Lutherville to Downtown Call it what it is; The Yellow Line

So there has been some steam brewing about a proposal to connect Lutherville to Downtown via a new transit line be it Light Rail Subway or Bus Rapid transit. There are new alternate routes in which to choose from just as there are multiple different transportation forms. Since this project is in its infancy and I have been mulling over this north-south line for decades, please allow me to offer my two cents but first let me call it what it is; The Yellow Line.

The Yellow Line, according to the Baltimore Regional Rail Plan published in 2002, is primarily a north-south line roughly running parallel to the existing Light Rail Line renamed the Blue Line in the same Baltimore Regional Rail Plan. Although there had been steam to build the east west Red Line during the Ehrlich/O'Malley Years, it unilaterally killed by Larry. Newly elected Governor Wes Moore along with Maryland's US Senators and Representatives have thrown their support behind reviving the Red Line.

 Despite the Red Line, MAGLEV, and adding spurs to the existing Light Rail (blue line) like Port Covington, the Yellow Line has remained unmentioned since 2002. However, this proposal to connect Lutherville to Downtown has been the first such mention of a line resembling the original Yellow Line in 20 years.

The southern end to the proposed Line has several different locations including Port Covington and Inner Harbor East which are both upscale new Neighborhoods which are draining the life's blood out of Downtown. This is why I would have Charles Center be the southern end for now. It would also be a transfer point to the current subway line (Green Line) whose Charles Center stop is a double decker meant for eventual expansion. 

Although there are many alternate routes northbound for this new Yellow Line, it's set to ultimately end at Hunt Valley where the current Light Rail (blue line) does. The most direst route I assume would be for the line to run northbound up Calvert Street with stops at Mercy Hospital, Mount Vernon, and Penn Station before heading up Greenmount Avenue where it would serve Barclay, Waverly, Govans, Rogers Forge, GBMC, Towson University, Shepherd Pratt, and finally Towson Town Center all along York Road. 

Towson Town Center is where I personally would have ended the line but this proposal has the line continuing up York Road and reaching Hunt Valley this way. I personally don't think that two lines need to go all the way up to Hunt Valley so I will have the Yellow Line end at Lutherville Station which currently  a struggling big box center although there are plans to redevelop this into a high density 400 apartment mixed use TOD neighborhood. 

I don't want to have the line extend too far past Towson since I want there to money in the budget to make the line go further south of Downtown. Like in the Baltimore Regional Rail Plan, I would like the Yellow to take over the BWI path that the current Light Rail takes but instead of going directly to the Airport's front door, I would extend it from the BWI Business District to BWI Amtrak/MARC Station and have it go towards Arundel Mills and Downtown Columbia. I feel that the going to Hunt Valley is a waste of budget and the Arundel Mills Downtown Columbia stops and everything in between should be a higher priority due to how fast that area is growing. 

Although I'm thrilled that there has been talk about proposing a line between Lutherville and Downtown, I would ask that certain considerations be made; make it tunneled Light Rail so it can connect easily to existing and proposed lines, don't forgot about potential southbound expansions to rapidly growing suburbs, and call it what it is; The Yellow Line. 

       

MAGLEV: These Are My Demands

Well, here we are in the middle of a feud that will have positive and negative outcomes no matter which way the pendulum swings; MAGLEV vs. a redeveloped Westport waterfront. Only one can be victorious while the loss of the other will have dire consequences around the City and quite possibly the entire region. MAGLEV is hell bent on putting their Baltimore station in the Westport Cherry Hill area and in doing so will condemn may properties in those Neighborhoods in the process. The most controversial piece of land is the undeveloped Westport waterfront. There are plans in place by Stonewall Capital however, to redevelop the Westport waterfront into an upscale twin of developments like Inner Harbor East and Harbor Point. MAGLEV will ruin that.

While I've liked MAGLEV in theory, especially when lines are built throughout the entire Country. I do find them to be quite a bullying presence in this case. I also don't want the mentality being that Baltimore has its own MAGLEV stop, that it somehow will forget about desperately needed mass rail transit that serves solely the Baltimore region. With these sets of problems however, I decided to take MAGLEV out of the driver's seat and put myself in it. And wouldn't you know it? I've come to a solution that gives MAGLEV a station, allows the redevelopment of the Westport waterfront to begin, and expedites some familiar transit problems that may have been forgotten. All on MAGLEV's dime. Come read my demands.

