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.