How Cooperating Leaders Will Shape the Future of the Baltimore Region

 On a cool winter Monday morning the newly minted Mayor Brandon Scott and the also still relatively new Executives of Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Howards County, Olszewski, Pittman and Ball huddled around the entrance to Hopkins subway station.  They held a press conference in support of transit funding. Together they demanded better funding of the MTA which serves all four of the jurisdictions with bus or rail service. No longer see the regional leaders transit as only an issue that affects merely Baltimore City.

A bit later in January Steuart Pittman launched an online "Future Forum" under the title "Common Ground: Urban Rural, Suburban". His speakers included former Baltimore Mayor Rawlings Blake, former State Planning Director Hall, The Bay Foundation's Allison Prost and Colby Ferguson from the MD Farm Bureau. There was some tough talk about land use and preserving open space. No longer sees this executive land use solely through the lens of homeowners and property rights. 

Pittman showed himself during his online event in front of a scenic photo of a farm meadow and a wooded edge. "This is the last larger farm near BWI", he explained, "it will soon become a bunch of warehouses. That wasn't in the plan", he observed, "but a council member voted for a zoning change, and so it goes", adding that this continued land consumption has to stop. Indeed, Maryland's' development footprint increased in the last 50 years more than it had occupied in the 250 years before, another way of saying it more than doubled in only 50 years! Neither city nor suburbs can thrive if the natural environment is destroyed.

The Baltimore Business Journal ran a cover story of its print edition under the headline "Howard County's Smart Growth Challenge" in which the paper points out that only 2% undeveloped or not protected open space is left for development in Howard County. Executive Ball promises a balance between the County's environmental, economic and social standing. His Planning Director is pointing to redevelopment as the new frontier for growth. 

“We are at a point in our maturity as a county where we are having to look at redevelopment opportunities for the future and less on typical suburban growth patterns,” Amy Gowan, director of Howard County’s Department of Planning and Zoning.

For a shift in the growth paradigm it comes in handy that both, Baltimore County and Howard County are starting new masterplans this year. Brandon Scott has vowed to restructure City government and pay way more attention to the City's disinvested neighborhoods. Equity and economic development is no longer a zero sum game where one jurisdiction can thrive while the other fails.

Mayor Scott and Executives Olszewski (at the podium), Ball and
Pittman at the Johns Hopkins Metro Station.

Together these young leaders can be quite a force. Will they be?

The Baltimore Metro area, as defined by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, also includes Harford and Carroll Counties which are more rural and more conservative and have historically put their foot on the break when the core jurisdictions became too brash. Given the multi-pronged crisis we are facing, the quartet of progressive young leaders may just be the medicine this region needs if they continue to forge ahead with a coordinated and prudent land use and transportation strategy that looks at economic development, environmental protection and social justice all at once. There is much to do.

• Sprawl is continuing unabated, threatening farms and forests and putting pressure on the designated agricultural preserves all the while Baltimore City's population continues to shrink and the amount of abandoned land grows.
• Neither in the three Counties nor in the City growth does development pay any attention to where transit is already on the ground, especially expensive high capacity rail transit. Before Hogan Maryland's Department of Transportation had once worked out that all of the State's growth could fit into the underdeveloped lands around existing transit stations. 
• All three Counties have a history of picking the lucrative raisins out of growth combined with overt racism. As a result economic energy was directed towards the suburbs and siphoned out of the region's core city. 

Racism is how light rail never made it through Glen Burnie to reach Annapolis, how Ruxton fended off a light rail station, how in Owings Mills the terminal Metro station was kept isolated in a highway median, far away from the now defunct and demolished mall, and how a segment of the planned and then defeated  Baltimore City freeway network was built in an African American neighborhood. ("The Highway to Nowhere").

Steuart Pittsman's new platform: Future Matters

All four jurisdictions never zoned land so development would be concentrated where the MTA stations are. The region's lukewarm relation to MTA and its transit system was a key reason why Hogan could get away with killing $ billion Red Line and returning nearly $1 billion of federal funds to the feds. For decades transit oriented development (TOD) remained just a slogan with a few half-hearted projects such as Symphony Center, Odenton and Dorsey Road as fig leaves on the generally dismal state of affairs. Of course, today Howard County would love to have rail access to Columbia. Instead it lost its bus life line when MTA struck the 150 Express bus, the only transit connection from Columbia to downtown. 

Although land use (and its relation to transit) sounds like a geeky and esoteric topic to most people, it is key to solve the cacophony of crisis we currently face: 

• the crisis of inequity and racism, 
• the crisis of climate change and 
• the crisis of depleted public coffers. 

As the above examples illustrate, sprawl and dispersal of development have facilitated racial and income segregation. Sprawl consumes viable natural resources and exacerbates the climate crisis; sprawl also depletes public funds, because the dispersed infrastructure is fiscally unsustainable in the longer run.  

Rash development on green fields once created a gold rush of quick revenue for local government. Increasingly this pattern has turned into a fiscal liability with the insight that edge developments age and the endless new roads, schools, and pipes will have to be maintained or repaired. Meanwhile the core city of the region, Baltimore is suffering from abandonment. Its concentrations of poverty, crime and failing schools have long become a problem that also affects the surrounding communities and the State of Maryland as a whole. The Baltimore region is not unique in this paradigm. In fact, the entire US will be in trouble if the trifecta of inequality, climate crisis and public debt isn't addressed promptly and fairly radically.

The pandemic has made discrepancies crystal clear. Although experts differ greatly in their predictions of what the longterm effects of this unprecedented health crisis will be, they agree that it has already heightened and amplified all the other ailments from which our nation suffers. 

Regional problem: Trash

Mayor Scott and County Executives Olsziewski, Ball and Pittman need all the support they can get to succeed in turning the regional ship around. The Maryland Legislature is considering several bills this period which would be of great help for the Central Maryland region. Two are of exceptional interest: The Transit Safety Investment Act and the Climate Solutions Now bill. The former is the reason why the Executives had gathered at the Hopkins subway station.   