First, we go underground, tunneling is obviously more expensive than street level or elevated train platforms but in order to not disrupt the Westport and Cherry Hill Neighborhoods as well as the Westport waterfront. The Station, the tracks, the numerous parking garages and walk ways will all be tunneled. Not only that, tunneled transit enhances a Neighborhood while elevated and/or street level does the exact opposite.

Next, we stay underground again. This time, MAGLEV pays to unite the Westport Neighborhood with its waterfront parcels. As it stands the Light Rail tracks and CSX lines get in the way of accomplishing this. What I would is for Westport to be one Neighborhood connected to itself when the waterfront redevelopment is completed so that existing Westport can benefit from all the new investment in their Neighborhood. 

Speaking of Light Rail and CSX Lines, the Howard Street CSX tunnel has been declared unsafe for cargo and a solution is in the works. I'm not asking MAGLEV to for that per se but I am having them pay to tunnel the existing surface level Light Rail on Howard Street under Howard Street in the abandoned CSX tunnel. Howard was turned into a pedestrian mall in attempts revamp the westside of Downtown. Although Howard St. was reopened to vehicular traffic, ramming a Light Rail down an already narrow street was a bad idea. Now MAGLEV can right it by tunneling the Howard Street Light Rail.

Build the Gold Line. The Gold Line is a Light Rail that I conceived to go between Penn Station and BWI Airport. From, Penn Station it will be tunneled under Downtown going through South Baltimore, Port Covington, Harbor Hospital, Brooklyn/Curtis Bay Brooklyn Park, the Glen Burnie MVA, and finally the Airport. Once this line is finished, the existing Light Rail Line will have no spurs and will go strictly from Hunt Valley to Cromwell Station.

Now this demand I have of MAGLEV that I have may be the least expensive. Localize the MARC Lines. If you look at the 2002 Baltimore Regional Rail Plans, it shows the MARC Lines being used to create more localized stops in the Neighborhoods they drive by. By putting stops at some of those Neighborhoods like Pigtown, Morrell Park, and Lansdowne to name a few. The Camden Line will be called the Orange Line and will extend southeast of the terminus of the Camden Line to serve Locust Point on existing tracks. The Penn Line will be the Purple Line and will run from Odenton to Perryville.

As wild and out there as my demands have been, this final demand takes the cake; Build the Red Line. All of it. On MAGLEV's dime. Now it is not the fault of MAGLEV or the agencies funding that a rogue Governor would unilaterally cancel the Red Line and the feds back close to a $1 Billion in funding for it but Baltimore needs to catch up as premier Rail Transit City and it needs to do it now. Sorry MAGLEV. We won't build the boondoggle that Option 4C has been called either. We're going to double down on the tunneling with the entire line being tunneled except when it's on Pratt St. where it will be surface to showcase Baltimore's strides it's made in the field of Rail Transit. 

Now, you may be thinking that my demands of MAGLEV are crazy and out there and have nothing to do with MAGLEV itself other than tunneling itself to save the Westport waterfront. The other do show however how behind Baltimore is on regional rail transit and that it's purely and utterly unacceptable. If Baltimore gets a MAGLEV stop, without adequate rail transit to back it up, I feel like MAGLEV will be yet another joke that Baltimore is the punch line of.       

Here's why TIFs Don't Work

My views on Tax Increment Funding (TIF) has drastically changed over the years and it continues to do so. I started out thinking they were necessary to lay out the groundwork funding for large projects most of which are around the Harbor. As time went by, I began to wonder why that was required. I also wondered when that became the norm instead of the exception which led me to write my tongue and cheek "Go Fund Yourself" post. After reading about the West Baltimore E-Coli spread through the City Waterpipes I became 100% that TIFs simply don't work.

First of all, let me explain what our TIF is. It's taking what can sometimes be hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars which they pay in the hopes of getting back in the form of services that will benefit them and giving them to developers whose developments most likely aren't anywhere near the areas of the City that need these services so desperately. If I'm suggesting that TIFs are robbing the City's most vulnerable population and putting that revenue into developers pockets for things they the developer should be on the hook for, you're right.

Lets take a walk around Port Covington and Harbor Point; two of the City' most up & coming and glamorous addresses. The views, the proximity to highways, the glamorous Neighborhoods surrounding them and the slew of amenities at their doorstep proves that marketing these locations for Residents, Office Tenants, Retailers, and Hotels won't be a problem even in the worst economy. Indeed, these projects have taken off substantially during the COVID times. Why then, do developers come to the City with their hands out saying that the only way these projects will only work  if the City pitches in? Short answer; because they know they can.

Now, lets take a walk around West Baltimore. More specifically Sandtown, Harlem Park, and Midtown Edmondson. It feels worlds different than the glitzy high rises of Harbor Point yet in actuality it's just a few miles. They're located in the same City, their taxes are supposed to help them just as Residents near the Harbor are quite obviously helped by yet another redevelopment project which ups their real estate values. It's much more basic than that in West Baltimore.

West Baltimore is currently in a crucial emergency because they can't drink their own water. There is an e-coli presence that is forcing Residents to boil their water just so they can drink it. It's always funny that these infrastructure emergencies happen in only Baltimore's poorest Neighborhoods and rarely in TIF zones. It's almost as if TIFs take away money that could have been spent to upgrade the drinking water pipes and a slew of other deficits in these Neighborhoods and have given them to private developers.

If I sound like a broken record by repeating the fact that Harbor Neighborhoods are robbing poorer Neighborhoods in a City they're supposed to be helping, it's because it's true. These hundreds of Millions if not Billions of dollars wasted on these "gifts" to developers have drained the life blood of the rest of the City while it should have been going to help these poorer Neighborhoods all along. How many more times does West Baltimore have to be overlooked in order for the system to tell the developers to go fund themselves?

A Druid Hill Park For Those Near & Far

 Long before the Article in last week's Baltimore Sun about how Druid Hill Park is essentially cut off from its surrounding Neighborhood graced the collective conscience of its readers, I have thought the same thing; It's completely car oriented. It's as if the Park was designed for out of towners instead of its actual Neighbors. In Urban Planning be it Parks or Sky Scrapers, nothing is an accident. But Why? Why would planners want to cut the Park off from those who live near it? We'll discuss not only that but how Baltimore, like the Sun Article suggests, should spend its stimulus money making the Park accessible to those live near it.

There was a time that Druid Hill Park didn't cater to cars exclusively. In fact, it didn't cater to cars at all. Cars had yet to exist at the inception of the Park. The point in which these changes in design of the roadways around the Park thereby cutting off accessibility to it can be traced by to post war mid 20th Century Baltimore. If you think you know where this post is going, you're right.

Redlining is partially if not fully responsible for the isolation of Druid Hill Park as we know it. Do you think it's coincidence that larger streets like Auchentrolly Terrace and Druid Park Lake Drive came into existence as White Flight in Park Heights, Mondawmin, and Reservoir Hill was in full swing? I think not. As I said previously, everything in urban planning is done on purpose. Even if that purpose is sinister. My guess is that fleeing White families from those Neighborhoods still wanted "their" Druid Hill Park and didn't want the encroaching Black Residents in "their" Park when they drove back to visit "their" Park when they drove there from whatever Suburb they relocated to. City Planners were happy to oblige.

So here we are decades later with a Park that excludes the very Residents who would benefit the most from having it as its Neighbor. Those locals who do dare to benefit from the amenities offered by the Park must negotiate several lanes of traffic going at near highway speeds with no crosswalks or signals offering Residents a break. Heck, there aren't much in the way of sidewalks there either. 

One thing that has been is the narrowing of Druid Park Lake Drive so that pedestrians and cyclists may walk the area more freely. Although this is a welcome improvement, I do believe that more must be done to integrate Druid Hill Park into the urban landscape of Baltimore. First, on the western edge of the park where there is frontage on Auchentrolly Terrace, there should be pedestrian and cyclist oriented signals for people entering the Park. 

Next, the wide streets should all be redesigned and narrowed to allow pedestrians to cross and navigate these streets safely. This includes Auchentrolly Terrace, Druid Park Lake Drive (something more permanent), and relocating the southern terminus of Greenspring Avenue to just above the Park. There is no need to have that vehicular access going through the Park and closing off the western edge to Park goers. Large streets south of the park like Fulton Ave, Callow Ave, Park Ave, and Eutaw Place will all undergo streetscape enhancements to keep the park like synergy going into surrounding Neighborhoods and draw existing local Residents into the Park for the first time in more than half a century.

Now if you're thinking these steps I'm proposing are relatively small, you're absolutely right. So now I'm proposing the big stuff. The first would be a connection to Gwynns Falls Parkway from Druid Park Lake Drive. This includes tearing and rebuilding the Parkview/Woodbrook Neighborhood after Druid Park Lake Drive is relocated to turn into Gwynns Falls Parkway just south of Mondawmin Mall. This will create an east/west link across North Baltimore parallel to North Ave, Northern Parkway, and Coldspring Lane. The interchange of Druid Park Lake Drive and Auchentrolly Terrace would be demolished in favor of a traffic light to encourage a more walkable street network.

Next we come to the JFX. It hinders any eastern connection to the Park for Neighborhoods like Remington, Hampden, and Station North. Although I'm not against tunneling the JFX in the Druid Hill Park are, I think we can settle for a redesign of the 28th/29th St./Druid Park Lake Drive and North Ave interchanges to take up less land and traffic signals for the entrance/exit ramps that are pedestrian friendly so that Remington, Station North and points east can feel safe walking to Druid Hill Park.

Speaking of Neighborhoods, there will be lots of land for redevelopment in Parkview/Woodbrook and the northern border of  Reservoir Hill. I believe the redeveloped housing should take advantage of the newly accessible Park and being near the Park should be an asset instead of a liability. By taking advantage of all that the Park and surrounding areas provide, we can truly create a Druid Hill Park for those near & far. 

 

       

New FBI Headquarters: How About Baltimore?

Well I do applaud Hogan and his push for moving State Offices Downtown and while I do have other plans for how to redevelop the State Center Office Complex without the State Offices as its anchors, I do believe the push revamping Downtown needs to go Federal as well. With a whopping 23% of Downtown's Offices vacant while moves to Harbor East or Harbor Point are right around the corner for several large scale tenants currently Downtown, the 3,300 and change employees moving Downtown is beginning to look like a mere drop in the bucket.

As the title suggests, I'm suggesting moving the FBI headquarters to Baltimore. Sounds crazy right? Well, the J. Edgar Hoover Building in DC is decades old and is in poor condition and there have been plans to relocate the headquarters into either PG County or Fairfax County. This was nixed when Trump opted to have the building torn down and rebuilt in its current location. As of today, neither has come to fruition and Hogan according to the Baltimore Business Journal wants the Biden Administration to commit to moving the headquarters to PG County. 

I consider the suburbs outside of DC to flushed with jobs and State and Federally funded projects. Although that is the reason Hogan wants to put the headquarters there, that is the exact reason I don't want it there and to have it built in Baltimore. Baltimore has been snubbed by Hogan on multiple occasions including cancelling the Red Line and State Center redevelopments and reducing funding for building new Schools in the City drastically and lets not forget touting Montgomery County as the only place for Amazon's HQ2. 

All of the sudden, he appears to care about Downtown by moving State Offices there. Well, lets make him double down on his sudden interest to the City. Another thing Baltimore has in its favor is the fact that President Joe Biden has ridden past Baltimore morning and evening on his way between his Wilmington, DE home and the Senate in DC. He's seen the disinvestment, crime, and population loss from the window of his Amtrak train. This personal connection to the City may help him see the need of Federal Jobs and the investment that comes with it. To put it bluntly, Baltimore needs this.

OK, so now the case has been made to relocate the FBI headquarters to Baltimore. Now comes the question of where. I personally don't believe existing Downtown Offices are able to suit these new headquarters very well. I do, however believe after extensive renovations that private firms and agencies may go here but only if the FBI does too. I've long pondered a suitable site for the FBI as well as a way to reenergize the eastern edge of Downtown and I've come up with this.

The Edison Lots! Of course! The Edison lots are just east of the JFX and are literally nothing more than surface parking lots. The City has long been seeking ways to build on these lots to make them a useful part of the urban landscape and an extension of Downtown. This piece of land gives the Feds all the freedom they need to build the new FBI headquarters to their specifications. Not only that, it will give many other redevelopment initiatives across the City a big shot in the arm.

The redevelopment of Old Town Mall, dismantling the JFX, the Yellow Line running from Columbia to Towson are just a few of the projects that could be made possible with the relocation of the FBI headquarters. The construction of the headquarters can put upwards of thousands of jobs to Baltimore where and when they are desperately needed. This boom may convince people to move back to the City to help Baltimore's population and tax base grow once again.  

The move of State Offices from their current location is an easy decision and a no brainer. Moving the FBI headquarters from DC to Baltimore is a tough one but one that will prove lucrative and rewarding for a long suffering City. Think about it Larry.

       

Sit on it COVID Edition Part II: What Worked

What do we do now? Now, we rebuild. That is the standard answer given at the end of any disaster and/or horror movie that involves mass destruction. Although COVID isn't a movie, it's all too real however as more and more people are vaccinated and herd immunity gets closer, we must think of a plan to move forward from the devastation that COVID has brought to Baltimore. 

Sadly, this post isn't some plan to refill Downtown's rapidly emptying Office Buildings. This post does discuss what wasn't devastated during COVID and how that may change things permanently. So lets see what has not only survived during COVID but what has thrived during it as well.

Restaurants

Wait! Didn't I just post restaurants in the previous post as something that has taken a massive hit? I did, however Restaurants in many cases are looking to creative new ways to keep themselves afloat. Restaurants that had never used delivery services such as DoorDash, Grub Hub, Uber Eats etc. and curbside pickup as well as "Cocktails to Go" have been literal lifesavers to those who haven't been able to offer seating or be at a very limited capacity. Another promising sign for Baltimore is that when a Restaurant closes, new Restaurateurs have been scouting out those spaces and have made plans to open their own concepts. Though this hasn't been the case for every single closed Restaurant, I find it very encouraging that Restaurateurs are still seeking out space.

Residential Real Estate Market 

One things that makes very happy and optimistic is that people still want to live here! Though fewer people are buying and selling houses, that are have been getting the asking prices and then some. People want to live here. Not only that, despite COVID Baltimore can still absorb thousands upon thousands of new luxury Apartment units (perhaps this is a think tank to fill office space) and that doesn't even begin to address the need for affordable housing. Perhaps these numbers can provide hope for population growth if developers jump on it.

Grass Roots Efforts

A lot of the new development projects and businesses being launched during this pandemic have been "for the little guy" An example of this is how commercial kitchens have popped up for food trucks. Also many developments have been affordable housing in often overlooked part of the City. The blocks of Howard Sr. in Downtown's Westside have been the subject of many redevelopment efforts with new businesses and Residents signing leases to live there. In Upton, Druid Heights, and Penn North land is being assembled to build new homes where dilapidated boarded up homes and businesses once stood or have long since been demolished. What's great about these new developments besides their affordability is the fact that they haven't been the same old developers spear heading theses projects, it's younger minority owned firms who have been getting their feet in the door. If successful perhaps these new developers will chosen for larger projects.

Grocery Stores

Ah yes, the Grocery Stores. The paranoia that surrounded the earlier months of this pandemic have helped Grocery Stores cash in like never before with isles of toilet, paper, milk, eggs, bread, flour, beef, chicken and many more items being sold out for months on end. Not only that, whenever these items were in stock, the price could skyrocket since the production was so low. Shop from programs launched by stores themselves have been perfected like well oiled machines in the past year while still in their infancy pre-pandemic. Also personal shoppers through apps like "InstaCart" have had their profits soar. 

Creative/Shared Workspaces

As Office Space downsizes in some cases permanently, commercial landlords are left with a plethora of Office Space to fill and now they must decide how to move forward with how to best lease them out. Before this can happen, these aging Office Buildings will most certainly undergo significant renovations if they are to compete with newer buildings not only across the City but across the region. One way in which this is being done redefining the work space by limiting the footprint that Offices take by sharing workspaces to allow more people to work remotely without wasting space. A lot of these renovations occurring include modernizing common areas and adding amenities found in newer buildings to compete. With or without COVID being a factor, the fight to retain and attract Office Tenants was brewing for quite some time and is now in full force.

