Late but real: Baltimore bike share

Bikeshare, a bike rental system that many cities across the United States and the world have successfuly employed for at least a decade, has always been right around the corner for Baltimore.

Left to right: Caitlin Doolin, Baltimore City bike and
pedestrian planner; Jay Decker, Baltimore City bike share
coordinator; Liz Cornish, Bikemore executive director. 
(photo:Ron Cassie)

Come 10/28 it should be real here as well: 150 bikes will be available at 20 initial stations. Once spring arrives and biking will be more popular, Baltimore's bikeshare company Bewegen (German for to move) will deploy phase two with another 30 stations and a then total fleet of nearly 500 bicycles, almost half of the electric!
The initial locations of Bike Share stations cover neighborhoods in Southwest, South, Southeast and Downtown Baltimore. Carroll Park, Druid Hill Park, and Patterson Park will all have also stations so that those who are new to biking or use biking for recreation will have access to stations in close proximity to trails. All bicycle riders have to be 18 years of age, though.
Station location was determined by weighing a variety of factors including:

• Density: Bike share systems in many other cities have shown that stations that are only a five minute walk apart provide more convenient, reliable service and are used much more frequently than systems with more far-flung stations.
• Logistics and Cost: Stations need a certain  amount of space and infrastructure, for example an electrical conduit for charging. Many of the Phase I stations are being sited at MTA Transit hubs to assist with first and last mile connectivity. MTA is the sponsor for those stations and assumes the cost. 
• Equity: Bike share cannot solve Baltimore’s transportation inequities but equal access to the system is especially important in Baltimore which is seen by many as two cities in one, the "white L" and the "black butterfly". 

A Bewegen tester bike with electric boost
(photo: ArchPlan)

While the Baltimore system won't be compatible with the eight year Capital Bikeshare in DC (3,500 bicycles in DC, Alexandria, Arlington and Montgomery County) we will be the ones with the power assisted bicycles in the fleet.

A up to 45 minute trip on one of the rental bikes will be $2. Trips over 45-minutes will cost an additional $2 per half-hour. Monthly passes are $15, they include unlimited 45-minute rides.

There are some annual "Founder's Passes" left for $100. The city offered up 250 of these passes to riders who want to get in on the action early. The passes include unlimited 60-minute rides, a guaranteed $100 annual rate for life, invitation to the bike share launch party on Oct. 28, a free water bottle and a free Zipcar membership.

The Baltimore bikeshare bikes are still in a container
(photo: BBJ)

Bikeshare is considered an "entry drug" into bicycling: Those who don't own a bike or just want to try out how it feels to ride one can do so with a very small cost. In Baltimore and thanks to the electric booster bikes, using a bicycle now can become an option even for those who are afraid they may not make it up a hill. The integrated battery powered motors will kick in and make riding uphill or against the wind a piece of cake. Electric bikes have seen an increasing market share in Europe not only among the elderly but also among bike enthusiasts that use the electric power for a wider range or higher speed. Rental bikes are a great way to explore a city for the tourist that wants to see more than the water's edge at the Inner Harbor and it is also a good way to cover the so-called last mile at transit stations, i.e. a distance home or to work that is a bit more than one wants to walk.

Cities that have experience with a network of bikeshare stations report that the availability of bikshare did, indeed, increase bicycling in general. The new two-bike corridor on Maryland Avenue will be done just in time for taking the new bikes on a spin.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

BBJ article
Bikemore info about bikeshare

Bewegen bike station 

related article on this blog:
Will 2016 be the year of the bike?

Should Airbnb's pay hotel taxes?

Airbnb is a San Francisco based company that provides an application and software that matches beds with guests. Anybody with an extra room can play, just like anybody with a car and extra time can drive for Uber.

The sharing economy is probably best known for these two example which allow millions to hitch a ride on the quick or crash in a big city without looking at hotel room prices that look more like monthly apartment rents rates than nightly room rates. 

Add caption

The sharing economy also has allowed millions to become small time entrepreneurs making a few bucks on the side with otherwise unused room or car capacity. A home and a car are pretty much the biggest purchases in anybody's life; to utilize them more effectively has become a savior for the tight budget of many that have a hard time making ends meet, whether they are students, beginners in their professions with low starting salaries or retired with too little Social Security to get by.

The apps bring supply and demand together in a manner of previously unknown efficiency in which both sides get an impression of each other and the product making the whole transaction fairly safe and predictable. 

All that hasn't gone unnoticed by the big guys who provided these services to date as a commercial class. Taxi enterprises and hotel chains with their various models of employment and franchises. Of course, they squawk about the new competition which pretty much sailed for years underneath the radar of licenses and regulations until the new way of doing business got bigger than the biggest taxi enterprises and the biggest hotel chains with over a million rooms in its offerings.
Even though the online app providers have become huge corporations themselves, they went undetected for so long because the law is sluggish and the regulations just didn't capture these new types of doing business. For example, in Baltimore's regulations, something is a hospitality business that has more than five rooms. 

Baltimore Airbnb offerings: map

Sometimes the traditional service provider get mixed up in the new technologies themselves, like in the case of the hotel booking applications like Priceline who buy bulk and then hawk off the lower priced rooms via the internet. Cities collect their hotel taxes on the lower price but not on the service fee that the online services charge their clients. Perfectly logical, since the tax is defined to apply only to the room price, not to the service that makes the connection. But city and state lawyers trying to get the additional taxes succeeded and  passed House Bill 1065, which would apply a 6% sales tax to the service fees or markups that any “accommodations intermediary” in the country charges when booking. Maryland hotel rooms. hotels booked via an online service just became a bit more expensive.