Many other urgent issues that affect everyone's daily life are awaiting solution and know no jurisdictional boundaries: The aging regional water system and its billing troubles, the aging regional trash incinerator that sits in Baltimore City but 50% of the trash burnt there is from the County, the regional and State electric grid that needs to become more resilient and much greener and the Chesapeake Bay which knows no boundaries, only watersheds. (A WYPR moderated discussion with County Executive Olszewski and others about regional collaboration for the Chesapeake is here).

The Baltimore region is one of only a very few in the nation, where the core city is not part of the surrounding county. While there is little hope for a truly regional government in the near future, well cooperating leaders and legislators are exactly what is needed to solve our multi-prong crisis. But they can only succeed if residents are willing to bury the illusion that they will be fine if they managed to secure a safe and secluded spot on the map and that racism, climate or transportation should not concern them. 

With collaboration and a focus on regional solutions the untapped potential of our metro area is vast. Let's tap it!

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

A New Tune from City DOT

For years Baltimore City DOT mostly made headlines for unfixed potholes, badly timed traffic signals, the faltering of the once popular Circulator bus, followed by the faltering of the Baltimore Water Taxi service (a private service licensed by the City), and the collapse of Baltimore Bikeshare. As frosting on these failures DOT installed bikelanes and then ripped some out again. To boot it missed opportunities to apply for federal grants or to submit the transportation "priority letter" to MDOT in time. The litany of misery was topped off when employees resigned en masse due to alleged abusive behavior of the director and finally the director herself suddenly departed in the wake of Mayor Pugh's "Healthy Holly" scandal.

A new age for Baltimore City transportation (Photo Phlipsen)

Then came Steve Sharkey, a manager who switched over from the Office of General Services and was tasked by then Mayor Young to get DOT  in order, mostly by managing better what MC DOT has to manage. 

This was no small assignment, considering  that the department, which was split from Public Works some years ago in the hope of giving transportation more attention, manages about 30% of the City's land area which happen to be the public roads, plazas and alleys. 

DOT also runs or licenses the City's cool mobility systems, the water Connector, the water taxi, the Circulator and the various scooter and bikeshare services. 

How much BC-DOT has changed becomes already clear  when one opens the department's website: Instead of a photo of the Director accompanied with a murky message there is now a clearly structured welcome page with buttons for the main aspects of DOT's work, along with a status report using the traffic signal colors showing which services are running under COVID.

Baltimore bus lanes (BC-DOT image)

The new City DOT 18 months with Sharkey's at the helm came into even starker focus at this week's morning meeting of the transit advocacy group Transit Choices where Sharkey was the keynote speaker. He started his presentation by focusing on the 29% of City households who don't own a car and going from their to stress the importance of MTA's bus service. "Bus transit is an important basic function in the city along with fire police and water", and defining as part of his work the question" How can the city be a partner to MTA, especially for the bus?" adding that "buses are the workhorses of transit in American cities and declaring that "Its true economic development to connect people to their jobs". When did one ever hear words like this from a department that in the past was singularly focused on the automobile and the free flow on city streets?

Charm City: New Nova Bus (Photo: Philipsen)

"Part of the transit experience is the wait", Sharkey explained in transitioning to the importance of bus stops and the role that the City plays in approving and permitting stops and ensuring that the necessary amenities such as shelters can be placed.  "You can help by resisting those who want to remove bus stops because they don't like the people sitting under the shelters", he told the roughly 50 advocates following his presentation on Zoom. Addressing MDOT he said "We need to not cut transit in the middle of a crisis but support transit because we need it". Sharkey clearly understands that the State-run MTA bus transit can only function well when MTA and the City are partners. MTA buses run on City streets after all, and they can be only fast and reliable when they are not stuck in congestion, delayed by signals or falling apart because of the terrible condition of the pavement. 

The newly discovered partnership is not just a matter of words. Sharkey and Mayor Scott had recently a direct conversation with the MTA Administrator, something that nobody recalled to have happened ever before. 

The list of touch points in which the collaborative idea translates into actual projects is long. Sharkey ticked off these projects and investments:

• The "North Ave Rising" project under construction that installs 7 miles of additional bus lanes
• $5mio investments from federal money for capital improvements on priority bus bus routes.
• Easier permitting of the construction of shelters on City sidewalks
• Installation of signal priority (TSP) that gives buses some advantage at traffic signals 
• Corridor studies for the Blue and Orange Link bus routes from North Bend to Essex 
• The implementation of the City Council enacted Complete Streets law which requires that pedestrians, bicycles and buses have highest priority on public streets
• Support for the bus lane enforcement bill introduced by Delegate Robbyn Lewis (who also presented to Transit Choices)

  

  "Transit Deserts" (red, image BC-DOT)

  
  
• Support and participation in the Regional Transit Plan (RTP) and the corridor studies with two priority corridors in Baltimore City (east west and north south)
• Legislative support in Annapolis for the Transit Investment Act to be debated in Annapolis next week.
• Attention to the identified "transit deserts" in the name of better transit equity

"COVID hit transit hard, especially those agencies who are farebox dependent", Sharkey noted in concluding his remarks about working with MTA. 

Of course, as a transit provider, BC-DOT knows the impact of COVID on ridership first hand. The Harbor Connector, Baltimore's municipal version of water transit currently runs only 2 of 3 routes thanks to a severe drop in ridership. The remaining water taxi service licensed by DOT has been fully suspended. The Connector and the Charm City Circulator are both DOT operated transit services, originally funded by a surcharge on Baltimore's parking tax, but eventually becoming underfunded because "of mission creep" as Sharkey called it. He reported that the Orange and the Purple lines had the least decline in ridership. He noted as the biggest reason for past troubles the lack of maintenance on the Circulator buses. The City now operates six new buses and is in the process of adding six more and is reviewing the route map. "Stay tuned", Sharkey advised the audience. 

