A Vision for Baltimore (Part 2 - A Strategy)

Recently I reviewed the Morgan State Capstone thesis work by Nicholas Chupein about urban highway removals and specifically concepts to remove the JFX titled "Windows of Opportunity" and a new, not yet published book by internationally known architect V. Chakrabarti about "connected design titled "The Architecture of Urbanity - Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy" . After some consideration I think that combining a new transportation paradigm with the concept of urbanity and connectivity would make a solid foundation for a new vision of Baltimore.  See part 1 here

A new sound is coming from the Mayor

The several dozen Baltimore residents that recently made it to a public outreach meeting under the title Downtown Rise heard a very different tune about traffic directly from their Mayor.  Gone was the talk about congestion that dominated decades of public meetings about transportation. Instead the Mayor talked about walkability, connections and transit and how prioritizing those aspect would revive downtown.

Mayor Scott speaking about a walkable downtown
(Photo Philipsen)

Baltimore lags farthest behind in transportation and walk score when compared to peer cities.[...] Baltimore has historically prioritized regional vehicular mobility over pedestrian connectivity.[...] A high-quality pedestrian experience can be created with investment in diverse mobility options for a more livable, connected downtown neighborhood. (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

From Mayor Brandon Scott to Downtown promoter Sheilanda Stokes one after the other official went to the podium to praise the benefits of a city built around walk access to amenities, built for the residents rather than suburban commuters and focusing on an attractive "public realm" rather than a high throughput of cars. 

Investments in the public realm are critical to increasing equitable access to resources and enhancing livability (Slide from Downtown Rise)

The presenters pretty much followed a line of thinking that many cities had long embraced and that MSU student Chupein had laid out in his study titled "Windows of Opportunity". He placed the idea of removing the lower JFX into the context of the international movement of reconfiguring urban transportation by removing urban highways, strengthening transit, walking and biking and making streets inviting to sit down and enjoy urban amenities. Many cities removed freeways and replaced them with boulevards, local streets and entire new neighborhoods. 

Rochester: Small city streets and housing instead of
a freeway ditch. (Photo: Philipsen)

Baltimore, frequently a Johnny-come-lately, years ago embraced "complete streets", a bike masterplan and a green network plan. If implemented and combined those policies would result in just such a livable city. However, until now no administration has shown enough courage to really turn the ship. Every time there was push-back from those who are stuck in the avoid-congestion-paradigm backed off, especially the city's DOT. In Baltimore one would detect fragments of complete streets but nothing close to the comprehensive implementation of those policies that one can see in Portland OR, Washington DC, New York City, Vancouver, Rotterdam, Paris or Barcelona. Of course, so far Baltimore is only studying the removal of a freeway, at best it has nibbled at some edges as in the case of the Highway to Nowhere (H2TN). The current "Reconnecting Communities" grant pays Baltimore $2 million to study how the H2TN could reconnect communities but has little in terms of a vision to show for it as of now. 

The urbanized walkable city is in Baltimore's DNA. When the City had nearly a million residents it had no urban expressways, almost no one-way streets and a very pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment, augmented by a huge network of streetcars. Nevertheless, one should not confuse the vision of a walkable pedestrian-centric city with nostalgia for the 1950s, a time of  dirty air, unhealthy crowded living conditions and rampant open racial discrimination. Nor should the vision be seen as a liberal pipe dream of  the "coastal elites" since smaller towns in rural red states aspire to safer mor livable main streets just the same.

hHighway to Nowhere, Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

While the walkable "20-minute-city" concept emulates some aspects that seem normal in smaller towns such as not wasting long hours each day being stuck in traffic or meeting people in the street while doing errands by walking, or letting kids walk or bike  to school, the library or the pool with having to fear that they would be run over by a speeding car, these activities can work in large metropolises as well without reversing everything that has happened in the last 75 years or so.
Yet, drastic retooling is needed, especially in zoning and the allocation of life, work and recreation, not only within a single jurisdiction, but with an entire region. It is clear that the suburbanization of America has sucked the life out of many cities and has brought car dominance to our life, especially in the suburbs.

The reurbanization of Baltimore is not done by replacing a few parking spots with these skinny platforms placed in the gutter where one can sit in front of a restaurant and eat one's food a couple of feet away from buses, trucks and SUVs, even if those COVID induced expansions of outdoor eating options are fundamentally a step in the right direction. 

Market Street Frederick, MD (Photo: Philipsen)

If Baltimore would be following architect and urbanist Chankabarti's notion of connective design plus his notion of urbanity and joy it would become a city to live in not one to drive out of. A city to be in, not one to drive through, a city that keeps its residents and grows instead of one that shrinks. Connectivity follows the removal of barriers. Free flowing traffic is always a barrier. And by the way, connectivity is also needed to bring all those many, many plans and policies in alignment that have stacked up without implementation. Connectivity also means eliminating the silos, coordination across departments and pulling jointly in the same direction.