Airbnb is next. More than 24,000 visitors to Baltimore stayed in an Airbnb rental during the 12 months, according to the SUN, based on Airbnb's own reporting since nobody else counts those stays. The City wants to see the hotel-tax applied to the empty kids bedroom that aunt Sallie rents out via the online service, even though the city actually benefits from the small time hospitality offerings by virtue of the added number of visitors that can afford to travel, when before they couldn't.

The regulators who are not known for being the most imaginative folks around don't seem able to get around their usual zero-sum thinking. If 1832 places in Baltimore offer Airbnb, so the logic goes, the hotels loose those bookings. If these same guests sleep in a rowhouse room instead of a hotel, the city looses the tax, Clear case. right? 

There is no doubt that Uber has siphoned off rides from the traditional taxis and that Airbnb has taken some folks away from hotel beds. But in the end the pool increased because more people rent a ride now or stay overnight in some city than before; mobility and hospitality are not finite fixed numbers but grow along with increased supply and sinking cost. These dynamics legislators usually don't see or don't want to see, especially if they have ties to the traditional service fiefdoms.

Baltimore Airbnb couple offering
"bed and bath"

Bottom line: Subjecting freelance drivers or mini-hoteliers to fees, licences and taxes is counterproductive unless those services would clearly become better through those added costs. But bettering the service isn't the objective of the council bill to collect taxes from Airbnb. Its just about the money. "Leveling the playing field" is the mantra. As if aunt Sallie or cousin Paul with their rooms would move up to the level of a Hilton chain simply by being subjected to a 9% room tax.

Especially in a city like Baltimore with huge unemployment and poverty rates the goal should be to allow as many folks as possible to enter the world of business with a threshold as low as possible. Driving for  Uber and renting out a bed through Airbnb are perfect models for the entrepreneurial spirit that is so desperately needed to overcome systemic disadvantages of gender, race or lack of education. 

I don't know about you, but I am rooting for the sharing economy as an economy of opportunity that opens doors to folks that have been shut out way too long, even though the initial adopters of the new technology based services may not yet be in that group. The potential is there.

Airbnb., unusual rooms in big cities:
Loft with keg and kitchen (Philadelphia)

As far as those $300,000 the City thinks to collect in Airbnb taxes per year: That is less than what one of those on-call utility contractors gets to sneeze into one of those sinkholes. In fact, it is about what Prince George's County just forgave the City by returning the payment for their police deployment here after the unrest. Council people should consider that the overall benefits from the additional income residents earn is much higher than that from the tax.

An initial Council committee vote is expected during a hearing of the Judicial and Legislative Investigations Committee on Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

legislation
the Baltimore Sun

Technical.ly Baltimore

Facade-dectomy at the Mayfair

Few Baltimoreans will remember when Howard Street between Franklin and Center Streets was a thriving arts, theater and hotel district. Pictures from that period look so lovely that they are hard to reconcile with the harsh reality of the last fourty years or so which has not been kind to the area. Now the most prominent witness of those better times is coming down. Except the facade, a surgical procedure that preservationists have dubbed facade-dectomy. Not a thing they usually promote.

1915

The Mayfair site has witnessed the changing times since 1870 when a previous structure began its storied life as a bathhouse. in a first drastic change the "Natatorium"became an auditorium, then a vaudeville theater and finally a movie house.

As a theater it must have been quite a place: "beautiful and cozy" the SUN described it once, "painted in rich golds, dramatic reds, and creamy whites all lit by hundreds of lights clustered on crystal chandeliers. The walls inside the theatre were frescoed in Byzantine and Renaissance styles and the private boxes had velvet, olive-colored drapes. The theatre's reception room had luxurious red carpeting, a telephone, and a maid. During intermission, a Hungarian orchestra played in the theatre's palm garden and ice water was served to "ladies" in the audience. The theatre seated 2,000 and had 30 exits, making it easy to evacuate in case of fire". (Megan Elcrat is an architect and principal of 33:Design). Much of that glory was already sacrificed in the conversion to a movie house in 1941.

The Mayfair next to the Stanford and City College (after 1941)

Since 1986 the Mayfair stood vacant. Its canopy announcing the last movie (Lawrence of Arabia) for a long time. 1998 its roof fell in and nobody did anything about it. Proposals for housing inside the old shell came and went nowhere. Now, 18 years later two engineering studies declared the building a hazard because of its 65'-80' tall brick sidewalls stood unbraced and fully exposed after first the northern neighbor (the Stanley Theater, demolished a long time ago) and lately also the southern neighbor (a hotel even older than the Mayfair) had come down for a parking lot and whatever temporary green-space.
In what BDC calls deconstruction for its slow, careful and labor extensive process, the Mayfair is being demolished in its entirety except for its 35' front section and facade. Why the engineers considered the western end of the building with stage and proscenium unstable is not clear, because as is evident now, there the roof trusses are still in place and that end looks certainly as stable as the front.

State of the Mayfair after the roof collapse

While standing in total neglect for 18 years the building with its landmark marquis was looking over huge parking lots to the west , the demise of the old White Coffee Pot restaurant but also the rebirth of the old Kernan Hotel as apartments, the adaptive reuse of 5 N. Howard Street as apartments and most recently the conversion of the the old Hochschild Kahn distribution center into apartments and the Mount Vernon Marketplace. Finally, at the corner of Park and Franklin a modern new luxury apartment building will rise, also developed by the Time Group which did 520 Park.

The first sign of renewal in the area predates the closure of the Mayfair, in which the former Baltimore City College turned into the Chesapeake apartments as one of the very first adaptive re-use projects in Baltimore.

the fire started small (Photo: ArchPlan)

The demolition work is managed and overseen by the Baltimore City Department of Housing & Community Development's and executed by its on-call contractor, K&K Adams. The cost is over a million dollars, probably much more than it would have cost to stabilize the roof 20 years ago.

Kimberly Clark, the BDC's executive vice president, had told the Baltimore SUN earlier this year that BDC had hoped to preserve the entire building. "If it wasn't for the public safety thing, we would have preserved the north and south walls as well,"Clark said. As a result of the findings of two engineering firms an Emergency Condemnation and Demolition Notice had been posted on the building June 15. 

It isn't clear on what the hope for preservation was based on, since BDC hadn't done anything to protect the Mayfair from demolition by neglect. In fact, the nail in the coffin came from some contractor welding on the canopy of the Mayfair in 2014, causing a fire that initially appeared to be very manageable until it spread to the adjacent also decaying former Stanley hotel building for which BDC had sought to get demolition permits for at least a decade. Before the first fire trucks were fully set up the fire entered the first floor through the plywood panels covering the storefront and spread in no time through the entire building bringing out a dozen or so fire trucks. But firefighters couldn't enter the building and had to fight the fire from the outside and from above. In the end the structure was so destabilized that it had to come down. In a domino effect this then further destabilized the Mayfair.

The fire has spread to the roof

Mayor Schmoke's vision of the Westside, first articulated in the 90s, has come one step closer to reality with the creation of the Bromo Arts District. The Everyman and the Hippodrome are representations of mainstream arts and culture, the Current Gallery and the theater project including the Annex taking shape in the 400 block of North Howard Street as well as a slew of galleries along Franklin Street are the more offbeat manifestations. A new bakery is planned where the White Coffee Pot used to be. Further north at Centre Street the former Planned Parenthood building is currently being converted to offices. But not all is good: H&H Outdoors, a longtime staple and treasure just a block from the Mayfair plans leave next year, frustrated by sewer diversions that wrap around its entry door and slowing business.

A robust new theme for the area has still to emerge and the postcards from 1915 still look way more attractive than what we have today.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

udpdated with the H&H departure reported by the Baltimore SUN at 11.20am

Postcard of  the important corner of Howard and Franklin Streets around 1910

deconstruction of the historic hotel at the corner of Eutaw and Franklin
(photo: ArchPlan)

Baltimore Sun article July 2016
Baltimore Sun, op-ed Aug. 2016
Baltimore Heritage

The bathhouse originally on this site. Natatorium 

Interior of the Mayfair

Current state of the north wall: It will come down (photo ArchPlan)

Proscennium and stage area (current)
(Photo: ArchPlan)

Current state of demolition (photo ArchPlan)

The new Baltimore Greyhound Station: Still in the diaspora

When the Trailways/ Greyhound station was evicted from Fayette Street in favor of the land disposition for the now failed Superblock, the departure meant that the Westside had lost another use and another group of people coming to the area. That, of course, was the whole purpose of those who are convinced that the interurban bus riders are group one can do without. That intercity bus patrons had to trek down to a piece of land between the Middle Branch and the trash incinerator that initially even lacked basic transit, didn't bother anybody but the riders themselves.   Even after the City installed left turns on Russell Street so MTA buses can serve the area, access is poor, certainly for walking, a natural way to access an urban bus station.

Add caption

Greyhound wasn't happy with the transit diaspora either and their quickly thrown together station there had all the charm of a relief shelter. Maybe the bus operator had hopes to return to a more central location.

A lot has happened since: intercity bus travel has taken off as a serious mode far beyond those who used to take it as a last resort. The forgotten area near the incinerator got a lift and has become much more visible after the Horseshoe Casino settled there. As a result the bleak Greyhound facility would no longer do.

Actually, a new bus station had been part of the plans for the site where the casino now sits before Horseshoe took over. Somehow nobody asked the casino developers to pick up that tab.  Finally, Congressman Cummings brought in a $4.14 million dollar federal transportation grant and Greyhound agreed to chip in the rest of the over $8 million total budget.

The new Greyhound Terminal
(photo: ArchPlan)

The new station looks pretty much like the rendering had envisioned it. It sits on the waterfront but it doesnt take any advantage of it as if the architects had never visited the site.
A tall and well lit waiting hall with ticket sales on one hand, a seating area similar to airport gate waiting area and a generous queuing area were passengers get sorted by boarding zones just like for an airplane. When I visited Thursday morning almost all seats in the waiting area were taken and the station was bustling with activity.  The new facility offers more than 60 daily routes to cities near and far — including Washington, Virginia Beach and New York. Bolt buses, a subsidiary of Greyhound will not serve this station and continue curbside service at Penn Station.

