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.

Cap and Trade

OBAMA'S CAP AND TRADE PLAN IS THE SHINING STAR OF HIS DEPRESSING BUDGET

Most of President Obama's budget plan is smoke and mirrors, but his "cap and trade" plan for emissions sticks out with refreshing clarity. It could be a model for restructuring the entire country's oppressive tax system.

Never mind whether you believe in the religion of global warming. A free market system for using emissions to replace income as the basis for taxation is a big winner that can bolster the economy.

All but $15 billion of the revenue raised in 2012 by Obama's cap and trade system would be used for income tax cuts. The rest would be used for renewable energy research. Market pressure spawned by the emissions cap should generate further alternative energy research and demand. This should be a win-win for the economy and the environment.

Retooling

RETOOLING THE INNER WORKINGS OF INNERSPACE

Time to get back to Innerspace. What you might notice here now is a bit different from what was.

I've been devoting all my blog time lately to Baltimore Brew, the online brainchild of Fern Shen, formerly of the Washington Post, which is devoted to bringing real local Baltimore journalism to the blogosphere, while still maintaining that blog vibe as well.

I'm honored and flattered that Fern actually recruited me of all people, among all her real journalists, to be part of her noble enterprise. So you can find some of my articles at http://www.baltimorebrew.com/ , although a lot more of them are on her cutting room floor, owing to her attempts to mold me to her exacting standards.

Actually, what she tried to do was whip me into some semblance of journalistic and blogospheric shape while somehow trying to maintain my inimitable inscrutable self-indulgent penchant for 2500 word epic tomes. But while she's very good, she couldn't perform miracles. I haven't figured out if she won her bet with Colonel Pickering to turn my Liza Doolittle into an H. L. Mencken, but I realize there is no turning back.

And I still can't seem to fit the mold. It has confounded both Fern and me as to whether what I'm writing now is Baltimore Brew or Baltimore Innerspace, so we have concluded that it is a bit of both. I haven't exactly resolved to consciously write shorter, more diverse and more timely pieces, but it seems to have just turned out that way.

Please visit us at Baltimore Brew and keep visiting me here.

Redlining

CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ENCOURAGE MORTGAGE REDLINING

The Baltimore City Council is now considering a bill that would radically change the foreclosure process on city mortgages. Back in the bad old days, there was an ugly word to describe situations in which the mortgage process was treated differently in one place than another - redlining.

Back then, redlining happened because of racial discrimination. Now, it is being embedded into the law. Back then, the problem was not enough mortgage money flowing to redlined areas. Nowadays, the problem seems to be too much mortgage money - flowing in a speculative financial climate where borrowers get mortgages too easily.

Monument Street Marketplace

NEW CITY DEVELOPMENT WOULD SQUANDER
RAIL TRANSIT OPTIONS


A unique opportunity - 27 vacant acres along the Amtrak tracks in East Baltimore, perfectly suited for a comprehensive transit hub, but the City just wants another shopping center.

The Baltimore Development Corporation has recently selected a developer for a 27 acre vacant site in East Baltimore that was supposed to be a MARC Commuter Rail station in the MTA 2002 regional rail plan. But the proposed development makes no effort to exploit the potential for a transit station.

The Monument Street Marketplace would include a 183,700 square foot shopping center, probably anchored by a large supermarket and/or "big box" retail, and 63,000 square feet of flex office space - the kind of space that accommodates truck loading docks next to offices. There would probably be close to a thousand surface parking spaces if accepted standards are met. The site is located on a former landfill bounded by Monument and Madison Street, Edison Highway and the Amtrak tracks.

The Maryland Transit Administration's 2002 regional rail system plan, still the most recent document guiding overall transit development, calls for a MARC Commuter Rail Station for the "Purple Line" at this location. The 2002 plan designates this a "Phase One Priority Project", along with the Red and Green Lines, although no project planning has been done on it so far.

Unlike the rest of the MARC system which serves the entire corridor to Washington DC, the initial phase of the Purple Line would provide local service only between Madison Park and Middle River. This would require an extension of the existing Metro subway, also called the Green Line, beyond its current terminus at Hopkins Hospital. The first subsequent station would be at Madison Park, serving the Purple Line, and eventually the Green Line would extend in a giant arc northward to Morgan State, eastward to Hamilton, northeastward to White Marsh and then southward around to the same Middle River station near Martin Airport that now serves MARC and the proposed Purple Line.

This proposed Green Line extension is now in trouble because the MTA has repeatedly stressed that heavy rail transit is now too expensive to be cost effective. Because of this, the MTA has ruled out heavy rail as a vehicle mode for the Red Line. However, the Green Line is already heavy rail, so ruling out further heavy rail construction would be tantamount to ruling out the entire project.

Meanwhile, even without heavy rail, the Red Line has gotten too expensive to meet federal cost effectiveness standards because of pressure from many quarters to build much of it in tunnels instead of on surface streets.

With the problems facing the Red and Green Lines, it is no wonder that the Purple Line has faded onto the back burner. Into this vacuum, the Baltimore Development Corporation has recently selected a development plan for the site with little or no regard for its potential transit orientation.

ALL THEIR EGGS IN ONE RED LINE BASKET

As far as rail transit is concerned, the MTA and the City are betting everything on the Red Line, even though the favored alternative fails the federal cost effectiveness test. The Red Line would also have a new East Baltimore station on the MARC Commuter rail line, but it would be located farther out north of Bayview, which would require a cumbersome and expensive overhead pedestrian connection to avoid the adjacent intermodal freight yard.

The key to the success of any MARC station is to make the MARC line heading to the east toward Middle River and Harford and Cecil Counties into a true commuter route into Downtown Baltimore. In this regard, Penn Station simply has not worked.

To make the Red Line work as a connection from MARC to Downtown, it would have to be fast. That means that it must be built to a very high standard, which means extensive tunneling under Downtown, Fells Point and perhaps Canton, which further increases its price tag beyond the bounds of feasibility and affordability. Moreover, if the MTA succumbs to the pressure to bury the Red Line in East Baltimore, it will make it very difficult for them to say "no" to the many voices insisting that they bury it in West Baltimore as well.

If the Red Line process fails, the MTA may find itself with no feasible rail transit projects available at all.

To get out of this bind, the MTA needs to maintain its options for the vacant unencumbered 27 acre site at Edison and Monument. Building a MARC station and a Green Line connection to this site would be the easiest, cheapest and most effective way of connecting both to Downtown Baltimore. The Green Line could emerge from underground immediately north of the existing Hopkins Hospital Metro Station, then run east along the Amtrak tracks to the new station. There is no need for an expensive tunnel, no freight yard in the way, and the rest of the rail transit line is already built into and under downtown and then out to Owings Mills.

Perhaps best of all, it will allow the MTA to build the Red Line through Canton, Fells Point and Downtown as a simple, inexpensive, cost effective and politically popular surface streetcar line. It will no longer have to be big and fast enough to handle long distance commuter trips.

The shopping center plan for the Monument landfill site needs to be put back on the drawing board, until the MTA gets its act together to nail down a coherent rail transit plan for East Baltimore. Large vacant urban properties adjacent to the MARC system are too precious to be wasted on anything except transit and transit oriented development.

Stimulus in Maryland

INFRASTRUCTURE STIMULUS:
MARYLAND HAS ALREADY TRIED THAT

New I-95 spaghetti at the Beltway

If economic investment in infrastructure is such a big stimulus to the economy, Maryland should already have gold flowing in the streets.

The state got a huge jump on President Obama's approach to economic stimulus when it went into a seemingly bottomless hole of debt last year to start construction of the InterCounty Connector highway in Montgomery and Prince Georges County. That highway was originally supposed to cost about $2 Billion, but now nobody really knows what the price tag will be. It will certainly cost much more than that.

Construction to widen Interstate 95 north of Baltimore is another $1.4 Billion injected recently into the local economy, and the final cost of that is still unknown as well. Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge from PG County to Virginia is also still going on, injecting still more billions into the economy.

MLK/Franklin-Mulberry

THE INTERCHANGE THAT NEEDS TO BE MADE INTO A NEIGHBORHOOD

The biggest problem with planning in Baltimore is that people are always obsessing and fighting over the same old pieces of land while huge swaths remain unclaimed wastelands. We’re still trying to get things exactly right in places like the Inner Harbor, Fells Point and Roland Park, constantly revisiting plans that were realized decades ago, instead of moving on to other places that are quietly crying for attention.

The transit Red Line, billed as Baltimore’s biggest project ever, typifies this. The biggest and most expensive fights are brewing in the established areas of Fells Point and Edmondson Avenue, while the forlorn Franklin-Mulberry corridor is merely seen as the “easy” part - the path of least resistance.

Gas Tax

RESLICE THE AMERICAN PIE -
(BUT MAKE IT NUTRITIOUS PIE)


Now that all that endless election foolishness is finally over, we can finally attempt to focus our attention beyond all the indulgent campaign promises and onto what's best for the country, the world, and Baltimore. President-elect Obama won on the most far-left platform in American history, and has emerged as a master in telling voters what they want to hear, but audaciously and hopefully, he can channel his prodigious political talents in a productive direction.

Owings Mills: Transit Dis-oriented Development

Owings Mills is precisely the wrong way to conduct development planning around a transit station.

The photo above tells the story. It shows the large fence that separates the Owings Mills Metro station in the background, just to the left of the huge new 2900 car parking garage, from the Owings Mills Town Center shopping mall. The sign informs you after walking through the oceans of parking that surround the mall, that you cannot get to the Metro station. You must turn around and walk back to a bus stop in the parking lot to catch a bus instead. You must do this in spite of the fact that when you see the sign, you are about as close to the Metro station (as the crow flies) as you are to the bus stop. The bus must take an extremely circuitous path around the fence onto the wayward suburban street system which then only eventually gets you back to the Metro station.

Pratt Street

PRATT STREET ANTI-BOULEVARD

Two-way or one-way? Boulevard grand apres les Champs Elysees or intimate Elfreth's Alley? The City leaders don't seem to know what they want to do with Pratt Street, and their recent pronouncements have run the entire gamut.

The original plan for the Inner Harbor four decades ago called for Pratt Street to be a grand boulevard in the manner of memorable grand boulevards in other world-class cities. But it was never grand enough. The grandest aspect of Pratt Street were the super-wide sidewalks, comfortably separated from the traffic by wide ivy beds. But pedestrians never really liked the super-wide sidewalks. They preferred to walk on the very narrow sidewalks wedged between the ivy beds and the traffic lanes.

It just so happened that back in those days, one-way streets were still in fashion, which was considered just as well because that left more room for the super-wide sidewalks and ivy beds. Traffic volumes were also still sufficiently low in Downtown Baltimore that only four travel lanes were needed in most places, which was also just as well because it was already standard ideology that automotive intrusion was the root of most if not all urban evil. So Pratt was built with essentially the same number of lanes as on most of Charles, St. Paul, Calvert and many of Baltimore's other traditional downtown streets - hardly comparable to the Champs Elysees.

More recently, the City decided to change all that when they chose the firm of Ayers Saint Gross as the winner of a Pratt Street design competition for Pratt Street. When the ASG plan was first unveiled to a room full of architects and urbanists, it received a standing ovation largely on the strength of their proposal to convert Pratt into a grand two-way street at nearly double its current width.

ASG won the design battle, but two-way traffic eventually lost the war. After choosing ASG as winner of the design competition with its much widened two-way street, the City then proceeded to revise the ASG plan to a much narrower one-way street. More drastically, the City then went on to narrow the street right-of-way itself by calling for extensions for many of the buildings flanking Pratt Street, to create more active street-level retail frontage.

So as the plan stands now, the new Pratt Street would not only NOT be widened into a grand boulevard, it will be significantly narrowed from building line to building line. Forget all thoughts of Champs Elysees grandiosity.

Based on my previous pronouncements here in Baltimore InnerSpace, I could now resoundingly say, "I told you so..." Except that making Pratt Street narrower is not the answer any more than making it wider is the answer. More street-level retail is also a nice idea, but there have already been many opportunities to add street level retail, and the market has not responded very much. Harborplace turns its back on Pratt and Light Streets. On most of the rest of the frontage, the building landlords would love to lease their street level space to high-powered world-class retail tenants if they could.

As I have previously stated here, before the City figured it out, two-way flow on Pratt Street would not have worked. Eventually, the City decided not to convert Pratt to two-way flow, overruling ASG after leading them on. Two-way traffic flow would have just been a waste of road concrete, and Inner Harbor real estate is far too valuable to waste.

But the real answer isn't to give up on two-way flow and turn Pratt Street into just another narrow Baltimore street with attempted street level retail. We've already tried plenty of that.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT TWO-WAY TRAFFIC ANYWAY?

Why do designers and urbanists love two-way traffic so much? And why do fawning urban groupies continue to give standing ovations to two-way plans that won't work?

Why do urban designers in places like the Inner Harbor care so much which direction the traffic is coming from? After all, most of the Inner Harbor through traffic is just trying to cut through the harbor area on their way to somewhere else. Drivers do like to gawk at the tourists and joggers, but the pedestrians prefer to gawk at other pedestrians, not drivers. Everyone knows that having a ton and a half of steel armour behind the steering wheel can turn most drivers into raving lunatics. We should move as many of those lunatic drivers away from the Inner Harbor up to Lombard Street or somewhere else as we can.

But urbanists have a love-hate relationship with traffic. Should we blame it on the musical car horns of George Gershwin's "American in Paris"? Or maybe listening to "the music of the traffic in the city" in Petula Clark's "Downtown"?

You'd think the urbanists could get beyond all that. Please, people, get out and smell the traffic !!!

The answer is that we should promote two-way traffic among the people who are actually using the Inner Harbor - not the crazy teeming motorists who are harassing them.

There was a meager attempt to do that back in the 1980s. A big orange railing (see picture below) was installed separating the southernmost lane of Pratt and Light Streets from the others, and this lane was designated for traffic moving in the opposite direction of the big predominate clockwise one-way flow. Originally, it was designated for use by special shuttle trolleys between the Inner Harbor, Fells Point and other destinations - the same local destinations people have been trying to link seemingly forever with some decent people-oriented mass transit.


Pratt Street is already two-way, if you count the lane on the left separated by that orange railing, which is available to bicyclists and other brave souls willing to expose themselves to the abuse of anyone who wants to invade the space.

The transit vehicles were those tacky fake streetcars with the hard church-pew seats and no air conditioning, and this little transit system was run by the City in a seemingly erratic bureaucratic and unprofessional manner. But some old timers still have warm memories of this valiant attempt at localized mass transit. (Someday I need to write an account of the zillions of downtown-oriented transit systems that have been attempted in Baltimore, but for the sake of my own sanity, I've pushed most of them out of my mind.)

This railed-off contra-flow transit lane has since been used for traveling against the grain of traffic flow by vehicles of all sorts: bicycles, police, delivery vans, those bike-powered rickshaws, and all manner of local traffic. Everyone except that darn raging through traffic. Of course, all of these vehicles conflict with one another and there has never been any effective enforcement. But there has never been a lack of people trying to use this lane - it serves an extremely valuable purpose and example of the type of two-way traffic which could be instrumental in making Inner Harbor circulation actually work.

There are several unique aspects of this railed-off contra-flow lane:

1. It's English. That is, the traffic keeps to the left of the opposing predominate flow, not to the right as we normally do here in red-blooded America. That sets it apart, so that the predominate direction of traffic could be inhibited from using it

2. It's closer to the harbor itself than the predominate traffic flow, so that the local flow is closer to the heart of Inner Harbor activity - the waterfront promenade - than is the raging through traffic.

3. It's away from most of the intersecting downtown streets, so there is less worry about nasty traffic conflicts with turning vehicles.

These three factors are the key to designing a traffic flow plan for Pratt Street that will actually make two-way flow WORK for the traffic that needs it most - the LOCAL traffic, especially including transit and bicycles.

A TWO-WAY PRATT STREET THAT WORKS

The latest ASG/City plan for Pratt Street includes a single designated lane for buses and bikers. What's with that? Why put the biggest and smallest vehicles together to battle it out in the same space, and then let all the middle sized vehicles like cars and SUVs have the rest of the street.

Bikes and buses don't mix, unless it's a matter of consolidating all the huge and tiny vehicles that collectively show concern for the environment, and then letting the gas hogs run rampant over the rest of the space.

What's more, this proposed designated enviro-conscious lane runs in the same direction as the gas hog lanes, which means it is exposed to all sorts of abuse any time someone feels that their business is more important than yours, such as for Inner Harbor "special events" which seem to be scheduled for an average of about 30 days per month.

Most fatally, it means that bikes and buses traveling in the opposite direction must be banished to the dreaded Lombard Street along with all the other wrong-direction traffic, which is a fate worse than death.

The solution for Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor is to design individual bike and bus lanes traveling in the opposite direction of the predominate traffic flow, to safely separate this flow from the conflicted masses. This can easily be done as long as we are redesigning Pratt Street from the ground up. (It can also be done on Light Street as well, on the west side of the Inner Harbor.) Here's how:

1. The special bike and bus lanes should be contained WITHIN a median strip on Pratt Street that separates the predominate automobile lanes to the north adjacent to the downtown street grid, and the service and access uses to the south adjacent to the Inner Harbor itself - Harborplace, the Aquarium, the Power Plant, etc.

2. This median strip should be continuous - without any breaks - from Light Street to Pier 5 and Market Place, to ensure that there are no traffic conflicts and no ambiguities about who should be using these lanes.

3. There should be direct links at the east end between these special lanes and the connection through Pier 5 to Eastern Avenue, to create continuity around the Inner Harbor to the east. The special lanes should not be carried eastward on Pratt Street to the President Street intersection, because that intersection is just too complex and scary for efficient bicycle and transit access.

Exactly how these special contra-flow lanes should be laid out will have to be figured out by someone who has better maps than I have. Pratt Street will have to be wider than under the latest City/ASG one-way scheme, meaning there will be less room to shrink the street right-of-way to accommodate new development. In some respects, Pratt will retain that "grand boulevard" feel that the most recent City/ASG plan has abandoned. However, much if not most of Pratt Street will be devoted to the bike, bus and service lanes rather than the type of free-wheeling traffic that George Gershwin and Petula Clark spoke of. This means that the street itself can be designed to look and feel much smaller from curb to curb than it really is, although from building to building it will still be very much grander. Optimizing the look and feel of the streetscape is where good design enters in.

There are many open issues, but all of them raise opportunities rather than just constraints. One issue is how to handle the same-direction bike and bus flows. Lanes for these movements can be placed adjacent to the contra-flow lanes, creating small "streets within the street" or they can be kept with the predominate Pratt Street flow. This is in the realm of details to be worked out.

It is also very feasible to place the proposed Red Line in this new Pratt Street median strip, which would be an absolutely ideal way to put the best possible transit in the most convenient, user-oriented and dominating location possible. Burying the Red Line underground (as the City proposes) is merely a way to bury hundreds of millions of dollars. This makes no sense when there are new and exciting opportunities such as this to place transit directly out in the open and in the middle of the action.

Another important question is how to facilitate the increase in street-level retail space. There is no question that Harborplace needs to be redesigned to create much more of a street-level orientation on both Pratt and Light Streets, regardless of the plan that is implemented. In addition, vacuous open spaces such as the huge base of the Legg Mason/USF&G tower need to be activated by street level retail development.

All of the buildings fronting on Pratt Street need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, including the Verizon, IBM, Examiner, Lockwood Place and Candler Buildings. Often, it is simply a matter of tenant selection. The defunct Fuddruckers Restaurant, in the base of the Candler Building at the corner of Pratt and Market, has just been replaced by yet another cell phone store. This would have been an ideal space for the kind of fashionable world-class retail boutiques that planners, urbanists and yuppies drool over.

It all starts with creating the right street environment. Pratt Street needs to be made two-way, not for the teeming thousands of through cars and trucks skirting the harbor, but for the most important groups - the transit riders, the bike riders and for the actual people using the Inner Harbor.

Baltimore Country Club

Hillside Road in Roland Park, across the street from the Baltimore Country Club site, with anti-development signs on the lawn.

LAND WAR IN ROLAND PARK

The battle between the Roland Park community and the Baltimore Country Club over their intention to sell part of their land to create the Keswick Center for senior living has all the classic earmarks. In terms of the rhetoric of both the community and the developers, this is the last piece of land that matters. "Keep the Park in Roland Park" is the community's battle cry, as if the elimination of this open space would involuntarily change the name of the neighborhood from Roland Park to just plain Roland. To hear the developers, there is no other place in the entire city in which a comparable senior housing complex could be located.

When a battle line is drawn in the sand, or in a gorgeous verdant hillside, it always helps to create the illusion of scarcity.

But there is no scarcity of great development sites within spitting distance of Roland Park and the Baltimore Country Club, most of the land for which is owned by the City. There are no small sites. There are only small minds.

Transit Hierarchy

Graphic from the MTA's 2002 Regional Rail System Plan

AGREEING ON OUR RAIL TRANSIT SYSTEM OUGHT TO BE EASY

The MTA created a very difficult goal for a rail transit system when they developed their 2002 plan. They already seem to have thrown up their hands and given up on most of it.

Really now, it shouldn't be that hard to come up with a comprehensive system plan that can be built quickly and effectively.

Here's a status report on where the MTA's long range plan is right now:

MARC Commuter Rail - In the 2002 plan, the MTA wanted to create a kind of "Mini-MARC" system that would use the Amtrak and CSX mainline railroads for a more localized kind of crosstown transit, shuttling passengers between new stations tucked along the tracks in old fashioned whistle stops like Sandtown-Winchester, Rossville, Landsdowne and about four or so others, rather than emphasizing the long distance commutes to Washington's Union Station or Downtown Baltimore. How these little whistle stops could be made to coexist with the superfast Amtrak trains, especially Acela, was never figured out. As the need for better interregional transit to serve the employment and military base expansions in Aberdeen, Fort Meade and the DC Metro area and the overall need to cut traffic growth in the I-95 corridor gets more crucial, this idea for downgrading MARC into a new kind of localized crosstown service looks increasingly absurd. It appears to have been quietly scuttled in favor of a more conventional upgrade of existing MARC service.

Heavy Rail Extension - The 2002 plan looked to have a huge role for expansion of the heavy rail Metro, calling for a multi-billion dollar extension of the existing line to Morgan State University, Hamilton, Perry Hall, White Marsh, Middle River, Martin Airport, and along I-95. The rhetoric of the plan also strongly implied that other legs of the system would be built to high heavy rail standards as well, if not actually as heavy rail, with maximum segregation of traffic and transit. However, ever since, the MTA seems to have done everything possible to disown the idea of heavy rail expansion.

Light Rail - Filling the void left by the rejection of heavy rail and Mini-MARC is light rail. As such, the MTA has fully embraced light rail not because of any inherent advantages that it might have, but simply because of its flexibility as a "default" mode that can be built just about anywhere, even where it really does not fit. This is the same mentality that led to the debacle of light rail on Howard Street, where it overwhelms the streetscape but is still painfully slow.

Bus Rapid Transit - On paper, this is the best mode, with the lowest cost and the highest ridership. In accordance with federal regulations, the MTA must study it. However, nobody who is still anybody has expressed any enthusiasm for it. The relative positive attributes of BRT seem to be mostly due to the poor performance of the MTA's other alternatives.

In sum, in the six years since the 2002 plan was completed, there is practically nothing coming out of the MTA rail transit planning to be enthusiastic about. The MTA is pretending that the current Red Line planning is still on track as an outgrowth of the 2002 plan, but the foundation of that plan has been totally eaten away.

The MTA is still pretending that they can build a comprehensive rail transit system in the Baltimore area, based on using all-purpose light rail, but they have provided no evidence that they can. When they finally release their long-awaited Red Line Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we can find out for sure.

But let's not wait for that. It's actually a rather simple matter to envision the replacement of the MTA's all-purpose "one size fits all" light rail planning with something that can really work.

It's all a matter of respecting the hierarchy between the various transit modes.

NEEDED: A HIERARCHICAL RAIL TRANSIT SYSTEM

Once the transit needs are broken down into a hierarchy, everyone should easily agree on what should be done.

LEVEL ONE: INTERREGIONAL COMMUTER RAIL

We should all agree that a new East Baltimore MARC commuter rail station needs to be built very quickly, and the West Baltimore MARC Station needs to be upgraded in a big way. These two stations need to be tied into the MTA's comprehensive system to the maximum extent possible, so that Baltimore is an integral part of the new interregional transit system.

The way in which MARC ties into the Washington Metro system is a perfect model for this. Union Station has a MARC/Metro transfer. New Carrollton is a comprehensive MARC/Metro/WMATA bus transit hub, and Silver Spring and Greenbelt also perform these functions. Baltimore needs as much.

MARC is by far the MTA's most successful transit system, in ridership growth and in winning the hearts and minds of the mainstream traveling public that wonders what the MTA can do for them. MARC travels from Washington, DC to the Baltimore region, and then on to Perryville in Cecil County, and eventually (we should all agree) onward to (at least) Wilmington, Delaware.

This is the rail network that accommodates the very longest transit trips in the larger super-region of which Baltimore is now an integral part, extending far beyond the traditional five county definition of the Baltimore region. We should all agree that the boundaries between the Baltimore and Washington region are becoming increasingly blurry.

While it still may be controversial to say that Baltimore is now a suburb of Washington, it's also beside the point, since Baltimore and Washington are both now part of a larger mega-metropolitan area that transcends traditional urban boundaries.

Instead of subverting the natural hierarchical transit order by concocting a "Mini-MARC" system that seems to behave like a lower level in the hierarchical transit chain, we must make the MARC system serve this larger interregional corridor as well as possible. The MARC plan should thus not obsess over a trips from, say, the Sandtown-Winchester to Madison Park neighborhoods, and thereby clog up the network that is trying to accommodate the longer interregional trips.

In any event, the whole "Mini-MARC" concept has gotten scant attention since the 2002 plan was created, so good riddance. MARC and Amtrak need lots of attention, but not that kind of attention.

And most obviously, the Level One Interregional Rail system needs to tie much more effectively into the Level Two Regional Rail system.

LEVEL TWO: REGIONAL RAIL

We should all agree that the connection between the Red Line and the West Baltimore MARC Station should be as high quality as possible. The New Carrollton and Union Station DC Metro Stations are good models. Red Line service between West MARC and Downtown should be at least as good, which it can be because of the opportunities of the Franklin-Mulberry Corridor.

The proposed Red Line connection to an East Baltimore MARC Station at Bayview in the MTA's current Red Line plan has been somewhat of an afterthought, and was not incorporated into that plan until relatively recently last year.

The MTA has also proposed a second East Baltimore MARC Station along the Green Line extension near Hopkins Hospital at Madison Park.

The MTA needs to determine the best and most expeditious place to build a comprehensive MARC/regional rail/bus transit hub in East Baltimore, and make its regional rail line the highest priority project. The candidates are Bayview along the Red Line, Madison Park along the Green Line, or in between at Edison/Monument along a realigned Green Line.

A Madison Park MARC station would be a 4 to 5 minute transit ride to downtown on the Green Line Metro. An Edison/Monument MARC station would be a 6 to 7 minute transit ride to downtown along the Green Line Metro. A Bayview MARC station would be something like a 20 to 25 minute ride to downtown along the Red Line light rail, and would also be the most expensive.

It seems rather obvious that the MTA's Red Line plan is the worst.

LEVEL THREE: LOCAL URBAN RAIL

We should all agree that streetcars can provide rail transit service in localized urban areas that regional rail simply can't.

The MTA currently has no official role in any streetcar planning. Their 2002 plan doesn't even acknowledge the idea.

But the Charles Street Development Corporation is taking a very proactive stance on getting a streetcar line in the north corridor. They are not waiting around for the MTA to build the Yellow Line contained in their "official" rail transit plan. The CSDC rightly does not want to wait that long, which could be forever.

A very modest but highly visible streetcar network would allow Baltimore to create a comprehensive rail transit system very quickly - especially compared with the multi-decade snail's pace of the MTA's "one size fits all" planning process.

Streetcars have tremendous advantages over regional rail in established urban corridors. Streetcars can coexist with parking and pedestrian patterns and have reasonably walkable station spacing. Streetcars do not conflict with travel and circulation patterns that have evolved over many decades and would only be upset by the introduction of regional rail. Just look at what happened with light rail on Howard Street.

At the same time, streetcars do not need to be fast because they are oriented to short distance trips where comfort, user-friendliness, community compatibility, and reliability are much more important than speed.

The MTA's Red Line does not connect directly to the heavy rail Metro. It also does not directly serve the Inner Harbor. Everyone should immediately recognize that these two failings are simply unacceptable.

Mayor Shiela Dixon's transition team report stated that rail transit on Pratt Street, the front door of the Inner Harbor, should be a priority. The MTA rejected this, but Mayor Dixon's advisors were correct.

So we should all agree that as soon as possible:

• Baltimore's transit system needs ARTERIES - to be intimately tied into the MARC commuter rail system serving the larger "super-region" extending from Washington, DC toward Delaware.

• Baltimore's transit system needs BONES AND MUSCLES - to be intimately fused together with a network of comprehensive intermodal transit hubs.

• Baltimore's transit system needs AN ATTRACTIVE SKIN - to have the best and most attractive possible "urban face" provided by streetcars in the high visibility corridors of the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Charles Street and other special locations that give the city its unique signature.

Red Line Portal

THE PORTAL TO A RED LINE THAT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK EFFECTIVELY

If the Maryland Transit Administration would listen to just one of my recommendations for the Red Line, let it be this one: Put the tunnel portal in the proper place, just south of the Charles Center Metro Station.

Here is what a proper Red Line portal location could accomplish:

• A huge cost savings from the avoidance of tunneling south and east of Charles Center and through Fells Point.


• Full integration between the Red Line and the existing subway at the Charles Center Metro Station.


• The ability to branch the Red Line into as many as four directions south of Charles Center - toward Harbor East and Fells Point to the east, toward Federal Hill to the south, toward Mount Clare to the west and connecting into the existing light rail line at Camden Yards to the southwest.


• Full integration with the proposed Charles Street streetcar line to the north toward Penn Station and Charles Village, by way of an additional portal at Preston Gardens (St. Paul Street near Saratoga).


• Connections at the Charles Center Metro Station to ALL rail transit lines, even the existing light rail line from Downtown to BWI-M Airport, although not light rail to the north toward Hunt Valley.


• Red Line service directly to the Inner Harbor along Pratt Street.


• The flexibility to design and operate the Red Line as a single vehicle streetcar line in mixed traffic where streetcars are appropriate, and as multi-car light rail trains where light rail is deemed appropriate, as dictated by specific local street and neighborhood conditions.

The MTA Red Line alternatives provide none of these things. The MTA Red Line alternatives avoid the Charles Center Metro Station completely, with a potential connection at the end of a cave-like pedestrian passageway of a block or two in length.

In effect, putting the Red Line portal in the proper place would allow the MTA to create a full eight or nine legged rail transit system with a centrally integrated hub for about the same price as that strange disconnected concoction that they're currently contemplating.

A great portal location would be as shown in the above photo, along Light Street near Redwood Street, one block south of the Charles Center Metro Station under Baltimore Street. A portal here would then allow the Red Line to be fully integrated into the Metro Station, then come out of the ground immediately south of it, so that the rest of the line to the east can be fully integrated into the city itself. There should not be any more expensive, disruptive, wasteful, remote and anti-urban tunneling than absolutely necessary.

None of the MTA Red Line alternatives has the eastern portal located anywhere near downtown. This means a lot of very expensive additional tunneling in the area in and east of downtown. What's worse is that it means that the Red Line will be isolated from all the other transit lines on and under the downtown streets, including the existing Metro subway and light rail, as well as the proposed Charles Street trolley line.

The most commonly cited problem with the existing MTA rail transit system is that the lines don't connect to each other - and the MTA is ready to make exactly the same mistake again with the Red Line. The only other alternative the MTA has left is to run the Red Line entirely on surface streets through downtown, with no portal at all. This would repeat the second most commonly cited problem with the existing light rail line on Howard Street - that it gets bogged down in traffic and is too slow.

The MTA has been planning the Red Line with the kind of schizophrenia that comes from desperation. They want to build a great regionally-oriented transit line that goes from one end of the city to the other. They want it to embrace new urbanism in Fells Point and Canton, encourage workforce housing (which is the code name for affordable) in West Baltimore, and serve suburbia in the Woodlawn/Security area. They realize that they have to somehow squeeze it into a lot of tight spaces and give it some advantages over clogged congested cars. They are somehow trying to give the Red Line the speed and widespread geographic coverage of a heavy rail system, the design flexibility of a light rail system, and the charm of a streetcar system.

The MTA has even discovered a suitable vehicle to try to achieve all that: The Skoda from the Czech Republic, which is about 30 feet shorter than the current light rail vehicles, but can be formed into trains that are as long as the hopefully strong ridership requires. If you buy the stripped down standard equipment motor, the Skoda is woefully underpowered to achieve the MTA's objectives, but they should be able to spring for some kind of extra-cost optional supercharged performance package. Unfortunately, speed is precisely what urbanites don't like along their local streets. The Skoda is also as cute as a streetcar, although again, if you hook three of them together they will create an excessively imposing 200 foot long train which will totally overwhelm any finely-grained urban streetscape.

So the result is an almost impossible balancing act between charm without harm and the need for speed.

All of that makes the location of subway-to-surface portal east of downtown extremely crucial.

What is needed is a Red Line that creates the kind of comprehensive center city transit hub which is the hallmark of any modern decent rail transit system, while also providing a strong surface presence that intimately enhances the most important, vital and livable urban streets.

The key to curing Red Line schizophrenia is to keep the multiple personalities as distinct as possible, which means putting the portal in the proper place.

UNDERGROUND AND ABOVE GROUND WHERE IT SHOULD BE

The mezzanine level of the existing Charles Center Metro Station has a huge amount of wasted space which could be well used by the Red Line - and by transfers between all the heavy rail, light rail and streetcar lines.

The Red Line needs to be underground from the east end of the fast Franklin-Mulberry corridor to the Charles Center Metro Station. By doing this, Charles Center Metro station will finally become the kind of comprehensive rail transit hub that was originally envisioned when it was designed in the early 1970s. It would also assure that the western leg of the Red Line out to Franklin-Mulberry, the West MARC Station and beyond will be the kind of fast efficient regionally-oriented transit line that the MTA wants it to be.

Then the Red Line needs to be on the surface of Pratt Street through the Inner Harbor, centerpiece of the iconic modern Baltimore. Mayor Dixon's original transition team tried to get the MTA to locate the Red Line on Pratt Street through the Inner Harbor for this reason, which the MTA rejected.

Until now, however, just east of downtown toward Fells Point has been the place where Red Line schizophrenia has most reared its ugly head. The line either had to be an expensive, disruptive tunnel or a slow out-of-place surface alignment gobbling up precious parking spaces and even more precious urban charm. Or the worst of all worlds: A Red Line that attempts to be fast but fails, and is just a beached whale.

So as much as possible of the Red Line should be above ground - to be built at reasonable cost, to avoid Boston big-dig style disruptions, disasters and surprises, and to be weaved into the urban fabric with a presence that becomes an integral part of the urban lifestyle.

The perfect portal place is anywhere just south of the Charles Center Metro Station, so the Red Line can be integrated there. Everything northwest of that point will be fast, regional and underground - almost like heavy rail- and everything south and east of that point will be local and intimate - like a streetcar.

This operating diagram shows the Charles Center Metro Station as the transfer point between the Green and Red Lines, and for all the lines in the entire system, except half the light rail. On this plan, the line to Harbor East and Fells Point is called the Purple Line because it is streetcars, while the Red Line connects to the light rail line to BWI-M Airport. But they would share the same tracks and use the same Skoda vehicles and are thus interchangeable.

This will also make it easy to create branches to the Red Line in any direction - east through the Inner Harbor, Harbor east and Fells Point, south through Federal Hill and west and southwest too.

This is important not only because it maximizes connectivity, which is something in extremely short supply in the MTA plans. But to reinforce this, it also creates maximum operating flexibility. The Skoda vehicles can be operated as single streetcars and as light rail trains in whatever proportion, to whatever destinations on whatever routes are appropriate.

The "Down Under" alignment concept (discussed in a previous blog article) fully supports this, but there should be other alternative portal locations that work as well.

The MTA should get their engineers to be creative and identify alternative portal locations that will accomplish this.

One location that should work would be right in the middle of Light Street in the vicinity of Redwood and Lombard Street, one block south of the Charles Center Metro Station. This will work with the topography of the area. The Metro Station is under a ridge that has its high point just north of Baltimore Street. The portal would be downhill from this point, so that it could be built into the hill.

This hill on St. Paul at Saratoga Street in Preston Gardens which is now used as a traffic slalom could be another portal between the Charles Center Metro Station and the Charles Street Trolley (Yellow Line)

This plan would also be fully compatible with a Charles Street Trolley (Yellow Line) on St. Paul Street going into a Preston Gardens portal. The amount of additional tunneling would be minimal.

In sum, the MTA could put the Red Line on whatever streets they want to the east and west of this point. To the west of the Charles Center Terminal, it would be a fast regional line. To the south and east, it could start with the Red Line and then fan out into an entire network of routes.

The Red Line would no longer exude schizophrenia. Its multiple personalities would no longer conflict, but would instead be a single complex personality that adapts to each area it serves, the way a true transit network should perform.