Asked about the bike-lanes Starkey pointed to the past high turn-over in the position of bike planner which he hopes has now stabilized, so the bike-share program "can be built back" and more bike lanes be added. 

Collaboration Opportunities (BC-DOT graphic)

Thanks to COVID the City saw an unprecedented installation of miles of BC-DOT designated "Slow Streets", as well as the use of street space for outdoor dining. 

Asked whether those saw-horse barricades would transform into a more permanent strategy, Sharkey allowed that not all of the program was as successful as the "recreational use" of closed streets around Lake Montebello. Adding that the Slow Streets also have a traffic calming component, he noted that regulations have to catch up, citing as an example the law that pedestrians have to use a sidewalk if there is one. This may explain the lack of acceptance in some areas which saw many of the "Road Closed" sawhorses simply being pushed to the side by motorists. We are replacing the flimsy sawhorses with more stable "class 3 barriers" he said, as it was done in other cities.  

The bus stop is part of the journey  (Photo: Philipsen)

An ably managed and led Department of Transportation has become the signature of many progressive cities which put quality of life, traffic safety, transit, alternative transportation and equity on the forefront of their agenda. 

Baltimore seems to be catching up. Mayor Scott who is much more interested in transportation than his predecessors is probably well advised by keeping Director Sharkey in place. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

The State of Transit in the Region: From Bad to Worse?

This year has been extremely rough for transit and has heightened the need to think about the  future of transit. In Baltimore, transit and transportation, once a geeky topic, have become the focus of public interest. 

Event poster of the Baltimore Transit
Equity Coalition 

Various bills are anticipated to address the region's transit future in the State's legislative session starting in January: Foremost the Transit Safety and Investment Act still pending from last year. Another bill is expected to require tracking transit equity. It has not yet been published. Mayor Scott has officially declared December 21 as Baltimore Transit Equity Solidarity Day and has already shown more interest in support for transit than previous Mayors.

At least three documents are trying to map the transit future in the greater Baltimore Washington region.

• The final Regional Transit Plan published by the MTA in close collaboration with regional representatives.
• The ENO report Transit Reform for Maryland: New Models for Accountability, Stability, and Equity
• The Capital Region Rail Vision issued by the Greater Washington Partnership with a look towards Baltimore by proposing to integrate the VRE and MARC commuter trains.

More bus lanes to accelerate the bus

Finally, there is the Transportation & Climate initiative, a compact between 13 states of the eastern US (including Maryland) which will introduce carbon pricing and trading into transportation. While not a Baltimore region initiative, TCI has enormous potential to shift transportation priorities and open up new funding streams, especially for transit. 

A D-grade for transit

Meanwhile, the latest CMTA Report Card gave Baltimore area transit once again a D grade, mostly because of poor job access based on the annual analysis performed by the University of Minnesota. The depressing thing about that is that the LINK bus reform promoted by the current Governor has not lifted the poor grade, worse job access is supposed tohave slipped compared to 2018, the basis of the previous report. In short, the state of transit in the Baltimore region hasn't been stellar for a long time and COVID has made it much worse. 

The Transportation Report Card by CMTA

A typical Baltimorean can only get to 9% of the region’s jobs in under an hour using public transportation. (Report Card)

According to data collected by the Federal Transit Administration, MTA’s bus and rail systems have the highest breakdown rates compared to its peer agencies (2018 data, cited in CMTA Report Card_

 Would the three plans and the proposed bills improve area transit? 

The Transit Investment Act

Since the biggest problem for transit is the lack of money, the Investment Act would make a difference since this governor consistently prioritized roadway spending over transit ever since he took office. With COVID having drastically decreased the dollars flowing into the Maryland Transportation Trust Fund, which fuels all matters and modes of transportation in Maryland, the Governor announced especially drastic cuts for MTA. The proposed bill squarely aims at funding MTA for a "good state of repair", if need be, by reallocating other transportation funds towards transit. 

Requiring the Governor to include certain appropriations in the State budget from the Transportation Trust Fund to the Maryland Transit Administration for certain operating and capital needs of the Administration in certain fiscal years; (Bill description)

To make financial matters worse, the single large transit project that the Governor let happen, the DC area Purple Line, hit a big snag when the lead contractor walked off the job frustrated by the many delays that the project organized as a public private partnership has experienced. In a settlement, designed to rescue the partially constructed project, the State will have to pay at least $100 million to get the project moving again. Although it isn't clear yet what the total tally of this major hick-up will be, nor from where the funds will come, there is little doubt that the Transportation Trust Fund will pay this settlement which was celebrated as a success, both by MDOT and by transit advocates. 

The Regional Transit Plan

The Regional Transit Plan was finished under COVID but was commenced much earlier. It, too originated from a bill sponsored by Delegate Lierman. Titled "Connecting Our Future" the 25 year plan was completed in October 2020. In its introductory letter MTA Administrator Quinn says:

Over the past two years, MDOT MTA has worked collaboratively with the Central  Maryland Regional Transit Plan Commission, the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, and the public to develop a comprehensive twenty-five-year vision for transit in the Central Maryland Region: Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford, and Howard Counties.

The Central Maryland Regional Transit Plan presents goals, objectives, and initiatives to enhance transit service, support the economy, and reduce our environmental impact. Through coordinated planning and investment from the region’s transit agencies and the local jurisdictions, we have an opportunity to create an interconnected transit network that is more reliable, convenient, and efficient.