The new station was opened behind schedule and the grounds are not yet completed. Eventually buses will enter the rear area of the building, which is facing the water, counter-clockwise, pulling in perpendicular to the rear facade, head-first, a strange arrangement which forces buses to back out of their slots. There are no curbs and little step-stools make up for the lack of elevated curbed boarding areas.

The station doesn't have the signature design and urbanity of the 1942 Art Deco Greyhound facility on Howard Street which had become the seat of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council after Greyhound and Trailways merged their operations in the early 1990s and operated from Fayette Street. Today the 1942 building is owned by the Maryland Historic Society but doesn't appear to be actively used. The Fayette Street Depot turned into dust, the area is now a seeded grass lot waiting for development.

Ticket area in the new station: Photography prohibited
(photo: ArchPlan)

How interurban transit should be integrated into a truly multi-modal facility can be seen in DC where a bus facility sits on a deck atop Union stations's rail tracks. There Greyhound, Bolt, the DC Circulator and other services pull up alongside a slew of platforms with connections to Metro, Amtrak and MARC only a few feet away.

The large Amtrak lot on Lanvale Street across from Penn Station in Baltimore would allow a similar arrangement here as well, but don't hold your breath. The idea was rejected early on, even before Greyhound finally wound up where it is now. Amtrak is currently looking for a master developer for that and adjacent sites. A bus terminal is not part of the request for proposals.

Travelers arriving in Baltimore by bus will continue to see the incinerator first and the casino second as their first impressions.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA



Baltimore SUN, Nov 5, 2014

The original 1942 Greyhound Terminal at Howard  and Centre Streets

The old Trailways Depot on Fayette Street

The provisional Greyhound Terminal near Warner Street now demolished
(photo: The Brew)

Experts brainstorm resilience in Ellicott City

On the same day Main Street finally reopens after the catastrophic flood on July 30 of this year the Department of Planning invited a panel of planners, engineers and stormwater experts to brainstorm ideas for how to plan against future floods.

With the major repairs complete but no plans for a real solution adopted, the Planning Director and his Deputy of Howard County's DPZ resorted to inviting an assortment of experts with some ties to the area to come in for free and participate in a brainstorming session.

The valleys and streams of Ellicott City

Some twenty landscape architects, architects, planners, engineers, and water experts followed the call and conducted a wide ranging discussion trying to rein in the fluid topic.

"What are your objectives" was the first thing somebody wanted to know. The department members punted and said a set of objectives will be developed later. However, they offered a list of "buckets" that kind of reveal the goals:

• Economy, 
• Rebuilding, 
• Preservation, 
• Environment. 

This is a telling list, even if one doesn't take the order as a  hierarchy of importance. Clearly, any drastic proposals that include abandoning the bottom of Main Street or disturbing its historic character through any type of fortification are out of the question. Not that I think one should consider abandonment or demolition seriously, but if one invites a bunch of experts, it would be kind of interesting to see if anybody would have suggested it. Besides, it isn't an issue of full abandonment or full preservation. Any of those greenway measures taken in other places like Boulder Colorado or Frederick, Maryland require allowing water to expand somewhere, where it doesn't do damage. Any such area is currently elusive in Ellicitt City, unless one allows drastic land use changes and some changes to the historic downtown.

There was general agreement that 6" of rain in two hours are not manageable without flooding, given the topography and specific conditions of Ellicott City with its three-tributary four-valley configuration leading into an ever narrower channel leading perpendicularly into the Pataspso which is running in a deeply cut valley at that point.

It also became apparent that all suggestions that dealt with the engineering and management of water fell into the two main categories of detention (keeping the water stored) and conveyance (controlling the flow of the water that isn't retained).

Extreme scouring due to high velocity

One participant, interestingly a hydrologist, steered towards a set of questions that were less centered on engineering water. "Manage the people and things that are affected by water",  he demanded. How to warn and evacuate people, how to protect assets so there is less damage from water, how to discuss cost and benefit? "Who carries the cost, who has the benefit", he asked.

He also made very sensible suggestions about how cost can be reduced for the shopkeepers downtown: Could they form a special group and shop for flood insurance as a more powerful collective, presumably getting a better rate than a bunch of individuals? Could shopkeepers rent a joint storage facility so they wouldn't need to store their inventory in the basements below the store where they get destroyed even in smaller floods. Good questions, all. One could easily see how the businesses as a group would get much further than in the current condition of individuals on their own. Splits and tension have already become visible between those who stay and rebuild and those who sell, for example.

Another set of issues, less engineering and more policy, revolve around why current rules and regulations aren't strictly adhered to and whether the County follows best practices on its own properties. The very large parking lot in front of the County government and courthouse high above downtown is a perfect example: With electric car charging stations and a slew of small bio-retention areas the answer looks like, yes. But the truth is that these lots, which are part of the Hudson watershed, have no stormwater management component that deals with water quantity beyond the first inch of rain. The little landscape islands into which the parking lot water runs are designed to improve the quality of the initial most polluted rainwater running off the asphalt. The goal there is water quality, not retention. For Ellicott City, though, this isn't an alternative. Its a must on both counts.

In recognition of that fact, current stormwater regulations in place for this area already require ("shall have") 100 year storm water facilities.  But according to David Woessner of Bohler Engineering in Towson a local survey conducted by him shows only less than a handful of such "100 year ponds". He says almost all facilities are only designed for two or ten year storms. Over half of the developments, Woessner estimated, have no stormwater management at all. Around 440 acres in all, Woessner said.

