fells Point. It would also miss Canton, much to the relief of the active opposition there. Unlike the MTA's alternatives, it would provide great service to the heart of Harbor Point, jump-starting future development there and hopefully giving it an equity boost. It would also cost a whole lot less than the City and business community's preferred Red Line tunnel alternative, which includes its long scary pedestrian tunnel under Light Street.

Red Line on Central Avenue thru Harbor East, terminating at Caroline and Thames Street in Harbor Point development site. Fells Point is to the right (east), Inner Harbor to the left (west). Yellow Line would be streetcars on Fleet Street and Eastern Avenue couplet.

From Central Avenue westward, this alternative is identical to one the MTA has already mapped out. It is also very similar to what was originally defined as the "high priority" route segment in their system 2002 plan, before the extension to Bayview was added two years ago. The big difference is that it would serve the heart of the Harbor Point development. And none of this plan weaves any tight threads along any narrow streets.

2 - YELLOW LINE STREETCAR

This would essentially be the streetcar plan developed by the Charles Street Development Corporation, between Charles Village and the Inner Harbor. This plan has already undergone a rather rigorous professional feasibility study. Hopefully, the powers-that-be would choose to re-evaluate this plan in the context of its role as part of a full rail transit system, but it stands fairly well as-is. However, this streetcar line should not be a mere "circulator". It should be the backbone of a comprehensive local transit system serving the new enlarged multi-use downtown that we have heard so much about lately (or not so lately, if you've been paying attention.)

3 - GREEN LINE METRO EXTENSION BEYOND HOPKINS HOSPITAL

This is already supposed to be a "high priority" MTA project anyway. The Metro absolutely needs to be extended somewhere beyond Hopkins Hospital.

The standard MTA practice for alleged high priority projects that lose favor is to just let them sift to the bottom of the workpile where it is hoped that they will eventually be forgotten (see MagLev, Downtown Light Rail Loop, Inner City Shuttle Bugs, Downtown Glen Burnie/Marley Light Rail Extension, etc.). But it should not be forgotten that the existing Hopkins Hospital Metro station was built with no facilities at all for feeding the transit system, so it is totally inappropriate as a regional rail terminus. It also needs to connect to an East Baltimore MARC Station, for which the existing Metro is far better suited as a feeder to downtown than is the Red Line from a MARC Station in Bayview.

(Of course, the MTA thinks my idea of extending the Metro eastward along the Amtrak tracks toward Bayview, rather than northward under Broadway, is dumb. If that is what the MTA believes with all the intellectual fortitude at their disposal, I'm powerless to change them. Just extend the Metro somewhere.)

4 - STREETCAR LINE EXTENSIONS

Now is the time to giving serious thought to what an eventual comprehensive streetcar system should look like. The following are mere suggestions. I apologize that they happen to be my own suggestions, and not someone else's. Please replace them with your own if you wish.

(a) Eastward along Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor to Pier 5 to the Red Line corridor to Fells Point, Canton, Brewers Hill, Highlandtown and/or Bayview.

(b) Southward to Port Covington and/or the Key Highway corridor.

(c) Northward to Northwood and Morgan State University.

(d) Westward to Mount Clare, Carroll Park and Montgomery Park.

(e) Somewhere else.

5 - JONES FALLS LIGHT RAIL ORANGE LINE CONNECTOR

This has been proposed by Edison Properties as part of their proposal to knock down the lower Jones Falls Expressway to create attractive new development sites.

Running the Red Line under Fayette Street, then bringing it up to the surface near the JFX, would greatly enhance the Edison Properties transit plan. Shifting the expressway southeast of the prisons to divert traffic away from this area would enhance their transit plan still more.

This would allow the existing North Central light rail Blue Line from Hunt Valley to have a faster and better route into the heart of downtown and to the Charles Center Red Line station, facilitating transfers to the rest of the system. It would also include a direct link to Penn Station.

(Note: A previously shown light rail connection branch southwest of the Red Line from MLK Boulevard/Fayette Street to Mount Clare and Carroll Park would not be feasible under this plan, and would need to be streetcars instead, as shown on Yellow Lines.)

POSSIBLE OPERATING PLANS

Under this system, all of the following operating scenarios are possible. Major intermediate transfer stations are noted:

- Green Line Metro: Owings Mills to Lexington Market to Charles Center to Shot Tower to East MARC Station

- Blue Line Light Rail: Hunt Valley to Lexington Market to Camden Yards to BWI-M Airport or to Cromwell / Glen Burnie

- Red Line Light Rail: Social Security to West MARC Station to Lexington Market to Charles Center to Harbor East to Harbor Point/Fells Point

- Yellow Line Streetcar: Charles Village to Penn Station to Charles Center to Inner Harbor to Port Covington or to Harbor East to Canton/Highlandtown

- Orange Line Light Rail: Hunt Valley to Penn Station to Shot Tower to Charles Center to Lexington Market to West MARC to Social Security (Note: Orange Line connection previously shown to Carroll Park / Montgomery Park would not be feasible, and should be streetcars instead.)

- Purple Light Rail Line: BWI-M Airport to Camden Yards to Lexington Market to Penn Station to Shot Tower to Charles Center to Lexington Market to West MARC Station to Social Security (or some of the above).

And the best part is: Almost all of these were the ideas of the MTA, Charles Street Development Corporation and Edison Properties. Almost none of this plan was originally mine.

Jones Falls Expressway

HOW TO REINVENT THE JFX:

BEND BUT DON'T BREAK IT

The key is to wrap it around the prison district, to distribute its traffic onto all the streets it should go to, and to allow the streets south of the prisons toward the waterfront to have a civilized environment, carrying only the traffic that wants to go there. Green is surface streets and highways. Red is elevated - southbound only. Yellow is new developable property.