Goals and Initiatives (Regional Transit Plan)

The Regional Plan, initiated long before anybody remotely thought about a virus, addresses several of the typical issues that plagued our transit all along, namely lack of reliability, not enough destinations to reach within a reasonable time, long trip times, a poor state of repair and poor communication. Addressing these issues will be good, no matter what. The plan also identifies various priority corridors that should be studied for expanded service without suggesting a mode (bus, light rail, subway etc). All metrics and goals in the plan are based on improvements above pre-COVID services. Since the pandemic resulted in service cuts rather than improvements, all metrics are already off to some extent. 

Really drastic cuts almost happened this fall when MTA proposed massive cuts only to avert most of them last minute. A public outcry caused MTA to alter their plans and slash only rail and commuter bus service where ridership losses were the highest. How long will this truce last is not known, no further cuts are proposed at this time, a significant advantage over many other systems in the nation. As is well known, the current pandemic landscape has turned the economy of many industries upside down to such an extreme amount that it is entirely unclear how a "new normal" after COVID will look like, whether in office, hospitality, culture, or entertainment. All affecting transportation. Especially work from home could reduce the commute numbers for a long time to come. 

The regional transit authority

When things don't go so well, there is always the possibility that they are not well organized. The MD Transportation Trust Fund has been long a point of Maryland pride, but the status of Baltimore transit as a function of a State Agency with no local participation (or funding contribution) is fairly unique. After the cancellation of the Baltimore Red Line a movement to limit the Governor's power over local transit gained momentum. The report by the transportation think tank ENO in Washington DC suggests three models for how the Baltimore region could get additional say over how transit is run in the metro area. The most drastic option would be the creation of a regional transportation authority similar to what is common in most metro regions across the country, including DC's WMATA. 

Ridership loss on buses: MTA has the third smallest loss
in the nation (Source: MTA)

The governance of public transit in Greater Baltimore limits its ability to address those regional transportation needs. Of the 50 largest transit agencies in the country, Baltimore’s is the only one that is governed and operated by a state agency without a board of directors.[...] The local governments in the Baltimore region do not directly contribute funding to the transit services the state provides.

Unfortunately, under this governance structure, metropolitan Baltimore’s public transportation system has not kept pace with repair and service needs nor has seen a new rapid transit line in more than two decades.

ENO points out that Baltimore does not contribute to the area transit cost. In that it is unique, since the surrounding jurisdictions such as Howard, Anne Arundel and Harford Counties get operational aid from MTA but contribute to their capital and operational expenses to varying degrees. Baltimore, of course, runs its own Circulator bus, largely funded out of City funds. ENO suggest that the hodge-podge of local systems should be integrate into one system if a regional authority would run it. 

While funding of a regional authority would still come mostly from the State Trust Fund, the aspect of increased local contributions may very well lower Baltimore's excitement about this model. 

The Capital Rail Vision

Finally the rail vision plan which isn't strictly a Baltimore area plan. It proposes to integrate Maryland's MARC commuter trains and Virginia's VRE trains which current each terminate at Union Station in DC. MTA's MARC trains were the agency's flagship service with rising ridership and the fastest commuter trains in the country (top speeds above 100mph). It is tempting to look at how this service could penetrate the nation's capital better and potentially even reach up to the Philadelphia commter rail system as well.

The Capital Region Rail Vision seizes on recent wins for the region’s rail network and charts a course for a transformed rail system that offers seamless, all day connections that span the Potomac River and rail operators to connect Maryland, the District, and Virginia and deliver a globally competitive system that takes the Capital Region to new heights.

But oh, have things changed! A recent presentation by MTA Administrator Kevin Quinn cast a light on the current conditions. Like in transit across the country, MTA lost riders in droves, nearly 90% for rail services and commuter buses and about 50% for local buses. With such devastation in the commuter rail ridership, it isn't likely that this vision will get much traction any time soon, even though a State bill introduced last year, already asked to study how MARC service could be extended to DC's L'Enfant Plaza, currently only served by VRE. 

The Capital Region Commuter Rail system

The high ridership losses on MARC come from our region's high dependency on government work, especially for commuters riding MARC to DC. Almost all this work is now done virtually and it is quite unclear to what extent in person work will return even once COVID is in the rear view mirror.

Commuter rail is hugely important for the well being of the Baltimore region, which is dependent on participating in the much healthier capital economy. In spite of the cratering passenger numbers, it is the time to fully appreciate the importance of high capacity trains that connect our region. They should be more than a conduit for federal workers. Instead of wasting energy on far fetched boondoggles such as MagLev and Hyperloop, the focus of our regions must now be how to replace the missing federal commuters with everyday riders that currently clog the streets. 

The "captive ridership" trap 

Common wisdom has it that the pandemic accelerates and magnifies trends that were detectable long before the pandemic. Certainly true for transit: The increase in ridership that had followed the financial crisis of 2008 has long reverted back to the steady loss of transit's share that has been underway for as long as mass motorization. The future of transit depends on reverting this trend in the name of climate change and a better quality of life in our road congested and air polluted region. 

In spite of  the pandemic and the associated fear of sharing a space with others, in spite of work from home, closed schools and closed government offices, nearly 100,000 people still use the buses every day! This means, tons of "front line" or "essential" workers depend on transit for getting to work! If these employees, nurses, sanitation workers, shop clerks, check-out personnel, construction workers, delivery drivers, or warehouse workers couldn't get to their jobs, our society wouldn't function anymore and all those who get by without touching transit would have a rude awakening. 

Zurich trams: Not spectacular but reliable (Photo: Philipsen)

In fact, Baltimore's transit dependent population is higher and the 50% ridership in loss is smaller than that of many other cities. This points to Baltimore's high poverty rates and the large inequality and inequity in this city. Protecting these riders has become a clarion call for those who demand more equity. The observation that transit is a necessity is not new, though. However, in the past it was seen as a trap if agencies would simply rely on "captive riders" for whom transit is a last resort. 