For estimating the effects of connectivity consider how disconnected Baltimore is: Downtown is disconnected on all sides from the surrounding neighborhoods by an almost complete noose roadways designed for maximal throughput of cars, including Martin Luther King Boulevard, the JFX, President Street, Key Highway, Pratt Street, and Light Street. Those last two streets is another case where the Mayor and DOT sing a to a new tune. 

While their hopping on the wagon of MCB's HarborPlace redevelopment ideas is criticized by many, the embracing of the envisioned "road diets" and closure of the Light to Calvert Street connector is almost as revolutionary as the partial closure of Time Square for cars was in Manhattan. After languishing for years, the idea of connecting McKeldin Plaza was not only suddenly endorsed but also followed by a traffic study of the entire area that calculated the effects.  In spite of following a very traditional approach of counting traffic and reallocating the entire volume of cars, the study still concluded that the suggested lane reductions and closures would be feasible with only 14% increased travel times.

Existing and proposed Pratt Street cross section
(Dept. of Planning )

While one can certainly argue with the methodology of the traffic consultant, the benefits of making Light and Pratt Street less dominated by fast moving cars are obvious if one wants to revitalize downtown by benefitting from the waterfront and the visitors that go there or to the convention center, the National Aquarium or the other attractions. 

West Baltimore is cut in half by the Highway to Nowhere and Druid Park is isolated from the surrounding neighborhoods by the JFX on one side and the 10 lanes of Druid Park Lake Drive and Druid Hill Avenue. The beautiful urban wilderness of the Jones Falls is largely ruined by the expressway frequently running on top of it. Historic Oldtown and Jonestown have been turned into ruins by the Orleans Street viaduct and I-83. Sharp Leadenhall was disconnected from Ridgely's Delight and downtown plus it was amputated by the spur of I-395. 

All of these dividers and community destroyers were built so people could come in quickly during the morning rush hour and leave equally quickly in the evening. The new paradigm would be nothing less than a reversal. Just as the emphasis on free-flowing traffic in and out of the city helped empty it out, a reversal would help the city gain new residents and keep existing ones and it would also mean less not more traffic. If people live near where they work, shop and amuse themselves, there would be much less driving and driving and getting around in general would be organized differently. Dismantling the road barriers in favor of connectivity in all directions would not only make the city far more livable, it would also be less congested. "Impossible", most people would cry, "costs too much and is illogical to boot. The entire city would come to a standstill, and  people would want want to live in the city even less than today". 

Taking back the streets for people: Rotterdam, (Photo: Philipsen)

Actual examples of success help. As I have shown in a previous article, the Dutch city of Rotterdam and many other cities have proved that it is not only possible to take the streets back from cars that it  doesn't mean impossible grid-lock and that it can mean growth. Our neighbor DC was over long stretches considered an urban basket case, a shrinking population left many vacant houses behind, just as in Baltimore. In the last 30 years the District not only grew by many 10s of thousands of residents, it actually also experiences now less gridlock than before. Many of the new residents don't need to drive because they live in the middle of everything they usually need and have good transit options. 

Well, you may say, Baltimore isn't Rotterdam or DC, it has less transit and more poverty. True, both but the liveable city follows a different model of mobility that decreases congestion. Instead of channeling all vehicles into a few freeways and major arteries from where they are released in non digestible concentrations into local streets that have been made one way arteries with prohibited rush hour parking (such as I-395 dumping into Conway and Howard Streets or the JFX into President Street), the already much lower volumes (fewer commuters) would be much more evenly distributed into the local grid of streets. Aside from the fact that residents in older quarters often have no garage and need on street parking so that rush-hour parking restrictions are a real burden, a distributed network has redundancy that makes traffic much less vulnerable to disruptions. Instead of one route, there are always many more that will make "gridlock" less likely.

Washington DC, Center City pedestrian streets
(Photo: Philipsen)

But true, more and better transit would be needed as well. It along with the better general quality of life would then reduce the concentrations in poverty by adding additional residents.

Initially called Project Livable, that group grew to be representative of 30+ institutions who focus on downtown or are headquartered downtown. Those organizations included Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, the University of Maryland Medical System, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the National Aquarium, and so many more. That group, under the leadership of Governor Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon M. Scott, spent significant time talking about connecting our assets and our neighborhoods, about how we help people move from one experience to another (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

In fact, "traffic" is not a god-given constant but the result of many factors, especially local zoning and land use policies. The walkable 20 minute city would generate less traffic and the absence of quick drives across larger distances would also reduce unnecessary trips and reverse "induced demand".  Chupein, in his work about removal of the JFX, quotes research that after systematic analysis shows that up to 40% of traffic simply disappear. Let's explain how.

Subway station in DC: A different type of mobility
(Photo: Klaus Philipsen)

A recent traffic study addressing the lane reductions proposed for Pratt and Light streets concluded only a 14% increase in travel delays and suggested that even that would not necessarily materialize because some traffic would disappear thanks to "learned behavior". Critics quickly ridiculed this notion as magic thinking. In reality, this traffic study doesn't go nearly far enough in considering a comprehensive mitigation strategy.