Somebody else added, that even the few 100 year facilities would still have inlets and pipes that can convey only two or ten year storms. In other words, their large retention holding capacity doesn't even come to bear in a heavy rainfall, because the water can't be conveyed into the holding area or pond. "These things have been known for years, this could be changed right now, but it isn't been done" one participant told me afterwards. "They are out there fixing those damaged facilities, all they have to do is lift the weirs (the overflow elevation) by a foot so they hold more water, but that is not what they are told to do".

The matter of policies comes down to enforcement it seems and to the tough question of retrofits. How to force developments without management to add stormwater facilities? "You should focus on strategic retrofits" a participant admonished, "not across the board, for cost reasons". Others admonished to design retention facilities with staggered discharge, so they don't overflow all at the same time. "For a better hydrograph", the hydrologist clarified. The question if any new development should be allowed in a watershed that is already 90% or so developed is also a matter of policy and political will.

There is also the issue of what the Maryland Department of the Environment will allow. As stormwater management techniques evolved over recent decades, the traditional priority on conveyance (concrete channels) has taken a backseat to water quality and environmental concerns to protect the streams, the stream-banks, the Chesapeake Bay. So called "in-stream facilities" such as weirs or dams have been frowned upon, because of their negative impacts to streams. In fact, dams are actively being removed in the Patapsco right now. But what if those in-stream installations wouldn't retain water at all times, "if they let two and ten year floods go but dam the 100 year flood?' somebody asked and someone else distributed the template of an engineering drawing showing such a solution.

In the end, some "heroic" large-scale expensive water retention facilities will have to be built even if it may not be the subway size underground flood tunnel under Main Street. Large retention basins under the two expansive remote parking lots at the top of Main Street, for example, would take a good amount of water and hold it before the the final run alongside Main Street and under buildings.

Even short of gigantic underground holding tanks these parking lots should get the attention. They cause large amounts of water run-off to simply go straight into the streams. Simple storage through pervious pavement placed above rock-layers or storage pipes could prevent a good amount or all of runnoff  they cause. Any measure on those public lots would meet all the items on the bucket list without any compromise on economy, the environment or preservation. Green open space is definitely in short supply in downtown. Maybe the two parking lots should become open holding lakes that can grow and shrink. Waterparks as amenities, facilities that combine the quantity with the quality aspect.

Of course, these lots are too far down the watershed to be effective by themselves. Further upstream, bigger ponds and better retention will be most effective. Some of the must do approaches are so obvious, they should be started today.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

SUN article about the reopening of Main Street today.

A Royal Farms station as Towson's Gateway?

For all those who bemoan downtown Baltimore's sometimes decaying historic treasures a little trip to Towson is always useful: Here it isn't decay that creates the eyesores but a lack of design. Which is a pitty, because Towson is pretty much the only nearby exurban center that has enough oomph to be a real walkable urban place with a thriving university, viable stores, an urban mall, restaurants, government buildings, churches, history and monuments.

The suggested new northern gateway into Towson at York Road (developer's
rendering 2013)

Baltimore City and County should be a region that works together, not two jurisdictions whose residents feud each other as if we still lived in the middle ages with all its parochial fiefdoms.

Both areas need to thrive and it is always sad when an opportunity to be as good as possible is squandered. In this case the opportunity of cleaning up that tangled mess that is today's York Road leading into Towson from the north. (By the way, it is noteworthy that York Road leading from the City into the County is not really a problem, even though the shopping center straddling the jurisdictional line could still be improved and the County permitted a Starbucks right at the edge of downtown Towson to have a drive through).

The northside, though, from the Beltway to where Bosley Avenue intersects (the Towson Bypass)  is unpleasant in terms of  urban design. It is the typical auto-centric American commercial strip with the assortments of gas stations, fast food restaurants and one story shops with the cars parked up front that has become a symbol of suburban sprawl. To get a better grip, the Planning Department in collaboration with stakeholders, came up with a Towson overlay district which was approved this August. It would control everything from Bosley Avenue to the south. At the time Greater Towson Committee Executive Director Katie Pinheiro was pleased that it passed.

"Two keys elements of Towson's success will be improving its walkability and connectivity, which was highlighted in the [bill] as well as in the Master Plan 2020," she said in an email. "Towson's development community will continue to work with the County Council and County Executive to make Towson the most successful it can be with the best possible developments for all to enjoy."

Problem is, major developments going on in Towson were well underway when the new rules with stronger design oversight passed and they are therefore exempted.

The old firehouse site at Bosely Ave

One of the exempted projects is the embattled swap deal that Executive Kamenetz devised in 2013 in which a small downtown pocket park was paved in favor of a relocated modern Towson fire station replacing the one located on Bosley Avenue near York Road. The 5.8 acre site was offered to private developers. The County spent around $ 6million on the new fire station (it was dedicated in January of this year) and is expected to receive $8.3 million for the old site, seemingly a good deal. According to the SUN Executive Kamenetz said in 2013:

"The old way of doing things in the county would be to borrow taxpayer dollars, increase debt and construct replacement facilities on the existing site. We decided that if we want to be consistant with our goals to be innovative, responsive and efficient, we needed to consider alternative ways of achieving these goals." (Kevin Kamenetz)

The problems with the deal are not financial, they are about urban design: The first issue was that a green space was paved to build the new fire station, even though Towson is very short of open space, The second problem is that the development proposal which the County picked is a Royal Farm store with a mega gas station, exactly the type of car oriented non walkable development that makes York Road so unsightly in the first place. The intersection at Bosley and York is already graced with an Exxon Station. That something much better could be done on this prominent site was demonstrated by another proposal that included a Harris Teeter store with apartments on top. A truly urban solution that had the potential of truly making a good gateway and represent entrance into an urban core. Apparently, Harris Teeter wouldn't commit to the deal and the County dropped the proposal and picked the next bidder in line.

Google Streetview towards downtown Towson on York Road

This urban design dilemma could have been avoided if the request for the developer proposals would have included a set of urban design parameters that would have stuck with the zoning that is in place here, requested a multi-story building at the dominant corner and excluded things like gas stations and surface parking lots.

But the horse is out of the barn and the gas station cum convenience store appared to be the only deal in hand. Having built the new fire station already, the County feels it is in a bind and has to force the matter through. Ironically Caves Valley, the developer for the Royal Farm proposal, is also the developer for a large urban mixed use, high-density urban development in downtown where Bosley Avenue meets up again with York Road. The developer who prides himself of understanding urban development should have an interest that Towson represents itself well at the other edge as well. But Caves Valley apparently described their highway strip proposal as

"an attractive commercial center" [that will] "create a welcoming focal point and streetscape." 

That is quite a euphemism and a blatant misunderstanding of the urban design term focal point. No doubt, those convenience and gas stations are very lucrative, a reason that they blight the entrance to many towns.
Since the old fire station re-development is proposed as a Planned Unit Development (PUD) because the existing business zoning doesn't allow a gas station, the County and the community still have a few means in hand to prevent the worst. At least that is what Councilman David Marks thinks who unfortunately has recently resorted to horsetrading in his district. Some developers call it extortion and community members consider it ineffective. Marks, a Republican himself feels like between a rock and a hard place and blames the Democrat Kamenetz for the problem.

In the horsetrading approach to the problem of bad use or bad design, the issue isn't confronted up front through predictable controls and masterplans but by making last minute deals with developers in which they get their permit for paying money to some local causes. Nothing against community benefits, but better design would be preferable.

Protests against the gas station proposal

Towson's northern gateway could use it. No fountain can make a mega gas station sitting on a high retaining wall an attractive entry point.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore SUN article (2016)
Baltimore SUN article (2013)

A longer article about Towson can be found on my blog here

What's wrong this this populist rant about downtown Baltimore?

If a guy who writes a daily blog once set out to describe "the Baltimore you missed because you were tired from work or too busy moving to Brooklyn" and now writes a long rant about how unsafe, dirty and generally unpleasant this Baltimore is, one has to wonder if he any longer describes what others can't see, whether it isn't now he who was too tired from work and he who is too busy moving to Towson, a place he wanted to move to per his own account. Or if Baltimore has really arrived at a place where those rants are justified. Here what the anonymous writer of Baltimore Chop said what the purpose of his blog is:

Screenshot of the Baltimore Chop website with the article in question

..meant to be a personal blog, but it turns out that if you’re writing a personal blog which is also a daily blog, you stop talking about yourself pretty quickly. You talk less about yourself, and more about the world around you. So this has morphed into a music and nightlife blog. It’s become an urban lifestyle blog. [...]
The Baltimore Chop presents my Baltimore. It’s the one you missed cause you were tired from work. It’s the one you didn’t see because you were too busy moving to Brooklyn. It’s the small town within a big city- hip without being esoteric, smart without being pedantic, dangerous without being reckless, and kitsch without being cute.

Needed more than ever

Instead the blogger writes  a long, profanity laden tirade about downtown this week ("What's wrong with Downtown") in which he kicks down just everything in his way. and doesn't shy away from generalizations that sound like County Republican Patrick McDonough had been his ghostwriter. McDonough is famous for his racist anti-City rants.

Violence in Baltimore is what sunshine is to Florida. It is omnipresent. 

Downtown is not actually safe. It is an unsafe place. Period. An unbelievable amount of crime happens downtown every day. 

For those of us who live in the city, and who frankly don’t get out of it often enough, it can be easy to forget just how safe the rest of America is. 

It is our belief that downtown is dangerous in general, but that there is a specific threat associated with leaving the ballpark after Orioles games.criminals have been known to target Orioles fans specifically, where the crowd has fallen away, the orange shirts are easy to spot, and the wide expanse of West Baltimore provides a convenient maze in which to fade away after an attack. 

..the entire city of Baltimore is a very dangerous place and downtown is not immune from that. [...] Aside from these attractions Downtown is a fucking mess.

If this diction sounds familiar ("unbelievable amount of crime"), keep reading, you will find more parallels. It is obvious that he has a rich reservoir of hate, espcially for Councilman Eric Costello and Council-President Jack Young, but he doesn't stop there. Its the entire council! Derision for politicians in general is one of those populist moves that is so dangerous in a democracy in which we elect politicians to represent us and where insulting politicians is also an insult on voters and the idea of representation altogether.

sinkhole about to open? Howard Street

The voters of course do not appreciate the council, which is why half of those motherfuckers are leaving office in the first place. This has been absolutely the worst council in living memory

Of course Downtown Partnership CEO Kirby Fowler and anybody promoting downtown gets to feel the blogger's scorn as well:

There are a few people whose entire job it is to sell the idea of downtown. The BOPA, Downtown Partnership, BDC, Visit Baltimore and their ilk make very high tax-generated salaries for planning events large and small, successful and not, for being (ahem) a liaison to anyone in the business community who hasn’t completely given up on downtown, and for getting quoted in the paper about how great it all is.[...]