As a result transit agencies have tried to attract "choice riders" (meaning riders that have a choice), often by building rail service which had a higher acceptance than buses. This approach has come into the cross hairs of the equity discussion. Posh new suburban light rail systems were increasingly derided as "white rail" and as an inequitable shift of resources away from overburdened and underserved communities where transit is truly needed. Attracting choice riders was criticised as some type of trickle down approach in which the new attractive services should eventually improve bus service as well. On the other hand, it is probably true that transit won't excel unless broader segments of the population have some "skin in the game", best by being transit users themselves.  

Who can tele-work? Source: MTA

The master precedent for attracting "choice riders" had been Zurich, Switzerland, interestingly Zurich was successful after it rejected very expensive new underground lines that would have done away with its narrow gauge trams in the streets and opted for making those trams an investment priority instead. Only after the transit agency resolved that it wanted to improve its existing system but didn't want to be just a service of last resort, did the service really improve. Making existing trams and buses more reliable, cleaner and operating them with use of state of the art technology and giving transit priority in the narrow streets of the city made it one of the best systems worldwide. That approach had been very successful and today, all segments of the population rub shoulders in the many tram lines around the city. 

What needs to be done?

Considering COVID, equity and the Zurich experience  raises many questions for Baltimore's transit future beyond the noted transit plans.  

1. How can the region respond effectively to climate change? What role must transit play in that?
2. How can transit help to reduce the inequities in the region by providing much better job access without breaking the bank?
3. How can transit service respond to continued migration of jobs away from the traditional job centers? 
4. How can transit become attractive beyond the existing "insider" circle of those who are familar with the system and all its indignities? Good transit has to be attractive to transit dependent riders and choice riders alike. 

MTA and the City of Baltimore have started many good initiatives: 

• a fairer distribution of the existing street space through miles of bus only lanes and many cases of signal priority which have broken with the tradition of traffic planning that always prioritized the car over everything else. 

  

  The new MTA Nova Bus being rolled out now
  
  

  
  
• MTA's buses have become "smarter" and MTA's dispatch folks as well as riders can usually find where any bus is at any given moment. 
• The bus fleet is in the process of being renewed and MARC, light rail and Metro also have seen upgrades for their rolling stock (or will see it in 2021, in the case of Metro). 
• MTA is preparing for a regional fare system where riders could use a single ticket on various transit providers in the region. 

Problems remain:

• Service remains slow and unreliable and trips too time consuming as CMTA's transit report card shows. The other deficits contribute to this: 
• A poor state of repair for tracks, signals and stations, slowing things down. 
• Insufficient number of buses, especially when break downs are frequent
• Insufficient number of operators, especially when COVID increases the sick rates

Only money can alleviate these deficiencies, no matter who runs the system or how ridership will develop after COVID.  Severe service cuts taking out essential lifelines for underserved and overburdened communities must remain off the table. The Maryland Transit Safety and Investment Act will be key to the needed funding as well as the second COVID aid package that Congress just stitched together. It is anticipated to contain about $120 for Maryland Transit.

The Efficiency solutions: Better land use and demand based transit service

There are perspectives beyond money, namely how land use and transit service can be brought into better alignment. Better land use by the local jurisdictions  via zoning and land management around the existing transit stations (rail) and bus lines would be the kind of support any transit agency needs to flourish. Although the connection between land use and transportation has been understood for decades, there has been little or no action in the Baltimore region to do anything about the fact that the land around rail stations is usually not at all "transit oriented" but is characterized by abandonment, disinvestment, low density and auto centric uses that don't bring any riders to transit. Masterplans and development plans need to recognize the presence of a transit station as an asset. The fact that in our region state money has funded transit and the stations has enabled local government to pretty much ignore those assets. 

Typical suburban land use pattern (Graphic: Kittelson)

A case in point is the Lutherville Light Rail station in which vicinity a shopping center has seen four different big box users since the station was built. None presented "transit oriented development", all failed one way or another. Recently the site was bought by developers just before it would have been auctioned off. What will happen now? There is no adopted local plan that would mandate a transit friendly use. 

The same is pretty much true up and down all stations of MARC, Metro and Light Rail.  The famed exceptions are Owings Mills for Metro, Symphony Center and Clipper Mill for Light Rail and the Dorsey Road and Odenton Stations for MARC, all examples which deviate in many respects from optimal TOD.

With better land use and a broader service menu, efficiency could be achieved, ideally without much new capital. This requires action on both sides:

• Intensified use around existing rail stations all across the map can bring additional riders to transit and out of cars. Putting development and jobs in areas that are well served by transit rather than out where transit is impractical is by far the most cost effective option for sustainable economic development
• A further diversified transit service menu must be considered by MTA to serve the many lower density areas in our region to to provide service during "slow" hours. The menu must include services that are not the traditional fixed-route, fixed-service model that is the base of all existing MTA service except Paratransit/Mobility. 
• The operational service alternative is a demand-based system that runs when and where needed, replacing costly mostly empty buses circulating on routes with low ridership. Mobility-Paratransit is already a "demand-based" service that adjusts for demand and moves off fixed routes to the doors of users and their destinations.
• A cash free integrated fare payment system across all modes and the entire region which would allow buses to be faster since operators would not have to wait until everybody paid on board.

A demand based system doesn't have to be a train or bus and it doesn't have to be owned by MTA. It could be cars that would operate like taxis or ride share with pick up of additional riders along the way. It could be a van type demand responsive service as it is popular in South America and Turkey. Eventually, once regulations are adjusted, it could even be a broader use of the existing Mobility/Paratransit fleet. Covering "last mile" service, late night and weekend hours on low density routes could bring riders to the transit system who haven't used the system to date. 

The State of transit may not be good. But with the most progressive MTA team in generations in place, a new Mayor, and progressive Executives in Baltimore, Howard and Anne Arundel Counties a breakthrough towards a better future could be possible, in spite of the rough year behind us. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

A Miracle on Lexington Street?