Disappearing traffic is not nearly as magic as it may appear. To understand this, all it takes is a look at how we arrived at all this traffic in the first place. It didn't just come from sprawl alone. "Induced demand"  inevitably showed up every time transportation capacity was increased. When trip-time is reduced, people will make new decisions. They will make additional and even longer trips since they now take less or the same amount of time people previously deemed acceptable. They will chose more distant locations acceptable as their home, drive further for groceries and just about anything else until one gets a situation like Los Angelos used to be before their mayor turned transportation policy around.  In the LA of old residents zipped around on freeways on the way to daycare, jobs, shopping or the movies. LA became first famous and then infamous for its mobility woes. Freeways along with cheap energy and policies that promoted single family home-ownership induced suburbanization not only in LA but also in Baltimore. I-695 opened up Carroll County for people who work in the Baltimore core metro area and I-83 opened up north Baltimore County and even Pennsylvania to commuters. The result is that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) increased far more than population. Americans drive further per year than most anyone else in the world, and no, it has very little to do with the size of the country. 

Before and after being made car-centric

It stands to reason that these processes are largely reversible. Just as more and faster roadways induced demand, so will fewer and slower roadways reduce demand. Baltimore City can very well be re-urbanized if the City provides the amenities, the services and the type of housing modern households need. One can see how from shifting the transportation paradigm an entire comprehensive vision emerges.

While one could argue what is the chicken and what the egg in the matter of urban flight, there is no doubt that reduced livability due to car centric planning accelerated flight and that, conversely,  quality of live achieved by a new transportation paradigm will assit in attracting residents. A connected City that doesn't isolate neighborhoods and doesn't starve them from investment and people will have more resources to provide good services. New areas that are no longer impacted by the noise and fumes of high-speed, high-volume and nearly impassable roadways will become thriving communities. 

Based on his book, Chakrabarti would agree. He blames the flight to the suburbs and the resulting inefficient sprawl development patterns for isolation, health problems and the excessive energy hunger that characterizes the US. He and many others demonstrate that the denser city uses less energy and allow a healthier and happier lifestyle. And dense, he says, doesn't have to mean towers. Chakrabarti has good news for a rowhouse city like Baltimore: He identifies the connected three-story building as ideal for achieving urban density and energy self sufficiency. Calculating roof area over living area used for solar cells has a lot to do with his conclusion. Indeed, our very own row house can achieve about 50 units per acre, close to what the old style Parisian five story elevator apartment buildings also achieve, which, Chakrabarti points out would be prohibited under modern building codes.

Space for people: Baltimore Inner Harbor 
(Photo: Philipsen)

Even if downtown were again connected to the surrounding neighborhoods, it would still lack a lot to be called perfectly walkable or desirable. Yes, it has sidewalks an all streets, yes, there are crosswalks and curb cuts and at times sidewalks are even a bit wider than the minimum and at some places there are trees and sometimes even a spacial pavement that isn't plain concrete. But all of that is not enough to make anyone who has a choice want to walk along one or several city blocks. 

For that outdated bourgeois figure of the urban "flaneur" (a person leisurely walking through the city with no other purpose than to enjoy the walk) there usually must be some kind of destination and ideally "entertainment" along the way. It is true for everyone else as well, even if walking has a strict purpose. Sociologists have found out that the biggest urban enticement is other people. Not only for entertainment as in people watching, but for safety, information exchange and comfort. If there are no other people it usually doesn't feel right to be in the street. If there are plenty of people it feels safe. Just walk through Manhattan and you can see people and entertainment everywhere:

Street vendors, food trucks, storefronts, buskers, small parks, museums, benches to sit and watch, sometimes street cafes like in Paris, it rarely gets boring. But  one doesn't need a big metropolis for those types of experiences. A recent Friday afternoon on Frederick's Market Street was almost as entertaining,  as are Canton's O'Donnell Square, Federal Hill's Cross Street, Thames Street in Fells Point, Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown or Hampden's "Avenue". 

Manhattan: All day action (Photo: Philipsen)

But downtown Baltimore's streets and many neighborhood streets feel deserted, are often dirty and have not much to offer. The patrolling security cars of various benefits districts or flashing police lights on top of lamp posts only add to the unease. Complete streets need much investments in the public space, form trees to benches. But equally important is what lines the streets. Without restaurants, shops and services the prettiest sidewalk won't help. A restaurant that puts some umbrellas out and has enough space to place more than those skinny "cafe tables" in a tight row will change the character of a whole block. If traffic moves along slowly it just adds eyes to the street and is fine. But if the roadway is a speedway with four lanes all in one direction like Pratt Street even an amply dimensioned sidewalk with trees and planters and big outdoor seating areas can't compensate for the din of the roaring vehicles.  retail, entertainment and restaurants lining the streets requires residents. It easy to see the feedback loop which, by definition, has no one single begin and end point. 

For a vision of Baltimore it is as with the proverbial knot: One has to find the strand on which to pull in order to undo it. To many Baltimoreans the city appears to be tied up in a knot of urban problems that nobody can undo. I hope I could show in this article that a new transportation paradigm that emphasizes network connectivity instead of linear, radial connectivity and trip avoidance rather than trip facilitation may be just that strand that loosens the knot from which then everything else could follow. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA