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?