Just when the handwringing over failing urban retail and deserted office towers and what it all could mean for the future of cities becomes ever more desperate, news reach us that the most dormant urban block in all of downtown Baltimore could have finally found a prince that kisses it back to life.

The "superblock" sitting dormant since 2003 (Photo: Philipsen)

Jay Brodie was still heading the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), the Mayor was O'Malley and today's high school graduates were just being born. The year was 2003 and BDC thought that the renaissance of Baltimore's once premier retail center that BDC had dubbed the "Westside" would be best served with another one of those heavy-handed big-on-government procedures that had been popular in the previous century under the name of urban renewal. In that top-down approach government obtains all the properties in a large area, sometimes through condemnation ("eminent domain"), vacates them and then comes up with a big redevelopment scheme. Those redevelopments often eliminated the fine-grained urban fabric in favor of so called superblocks which were considered more efficient. 

Superblock corner Howard and Fayette Street (Photo: Philipsen)

Originally eminent domain power had been only used for public projects such as railroads and highways, but eventually it had become common practice that government would take the land and sell it right away to a private developer. ("land disposition"). The public interest to justify that approach had become couched in the terms of "slum and blight removal" and eventually simply as "economic development". In this manner BDC offered the entire land between Lexington Street and Fayette Street from Park Avenue to Howard Street up in a "request for proposals" in 2003.  Some merchants who were still active in many mostly marginal stores were not happy, but didn't have much of a voice. Even the famed Hippodrome hatters in the earlier developed superblock called "CenterPoint" had not succeeded in saving their historic hat store. (They got relocated into a new store in the rebuilt block, operated it a few years and then gave up. Other retailers in the block still struggle in maintaining viability.) 

Today, with systemic racism in planning much on our mind, most have a very dim view of urban renewal; too often it had meant removal of the poor, of blacks and of small businesses in favor of a restructured city in which developers and chain stores would benefit while the poor would go empty. 

Jay Brodie on Jan 10 when demolition began at the Weinberg block 
(Photo: Philipsen) 

Not that in 2003 old-style urban renewal was still all the rage either; this method had already run its course in the 1960s and 70s. That is why BDC's use of the term "superblock" was so puzzling. So was their approach which was in so many ways reminiscent of past failures. Even in a reflection that the long retired Jay Brodie wrote in the BBJ this July, his critique didn't touch on his own decision to go the superblock route, but focused on Mayor Rawlings-Blake instead. She  eventually followed the advice of the national ULI Advisory Team in 2013 and pulled the plug on the development team which had not produced any progress in 10 years of having had the exclusive rights to the site. Brodie wrote: 

Seven years later, reflecting on those events, I believe that was the City of Baltimore's worst-ever urban redevelopment decision. It was legal, but it was immoral. (Brodie)

Demolition of the Weinberg block
(Photo: Philipsen)

There is not much point in re-litigating the past in this manner, except for finding a suitable way forward. In their RFP from 2019 the superblock had been split in half, both halves being offered at the same time. The project was still couched in terms of economic development:

The City of Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), on behalf of the Mayor of Baltimore (the “City”), through this Request for Proposals (RFP), is seeking written proposals from developers experienced with adaptive reuse and new construction in historic districts for the purchase and redevelopment of City-owned property located in the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District (“Bromo Arts District”). The intent of this RFP is to promote redevelopment of these parcels (herein referred to as “the Site”) in a fashion that will achieve the City’s objectives including job generation, tax generation and mixed-use development that fits within the context of the Bromo Arts District – an emerging neighborhood with active storefronts and other ground-level uses.

The properties have been bundled into three assemblages (See diagram in Section III, Site Description). Developers can bid on one, two or all three assemblages. The Site is within the Market Center National Register Historic District and the Five and Dime Baltimore City Historic District. Reasonable effort should be made to preserve and repurpose historically contributing buildings.(BDC RFP in 2019)

Restored buildings 400 block of Howard Street (Photo: Philipsen)

The selection of another development team 17 years later will only truly become a "miracle on Lexington Street" if the new approach (still containing 19 properties) is somehow a less heavy lift with a higher likelihood of finding community support and the necessary funding to turn the plans into reality. Kimberly Clarke, Deputy at BDC, is optimistic. She told the SUN: 

“It’s so exciting, for me, to see something significant happening here. We’re solidifying the fact that this can be considered a true neighborhood.”(SUN)

The glacial pace of moving such a large project in Baltimore cannot only be seen in the 17 year history since the first request for proposals in 2003, but also in this latest RFP: Issued in March 2019 and splitting the site into two halves, it took over 1.5 years to whittle proposals down to six proposals and then select the winning team! By comparison, Denver built a full and vibrant new city quarter around its Union Station in less than 15 years. 

A new Lexington Market rising (Photo: Philipsen)

The selected development team consists of two partner firms, Landmark of Baltimore and Vitruvius of Pittsburgh. Chris Janian, the founder of Vitruvius was a Development Executive at H&S Properties Development in Baltimore. The development team proposes to develop the entire block. Gensler is to be the architect; a rendering of the project showing the former Read's Drug store in the foreground had been prepared by SM&P Architects in Baltimore. The project is said to cost more than a $100 million and supposed to be realized in phases. BDC hasn't put a press release on their website in years and there is nothing about this selection. 

Sparse info can be found on the agenda for the Board of Estimates.  It has to approve the "Land Disposition Agreement" states that  "The concept includes market-rate rental housing, retail, office, co-working, artist live/work-space, an entertainment venue, and a hotel."  The local Landmark team is currently redeveloping the former Grand Central club in Mt Vernon and slated to develop the currently vacant site with the saved former Martick's building on Mulberry Street. Neither firm appears to have developed any project on the same scale before, not counting the H&S projects. 

The team calls their project Compass and says this on their own website:

The Compass will bridge the divide between the Central Business District, Mt. Vernon, and the Westside, jump-starting more creative development in the once thriving area. More than that, the impact-driven development, dynamic programming, incorporation of the arts, and local tenant mix will respect the buildings’ and neighborhood’s historic fabric, interspersing history with modern, timeless design. (Vitruvius Website)

Luckily the Westside, as a whole, has not stagnated in the same way as the Superblock area in those last 17 years. As Jay Brodie notes in his BBJ reminiscence, there have been at least 2,500 apartments completed, such as Center Point, the Atrium, the old BGE Headquarters, the Abell building, Camden Court, the L on Liberty and now the Four Ten Lofts on Mulberry Street and the University Lofts on Paca Street, both still under construction.

Four Ten lofts at Eutaw and Mulberry nearing completion (Photo: Philipsen)

The old Hippodrome movie theater was transformed into the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center and there are plans to do something behind the façade of the old Mayfair theatre. The area is now one of Baltimore's five Arts and Entertainment Districts. Dubbed "the Bromo", it features the Everyman Theater, the Mondo event space, various galleries and will soon have a brand-new Lexington Market. Almost the entire east side of the 400 block of Howard Street has been renovated, more construction is underway on the west side of the same block. The Mount Vernon Market and the Park Avenue Apartments are technically located in Mt Vernon, but they sure had a revitalizing effect on the Market Center District to the south (the "Westside").

Should the construction and rehabilitation of the Superblock really begin in 2022, it would fill a giant void and potentially be the project that really moves the former retail district over the hump for good.  Then it would also become finally time for the Weinberg Foundation to act on the land they cleared on the north side of Lexington Street in 2010. Their promise was always: "We will go after the superblock".

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Other articles about the Westside and the Superblock on this blog:

Board of Estimates meeting 12-2-20 for approval of land
disposition. Last meeting of Comptroller Joan Pratt

Its not all falling apart: Small miracles in Baltimore's "Westside" (2019)

The Superblock - new hope after 11 years of waiting (2015)

390 feet tall in the historic Westside (2015) still only a hole

Big Government, Big Retail, Big Renewal – How Big is Too Big? (2012)

Westside Stories 2 (2011)

Westside Stories 1 (2010)

Grow the City!

People have been city attraction #1 (Danish architect Jan Gehl)

With Brandon Scott now elected Mayor and his first term imminent, good advice is pouring in from all sides. Priorities galore: Fix the schools, crime, equity, the justice system, the property taxes, vacant properties, potholes and transit. Create more jobs. The list is as long as it is daunting. Not to mention that the ongoing pandemic threatens to erase much of the recent progress in filling retail and restaurants places and making Baltimore's neighborhood streets lively.

Baltimore, a beautiful city awaiting to live up to its full potential
(Photo: Philipsen)

Wouldn't it be nice if there were one thing that could fix all those problems? Well, there is. There is one strategy that addresses all the above ailments. 

That one thing that can make a dent in everything listed above is growing Baltimore's population. While many have mentioned something to this effect over the years, it never became an official data based hard strategy. Only Stephany Rawlings Blake (SRB) established a specific growth goal (20,000 households), but her goal was more or less drawn from thin air. What residents Baltimore is losing, what people the city is gaining was never analyzed in detai. What are the reasons for those gains and losses and what are the implications for Baltimore's fiscal base, its services and the vitality of its neighborhoods? Speculation why people leave replaced analysis with everyone having their own favorite guess: Is it because of crime, bad schools, trash, lack of jobs? Or something different entirely? One known fact is that current flight is a reversal from the flight of the white middle class of the past. Today the majority of people leaving is black, and the majority of those coming in is white. Another fact is that Baltimore's tax base remained relatively stable in spite of the population loss because incoming people are wealthier, younger, more educated and pay more taxes than those who left.

Rawlings Blake and her administration never did the analysis and without it there couldn't be a systematic growth strategy. Even her growth target of 20,000 households had nothing to do with the carrying capacity of the City or a goal that address the massive housing vacancies. In spite of the general fuzziness of SRB's goal, her administration managed to keep the City from losing more people for some time. Mayor Young did not keep even the goal alive. Now the slide has become precipitous again. Time to revisit growth as a policy.

Abandonment through shrinkage (Photo: Philipsen)

Growing the City is not a universally accepted goal. There are those who say (I suspect Mayor Young is one of them) "take care of the people who are already here first". And then there are those who are afraid of change of any kind. Usually their concern is expressed in terms of gentrification, displacement and cultural shifts. The subtext: The likely influx of wealthier white people. 

“We have spent a lot of time and energy attempting to lure other people into our city without always prioritizing the population that lives here already” (Zeke Cohen, June 2019 to the Baltimore SUN) 

Taking care of existing residents and attracting new ones are not mutually exclusive goals, though. When existing residents flee to a higher degree than what in-migration can make up, there is a problem. Any growth strategy must include taking care of existing residents. The hole in the bucket needs to be plugged before filling it again can truly be successful. 

Births and migration in Baltimore's population (SUN)

Obviously, the matter isn't solely about numbers. Income, culture and jobs play a major role in the DNA of a city and therefore, those topics dominate the discussion. But, to say it again, growing the City is not a zero sum proposition. Besides, in a city that is 2/3 African American and where every fifth person lives in poverty, more diversity and more wealth is not only exactly what is needed, such increased diversity benefits everybody. 

Even the equity narrative which correctly assigns blame for the current conditions to systemic racism cannot undo a simple economic truth: A city can't fix its schools, its crime its housing or its transit without changing the sky high poverty rates and the total segregation of underserved, overburdened neighborhoods. It is necessary to fill a good portion of the vacant housing that reaches in some areas almost 50% of the building stock. It is necessary to add students of other income and education strata to lift the lowest achievement schools. To right this City takes lots of resources. Additional tax revenue from additional residents is a much more likely source for those resources than giant federal reparation payments, no matter how justified those would be. To gain additional residents, the City can take advantage of its unused capacity and infrastructure that was once gauged on nearly a million residents. 