Now that just about wraps my coverage of how COVID has effected Baltimore and which parts have fared poorly and which parts aren't faring as bad. Keep in mind this barely scratches the surface and a million more forces are at play that have made Baltimore have the year it did. Some of these were accidents waiting to happen that were sped up by COVID while others will right themselves while vaccinations continue and we come closer to herd immunity. Since we haven't achieved that yet, we must Sit On it for a while longer.   

    

Sit On it COVID Edition Part I The Devastation

 Every time there's an economic downturn in Baltimore and the nation as a whole, I publish a post or two known as "Sit On It" it describes how development should proceed or some some cases wait until the economy turns around. This of course is speculation because nobody knows if, when, and how the market recovers. This time COVID has brought parts of Baltimore to a screeching halt as it has the entire planet. In this edition of "Sit On It" I'm going to talk about what things got hit the most and whether they have a chance of recovering.

Sports & Recreation

Remember the popular venues that hosted concerts, baseball, football, conventions, and the Preakness? I do too. However it's been a while since they've been open to the public other than testing sites and or vaccination sites. Even if they did host recreational events, who would go there? It's absolutely impossible to social distance and with the food and drink being sold there, people would have to remove their masks to consume them. Although the Orioles and Ravens had been playing games on and off throughout COVID, it was to empty Stadiums. I do believe Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadiums will attract spectators once again, I do have my doubts about Royal Farms Arena and the Convention Center. This is because the buildings are dated and redevelopment has been needed for some time now and I believe the COVID pandemic has only exacerbated these needs. 

Dine In Restaurants

Restaurant owners and their employees have had it very hard during COVID. The biggest ones to lose out are ones that don't have much of an emphasis on carry out and/or rely on liquor consumption for a majority of their sales. Restaurants have done their best to adapt to these changes with curbside pickup and outdoor dining and "Cocktails to go" but many others have closed their doors because they can't stay afloat with such a high drop in revenue. Though some restrictions have been lifted, dining rooms aren't able to fill to capacity per City ordinances. It's still yet to be seen how weary diners will be when dining rooms reopen to full capacity. 

Hotels

Parts of Baltimore that rely heavily on travel and tourism are flush with Hotels to lodge travelers. If our nation's borders are closed and interstate travel is banned without long quarantine sessions before and after, it begs the question; Who's Staying at Hotels? The answer is very few. During the first few months of COVID, Hotels have shut down and their staffs were laid off. Even today, Hotels can only fill a small percentage of their rooms and can only bring back a portion of their staff. Though there were Hotels under construction when COVID hit that have since been completed, openings were anything but grand. As restrictions are lifted however, I believe Hotel occupancy will go up.

Malls

Though Mondawmin Mall has certainly suffered during this pandemic as have all the suburban Malls outside of Baltimore, I would like to focus on Harbor Place. Harborplace has been the poster child of  Dead Malls during the COVID era. High vacancies, poor management, decaying structures, and landlord bankruptcy has plagued this high end and sought after crowning jewel of the Inner Harbor long before hand its decline has accelerated even more in the past year. Before COVID hit, there had been talk of additional life saving renovations to the two pavilions on Light St. and Pratt St. and repurposing them for uses other than brick and mortar Retail. Now, it appears they're not coming back to life even once the Harbor Promenade is filled with tourists and area Residents alike. 

Office Space

Many parts of Baltimore depend on the daily commute but none as much as Downtown. It contains the largest concentration of Office Space in the City and although Residential uses had been increasing in the years leading up to COVID, it hasn't been enough to empty out Downtown. As it turns out, many people who once called themselves commuters now can work remotely from home and it seems as though they don't want to stop once restrictions are lifted. So now the question remains; What do we do with all of the Office Space that is preparing to be emptied out by T. Rowe Price, Bank of America, Pandora, TransAmerica, and PNC among countless other Downtown firms now filling its buildings? Well, I don't know. I suppose some can be repurposed as Residences but can ALL of them? What about the Retail spaces that were meant to serve the commuter crowd? What about Hotels whose business depends on business travelers? This, out of all of the other facets of the economy listed has the largest domino effect and also will have the longest lasting devastation. Solutions will be needed and I hope to think some up.