In the years of writing his "positive" blog he hasn't gotten very far in finding anything worthwhile:

The positives, the actual amenities for locals that exist downtown can be counted on your fingers. Power Plant Live and Port Discovery are okay for their clientele, the Everyman, Hippodrome, the Main Library, and the newly opened Shakespeare theater are pretty nice. There’s maybe half a dozen decent restaurants that cater to locals and about two decent bars and a couple of coffee shops. That’s it. [...] No clubs ever last in Downtown Baltimore. There’s always some motherfucker shooting someone. [...] Lexington Market, which is a shithole that visitors in general do not like at all with the possible exception of Faidley’s

yes, sh** is flowing through downtown
(photo: ArchPlan)

The sinkhole and utility mess can't be left out in a rant. of course, and so it comes out like this:

[...] Even if a visitor could make himself immune to crime, he can still never know when the next sinkhole will open under his feet or the next water main will burst, the next building will crumble, or the next car will crash without the cops even bothering to show up. [...]

No matter that these sinkholes are equal opportunity events that regularly show up in the suburbs as well.
The Chop blogger says on his webpage that he is a "progressive" and he has, indeed, written in favor of the $15 minimum wage. To boost his credentials he makes  some passing remarks about the disadvantaged in his rant as if he was sympathizing with them. only to insult all those who are less fortunate as a plague that has befallen the City, whether they are homeless, transit riders or teenagers. Again, sounds familiar? In his probably most ridiculous conflation he creates a big heap of all the folks he hates to see:

Both sides of downtown are now host to permanent homeless encampments, which the city has demonstrated it has neither the will nor the ability to deal with adequately. Junkies, dirt bikers, roaming bands of teenagers numbering as many as 200, political demonstrations, predatory tow truck drivers, meter maids and traffic cops; these are all people you’re likely to find in downtown [...]

Our transit system, the buses in particular, are completely fucked up. [...]buses jamming the streets of the choke-point hub are themselves unpleasant to visitors, the large crowds of very poor people waiting on bus stops are even more of an anathema to visitors and their tourist dollars. [...] 

Poor people at bus stops: a deterrent for tourists?

One gets the sense that this man isn't much of a progressive. He kicks in all directions for entertainment, certainly a popular pattern these days. So it fits that he also rants against the massive investments that he otherwise says are needed to turn Baltimore around and displays the usual fundamental misconception about Tax Increment Financing as money that pays Peter and robs Paul:

Now that our city has invested astronomical sums in Harbor East, Harbor Point, and Port Covington the renaissance needed in downtown is virtually guaranteed never to happen in our lifetimes. [...]

In a complicated calculation that is so bogus that it is funny, he subtracts from what he thinks are maybe downtown 100 blocks all those that shouldn't count as "downtown" somehow until he ends up with only 10 blocks. He dismissed government offices, garages, churches, the UM university campus and even the "Block" itself.

It seems to be natural that somebody who feels like that about Baltimore would want to move out of the City. And sure enough, in May the Chop Blogger with the royal "we" announced:

[...]the city was busy voting for Pugh, Young, Pratt and Mosby (who are bumbling incompetents at best and criminals at worst) we were busy voting with our wallet and our feet. We’re giving up home ownership in the city voluntarily to go rent an apartment in Towson, two miles above the city line and an entire world away. 

Purse snatcher during the unrest (City Paper)

Alas, unfortunately, that did not come to pass. The blogger apparently isn't as good in real estate as his model, or not good in keeping his house in shape or in promoting it (well, the latter is abundantly established). Home values in the City have steadily increased, but he couldn't sell:

As much as we’d love to move out of the city today, our house failed to sell at a loss so we’re stuck here for the time being. .. 

I bring attention to this relative obscure writer not to give him more popularity but to point to a pattern. This pattern is a familiar line of thought. The danger that comes from populism in which folks simplify matters in crude tones until large parts of the population lap it up eagerly because it meets their own predispositions and bias so neatly. As if we didn't have enough suburbanites who already think that this City is a hell-hole. They nor the writer aren't bothered by facts. What matters is the entertainment value and the good feeling that comes from letting off steam.

Populism isn't interested in solutions, nuance or actual progress. Populism is interested in stoking fear, exaggerating the problem and splitting the community. Populism works from some basic truth. There is no question that there is a grain of truth in all of the statements the blogger makes. The Baltimore SUN just analyzed this week that Baltimore is the deadliest city in America when it comes to the ratio of those being shot and those who die from the gunshot wounds. And in terms of the more common metric killings per 100,000 residents, the City is close to the top as well.

Abandoned history at Howard Street:
Promise of a Brooklyn Bakery here

But as shameless generalization the rant is not only factually wrong (no real facts are provided, really, just opinions), it certainly is not helpful, except as a very personal diagram of the writers psyche and his writer's desire to move to the suburbs. Stoking fear doesn't make Baltimore better. Throwing meter maids and junkies into the same pot is not analysis and calling all politicians "bumbling incompetents" and "criminals" is doing nothing to engage more people into the political process.

This little rant by this obscure blogger doesn't change much. But populism in general is dangerous because it has poisoned the well of political discourse. It is dangerous because it gives every yahoo the feeling that he can shout his nonsense from the rooftops. It is dangerous because it is used to derail our national election process, has been used to derail the EU, is used to torpedo international accords and has moved time backwards in Britain, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Germany and here at home.

Baltimore Police Crime map for  downtown for the last 90 days

Going backwards has never been good in history, even though it has been attempted time and again. I was born in a relatively small country that tried to return to old glory after a brief attempt of democracy about a hundred years back. That country plunged the entire world into an abyss. It must remain a lesson to all who belittle the messy process of democracy.

Another round of flight to the suburbs won't solve America's urban problems. Bringing up the same old tirades this city has heard for 40 years is intellectually lazy and ignores that Baltimore in 2016 is a very different place from Baltimore in 1990, a time when it was maybe at its lowest point.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

updated: The initial photo from the Chop website was removed because of a copyright claim

10/5/06: I added the Downtown Crime map for the last 90 days. Reflecting recent spikes, the figures don't look good. I suppose I am lucky that in 30 years of working, shopping, walking and biking downtown often late in the evening, neither I nor two of my daughters who lived , studied and worked for years in Mt Vernon and downtown were ever robbed or accosted, although there were some close calls for them, not for me. Anyway, the purpose of my article wasn't to excuse the often sad state of affairs but pointing out that the over-the-top generalizations and exaggerations of the rant do nothing but feed the wrong narrative. 

   

Food Truckers' Case Against Baltimore Still Stands

“Contrary to the city’s argument, Maryland courts take seriously the right to pursue one’s chosen profession free from arbitrary and irrational regulations,” Institute for Justice attorney Greg Reed

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake doesn't have it easy in her last couple of months in office. Even though the skirmish with the food truckers seems like small potatoes compared to the feud with Marilyn Mosby and the ongoing battles around the police department, the City still suffered a loss when a judge refused to dismiss the suit of the food-truckers against the city and its rule that food trucks have to stay 300' from bricks and mortar restaurants.

RoamingHunger.com logo

Food trucks that were once derogatorily called "roach coaches" have advanced to being leading indicators of a city's coolness on par with brewpubs, coffee shops,  community gardens and kitchen incubators. They seem to be such an appropriate response to the impatience of the young new urban hipsters who don't always want to wait around until regular stationary brick and mortar restaurants have chewed through all the regulations, permits and licences before they can colonize a turning neighborhood. The food truck is the ideal pop-up installation to feed the lunch crowds in places where food choices are dearth.

Food trucks experienced a boom just as the economy started to tank. Restaurateurs who were hesitant to drop serious cash on launching a restaurant turned to mobile trucks as a less expensive way to sell food in a down economy. (Huffington Post Oct 12, 2012)

They set up daily across from what used to be the Morris Mechanic Theater in front of the abandoned Greek colonnade bank building on Charles Street, in front of the Benton Building around the corner from City Hall, at the University of Maryland square between Paca and Green along Baltimore Street and a as a planned initiative in the EBDI area on Eager Street.

Eager Street "Food Truck Hub"

This isn't always a very "green" undertaking thanks to diesel engines idling to power the truck and portable generators making a stinky ruckus. I am not sure where the 300' foot rule really has been such an issue, but as I reported in May, at least two food truck owners thought that the City's rule was onerous enough to file suit.

As slow as the justice process usually works, there is a chance that the food truck fashion subsides before the judges decide, but then, maybe the trucks are here to stay along with the Ice Cream Truck which has held its domain for many decades. The Smithsonian in describing the LA food truck scene and giving a serious analysis of the phenomenon:

in L.A., where on some afternoons they can be as thick on the freeway as taxicabs are on New York’s Sixth Avenue, they define the landscape. Kogi represents mobility in a city that worships mobility; it is a vehicle for traversing lines of race, class and ethnicity; it is selling a social experience as much as it is selling Blue Moon mulitas and Blackjack quesadillas.

Gypsy Queen Food truck in Fells Point: In midst of restaurants

In a challenged city such as Baltimore, food trucks open up a first step for the fledgling restaurateur entrepreneur, not easy but easier than a full restaurant. The "Roaming Hunger" blog warns would start-ups:

The most important thing to always keep in mind is that owning and operating a food truck is a business and to be truly successful, you have to treat it like a full time job. As with any other business, running a food truck requires your complete focus and attention. To ensure that your truck has the best chances at thriving, be prepared to become a master at Excel spreadsheets, creating expense reports, making business plans, and arranging a solid menu. Running a food truck shouldn’t be treated as a hobby or something to do in your spare time. 

Baltimore cannot have enough young entrepreneurs and creation of the kind of wealth that stays in the pockets of those who own and do the work.

The 300' rule that seems so fair on first glance is, on second thought, just another example of the myopic zero sum thinking that so often prevails in Baltimore. As if the skyrocketing expenditures on prepared food hadn't created a big enough economic space in recent years for mobile and stationary food to be sold.
The City Council set to finally approve the new zoning code this fall should take the case to heart: Sometimes it is better to have no rule than one too many.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

BBJ report about the law suit
Food Trucks are a hot business in Baltimore