Read the whole story at BaltimoreBrew.com

Collington Avenue

COLLINGTON SHOOTING BEGS THE QUESTION:
HOW IMPORTANT IS URBAN GEOGRAPHY?

A small "Crime Brief" in last Thursday's Sun describes a typical senseless shooting on the streets of Baltimore: "Butchers Hill man fatally shot near home Wednesday". Except technically, the man did not live, nor was he shot, in Butchers Hill. But I live in Butchers Hill so the story really stuck out for me.

Real estate agents often exaggerate boundaries of more popular neighborhoods to catch people's attention, so it seems plausible that a newspaper might do that too. Several of my neighbors caught the error and notified the Sun, which soon corrected the online version of the story, although this time they omitted the neighborhood from the headline. Seems that Middle East doesn't sell as well as Butchers Hill.

So what's in a neighborhood boundary? If it's the waterfront, the answer is fairly obvious, but any urban street can be imbued with perceptions that can change property values, racial composition and feelings of safety that become no less real. The street of the shooting, North Collington Avenue, is a classic case in point.

Morgan to Canton Streetcar Line

MORGAN TO CANTON STREETCAR LINE

Here's an idea that should expand your visioning horizons, and provide an escape route from the MTA's Green Line planning stalemate.

The MTA actually claims to be considering streetcars as a transit mode for the Green Line project from Hopkins Hospital to Morgan State University. This demonstrates that the MTA is ignoring the central overarching issue, which is what they should do with the heavy rail Metro which currently terminates suddenly and inappropriately at Hopkins Hospital. All it indicates is that the MTA is simply doing cookbook transit planning, and streetcars happen to be the fashionable mode du jour these days.

BaltiMorphosis

Introducing BaltiMorphosis.com

Bravo, Peter Tocco. He's taken my abstract concept for fixing the Franklin-Mulberry corridor and brought it to 3D graphical model life in his new website, BaltiMorphosis.com , for anyone to see, feel and even change for themselves using Google Sketchup software, which can be downloaded from a link provided on the site.

The image above is from his model, showing how there is enough room in the existing "ditch" for a compressed highway that still accommodates all the traffic, the Red Line, a bikeway, and a local street with transit oriented development on both sides, including multi-level buildings on the north (left) side.

"Could you diagram your suggested relocation of the Maryland ramp? Not sure of your location."
- Anonymous writes
Sure. It's shown in blue on the photo map below.

I proposed this a long time ago when I was a city planner, while the city was reconstructing the Jones Falls Expressway. The city decided to rebuild the ramp in the same location as it was before because the engineers thought that there would not be enough weaving distance if the ramp was moved. I showed how the engineers' analysis was faulty but I lost anyway. Yes, the weaving distance would be reduced, but not enough to cause problems, and any disadvantages of that would be more than compensated by the fact that the ramp itself would accommodate the traffic far better.

Now the city wants to squeeze a whole new extension of Martin Luther King Boulevard into this space. How in the world they could pull that off is a total mystery. (I really don't want to know.) It would seem to ruin the whole campus atmosphere the University of Baltimore has been trying to create. Its impact on the Cultural Center (Meyerhoff Hall and Lyric Theater) and the State Center redevelopment are also a question. Perhaps all the new traffic generated by the allegedly "transit oriented" development was the rationale for the MLK extension in the first place.

The property just south of this ramp proposal is used to store postal vehicles - not exactly the most vital use in this area. It could stay if need be, but I don't see why it would.

It's sort of nice to be able to indulge in a slightly long-winded explanation of this.

Oliver Street

DUMPED-ON OLIVER STREET
TO BECOME BOOK LOVERS BOULEVARD

(Reprinted from BaltimoreBrew.com)

- Oliver Street’s bizarre “S”-shaped curb separates the JFX ramp from the also-odd dumpster alcove. Penn Station’s in the background.

Little Oliver Street is arguably Baltimore’s most geographically important two-block-long street, connecting some of the city’s choicest real estate. At the east end is Midtown, Charles Street and Penn Station. At the west end is Bolton Hill, Mount Royal Avenue, light rail and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

In between is the University of Baltimore’s . . . dumpsters.

Stable Oil Prices

BAD NEWS: DEMAND FOR OIL HAS "STABILIZED"

The world oil price has tumbled with falling demand, caused not by preachy tree huggers abandoning their gas guzzlers, but by the economic recession, which knows no environmental ethic.

But now oil demand has reportedly stabilized, not because the economy has recovered, but because people know a bargain when they see it. At less than $2 a gallon for gas, people would rather spend their money cruising around the sprawled-out countryside searching out desperately priced going-out-of-business sales than productively and contentedly staying in one place. Why focus on rebuilding the inner city when there are plenty of cheap houses out in the boondocks where one can drive to and fro on cheap gas?

Gasoline is the currently favored currency of economic survival: Guzzle gas in the suburbs instead of investing in inner city schools, housing, and corner grocery stores. Some cities like Baltimore are doing OK right now relative to the rest of the country, but this should be our time to shine. Cities like Baltimore should be the key to a new productive economy, not places that are merely not doing as badly as they could be.

The oil barons have us where they want us. Now that oil demand has stabilized, they can dig in their heals and prepare us for the next round of massive oil price hikes. But this time we will be even more ill-prepared than before, because we are still trying to dig out of a recession. And instead of digging out by building on a new solid foundation of resource conservation, we're doing it on the fleeting illusion of cheap gas.

So enjoy the party while it lasts. Because it won't.