Now, don't worry. Baltimore's post COVID self isn't all doom and gloom, things will slowly but surely begin to come back as they will in the earth as a whole. In addition, none of the problems discussed here are unique to Baltimore and in some cases were not even caused by COVID but merely accelerated by it. Stay tuned for Part II: The Rebuild.      

       

New Posts Coming Soon

 After a long hiatus from blogging, I'm more than ready to return. 2020 saw lots of changes that made my blogs take a back seat but now that I'm settled into my new life, the siren song of blogging has become front and center yet again. Stay Tuned!

Howard St: Feet on the Ground

This post is kind of a continuation of the previous post "Darling I Love You But Give Me Park Avenue." That post has all northbound traffic on Howard St. being diverted onto Park Avenue where the current Royal Farms Arena is. One thing I left out and I did this on purpose, was what happens to Howard St. after the split.

When looking at Howard St., one can't help but look and see that the place is deserted. At the same time, it's very hard to leave Baltimore City when coming from Downtown. Luckily, there is a solution to getting feet on the ground on Howard St. and finding an easy exit from the City. As it stands now, the only way to exit the City from the south, is from Light St. or Maryland Avenue via Cathedral St. and Sharp St. Neither of those are a straight shot onto I-395 and I-95. However, Howard St., below Conway St. IS I-395. This needs to be used to the advantage of the City and its drivers.

Right now, Howard St. is two way in the southern part of its Downtown/Midtown journey. It eventually becomes a one way northbound only street. Before crossing the JFX, Howard St. becomes two way once again going through Station North, Remington, and Charles Village. We mustn't forget that the Light Rail tracks have been jammed down Howard St. for its Downtown and Midtown journey which I will further address.

So what do we do with Howard St.? We make the entire stretch of Howard St. between the JFX and Baltimore St. a one way street southbound as a sort of exit from the City since it dumps you right on to I-395 as an alternative to St. Paul St./Light St., MLK Boulevard, and Maryland Avenue/Cathedral St. I believe this will add more traffic to Howard St. and allow the corridor to grow in a way that it hasn't been able to yet. So now Park Avenue and Howard St. will become a couplet much like Charles St. and St. Paul St. just further west.     

Getting feet on the ground along Howard St. has always been a struggle. Similar to Old Town Mall, parts of Howard St. were banned from vehicular traffic causing those businesses to shutter. Although this was eventually rectified by reopening the entire stretch of Howard St. as a mixture of a one way or two way street, the Light Rail being shoved down it at surface level has caused more problems than it has solved given the narrow length of the road and better alternatives to get between Downtown and North Baltimore.

One thing in the last paragraph that I would like to expand on is the Light Rail. To say the least, what little Rail Transit Baltimore has is a mess. However, this existing stretch of Light Rail along Howard St. could remedy itself when the CSX tunnel running under Howard St. is redeveloped. This CSX tunnel currently causes a backup for all freight trains and needs to be repaired and expanded. If done correctly, the Light Rail can use this same tunnel under Howard St. and the stops can be underground and Howard St. will no longer have block long trains interrupting City traffic. The tunneling of the Howard St. Light Rail is a pipe dream and I believe converting to a southbound only route for vehicular traffic is still viable before the Light Rail tracks are tunneled.

Fortunately, there is still interest in some of the blighted buildings especially in the 300-500 blocks. In other parts of Howard St., the City is interested in getting Developers to build at the site of the Super Block and the Mayfair Theatre/ Congress Hotel Site. Although this interest is promising for Howard St., there are still many parts that need to be addressed. Most notably, the old Antiques Row and around the old Department Stores that have been converted into loft Apartments. Despite these upscale Apartments attracting Residents, the ground floor Retail sits empty and this section of Howard St. is still lacking feet on the ground.

Although there are development projects in the works for Howard St., I believe that in order to effectively increase the number of feet on the ground, Howard St. should be come southbound only from Mount Royal Avenue to Lombard St. while Park Avenue takes over the northbound traffic for stretch of Howard St.