More residents using housing, transit, better schools and quality services, be it grocery stores,  playgrounds, well kept parks, or better maintained streets is key for even maintaining existing services, let alone improving them. The burden needs to be placed on more shoulders, it is as simple as that. Only more people wanting to live in Baltimore and the added demand that comes from that will make grocery stores, employers, qualified teachers and police come to Baltimore. 

Critics will immediately jump on the suggestion that disinvested neighborhoods should get investment in order to attract new residents instead of simply serving the existing ones. But investments also serve current residents. The  fear of "gentrification" needs to be parsed out. What should be avoided is displacement not a better neighborhood.  Clearly, there will be a legitimate discussion about what exactly a better neighborhood is, but it should be obvious that it will be different from what we see today in the underserved and overburdened communities of our City.

Jobs in Baltimore: Scarce (Photo: Philipsen)

Baltimore's urban development discussions are mired in false alternatives and in an unproductive race confrontation that declares everything to be a zero sum game. As if every investment can only serve one purpose and one group and as if anything that benefits one group has to be to the detriment of the other. While there is no doubt that systemic racism has a history of actually creating those zero sum games, whether it was redlining, blockbusting or lopsided public investments, or ignoring cultural preferences of minority communities, these patterns cannot be assumed as the subtext of every initiative that brings investment to communities. Not if investments are done right. If done right, added value doesn't just mean higher taxes and rents, it also means more wealth in the hands of low income communities, i.e. wealth creation in the hands of previously disenfranchised groups. Higher costs such as rents and property taxes can be and must offset by building additional supply of housing in the lower price ranges, more vouchers, co-ops, land trusts and other measures that prevent low income renters being priced out of their neighborhoods. One can label this as a neoliberal approach because it is an approach within the mechanisms of the current economy, but Baltimore cannot create an all new economy all by itself, no matter how much some people argue for just such an isolationist approach.

The reality, of course, is complicated. Investment tends to go where returns are high and easy to get. Very few potential residents are eager to relocate to areas that would need investment the most. Very few investors consider investing there. Even public investments didn't go there with the result that the areas with the most needs received the least. This pattern prevails in spite of the federal Reinvestment Act. Other actions such as better off people sending their kids to private schools (which in turn receive public funds ) exacerbated the bifurcation: There was population growth in downtown and some come-back neighborhoods while poorer middle and low income neighborhoods saw increased urban flight, joined by previously stable neighborhoods which"tipped" into decline. 

But the once highly attractive investment areas are locally and nationally becoming less attractive when they are getting too expensive or run out of opportunities. Social Impact Investment has become a thing now. Public investment is scrutinized for implicit bias. New federal tax incentives are designed to reduce risk. Minority entrepreneurs and start up increasingly direct their attention to the needs of communities.

The good news is: Houses on the Baltimore real estate market are being snatched up at a record pace, in record time and at record prizes all across rich and poor neighborhoods. Many big cities have become unaffordable, additionally, some areas are now so impacted by fires, hurricanes that the beginning of "climate migration" seems to take shape. People look for affordable but attractive cities that are safe from hurricanes and fires. Baltimore is on the map as one of those places. 

Decline and growth of white population in Baltimore

The perennial critique has been that Mayors focus on downtown, while neighborhoods suffer, even though Mayor after Mayor swore to pay more attention to neighborhoods. But there is good news as well. Baltimore's uneven capital investments are getting flatter. Baltimore City has recognized the lopsided way in which capital investments have been made in the past, i.e. chiefly in what is known as the "white L", the areas where middle class people live. The New Baltimore Sustainability Plan, for example, has a very strong equity lens and investments are now continually checked for hidden bias.

Not only is investment now better distributed, most of the neighborhoods in the "white L" are no longer pure white either. The story isn't black and white, nor is it strictly binary. The up and coming neighborhoods are actually diverse, of course, those in the "black butterfly" are not. It is now widely recognized that it isn't acceptable that the majority of past funding benefitted the minority of people most. Baltimore has already engaged in investment in the Black Butterfly neighborhoods, whether it is school renovation, parks, playgrounds or road paving or bike lanes and scooter deployment. Anybody who wants to visit the once forgotten neighborhoods can see traces of these efforts, even if they often look like a drop in the bucket. Mayor Scott will continue and accelerate this trend.

As a result Baltimore, like other cities, is trending towards a polycentric urban model, away from the downtown centric model of the past. I have written about this in more detail in an article titled "A drastically realigned Baltimore".  In many ways, Baltimore has always remained a poly centric city and a new emphasis on neighborhood centers should come easy to our DNA.

Physically Baltimore has all that is needed to grow the city back.
(Photo Philipsen)

Another aspect to consider is COVID. In many respects the pandemic sets the country and the world back. But it must be understood, that the pandemic does not condemn cities to fail because of density. Density is not a driver of the pandemic. This has become now abundantly clear when rural areas surpass cities in terms of infection rates and mortality. In many ways, the pandemic highlights the need for quality gathering spaces and human contact. 

Taking advantage of Baltimore's low housing cost, record low mortgage and lending costs, as well as the existing interest in Baltimore as place to invest, presents a unique opportunity for the new Mayor to finally complete a sound analysis about Baltimore's population dynamics (who comes, who leaves and why), prepare a data-based strategy for retaining existing and attracting  new residents and build a massive campaign that aims to fill the many vacant houses and return them to a productive status. 

With the right framework that prevents displacement and with a possible federal recovery investment growing Baltimore is the most promising policy to reverse the many issues that ail this city. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA