B-MORE | RESILIENT : One Winning Response to AIA's Rowhouse Competition 2015

Resiliency is the fashionable word that replaced sustainability and like its predecessor, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people but all agree on the urgency for cities to become more sustainable and resilient, be it because of more extreme weather or be it because of the urgent need for more social coherence and resilience.

AIA Baltimore Competition poster

Earlier this year the Baltimore Institute of Architects and its "Knowledge Communities of the Environment (COTE) and of Resiliency teamed up to offer a design competition in which a student of architecture and a licensed architect had to team up to participate and submit design ideas. They defined the problem this way:

When the power goes out, a big storm hits, or civil unrest disrupts the pattern of life in the city, the existing fabric of that city is challenged. As our physical and social climate changes, the built environment, along with the people who reside within it, will continue to struggle. The sooner the urban fabric of Baltimore can adapt to these challenges, the more resilient our city can be.
This competition focuses on how to provide innovative design solutions to transform Baltimore City’s existing vacant housing stock to be more resilient. The COTE and Resiliency Committees of AIABaltimore have partnered with representatives from Baltimore City to develop a competition that can help provide real ideas to solve real problems.

AIA had announced the winners last month together with the Awards for Design Excellence .This Monday the winning entries were on display at the Rotunda of City Hall to win council people and city department staff over to the idea of thinking about resiliency in a new way. (In fact Resiliency is very much on the agenda of the Office of Sustainability which resides inside the Department of Planning).

the block given for the competition shows many vacant rowhouses (red squares)

The winning entries can also be seen here. Participating students came from Harvard, the University of Maryland, Salisbury University, Morgan State University, Washington University, Maryland College of Art, and Virginia Tech.

One entry in particular struck my imagination in part because the student participant was at the Rotunda to explain it to me and in part because I think the proposal has a lot of relevance.  I want to describe it here in some more detail: It is called Distributed Infrastructure and addresses the full block of row-houses given as the problem in their entirety and develops the sustainable and resilient design strategies not on the level of the individual house but on the block level. The entry addressed not only the physical side of resilience but also addressed social needs.

An "armature" spans over many rowhouses at once and even goes across an alley, it goes across many roofs but can also fold down on the sides of houses and it can carry solar panels, landscaping and shading devices. In other words, it offers a variable flexible outer skin much in the same way as the rain screens on dual facades do.

Rainwater collection,  stormwater and even wastewater treatment is likewise a shared facility, like "the armature" managed by some type of homeowner association or management co-op. This approach correctly understands that resilience and sustainability needs scale to work, in this case the scale of a full city block located north of the EBDI area in East Baltimore, on the north side of the Amtrak tracks.

the familiar view of boarded rowhouses in the block

In my eyes this "armature" or scaffold that spans across the houses and down their sides is a wonderfully flexible approach that allows historic homes to achieve much better energy and water performance without getting into all the issues of historic preservation that conventional approaches like standard wall insulation, high performance windows or green roofs typically would. By not literally touching the rowhouse the new "overlay" can provide shading, solar energy collection and edible vertical or horizontal gardens and leave what is historic intact. Blank sidewalls can become green-walls, unsightly metal awnings can be exchanged by shading photo-voltaic cells or shading plants and even roof observation decks could be held up by the new overlaying structure. The overlay approach successfully used for energy efficient large office structures around the world could even become the beginning for bio-mimicry in which the building automatically responds to chnaging outside conditions just like biological systems do.

the section through the competition entry called Distributed Infrastructure

an elevation of the entire block shows the wrapping overlay

The licensed architect for the entry was Alexander Dzurec of autotroph design, Santa Fe, NM and the participating student member Renata Southard of the University of Maryland at College Park. My apologies to all the other winners for not discussing their projects in more detail.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Links:

AIA website

A rendering shows the use of a vacant lot for what the entry calls
community Pop Up spaces

External Resources

Baltimore Disaster Preparedness and Planning Project (DP3) – http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/disaster-preparedness-and-planning-project

A More Sustainabile and Resilient Baltimore – https://baltimorehazards.wordpress.com/disaster-preparedness/

Strategies and Actions of the DP3 Project – https://baltimorehazards.wordpress.com/disaster-preparedness/steps-baltimore-city-is-taking/

Transform Baltimore Zoning Code – http://www.rewritebaltimore.org/

Baltimore Sustainability Plan – http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/sites/baltimoresustainability.org/files/Baltimore%20Sustainability%20Plan%20FINAL.pdf

Resilient Design Institute – http://www.resilientdesign.org/

National Institute of Building Sciences Fact Sheets – http://www.nibs.org/?page=factsheets

ResilientCity.org – http://www.resilientcity.org/index.cfm?id=11929

City of Baltimore Green Pattern Book – http://www.baltimoresustainability.org/sites/baltimoresustainability.org/files/GGI%20Template%20View_FINAL_Compressed_.pdf

Baltimore Streetscape Design Guidelines – http://www.godowntownbaltimore.com/docs/streetscapeguidlelines.pdf

Creating Defensible Space – http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/def.pdf

Alternative Energy – http://www.altenergy.org/

Baltimore Taxis becoming more like Uber?

The world of taxis is complicated and it isn't always a matter of entrenched old business interest versus disruptive innovation nor is it small local cabbies who fight for their livelihood and may have sunk a fortune into a "medallion" standing up to a corporate giant like Uber.

Just consider who owns the most taxis in Baltimore: A corporate giant owns the 600 Yellow and Checker cabs, the oldest taxi cab company in Baltimore, dating back to 1910.  The giant's name is Veolia and its subsidiary "Transdev". These same folks also run the city Circulator, some of MTA's mobility buses, Baltimore County mobility services; their 136,000 employees umbrella corporation Veolia energy provides transportation, water, wastewater and energy solutions around the globe. You get the picture. 

Baltimore's Checker fleet dominates at Penn Station

That giant's Vice President for all of its Mid Atlantic operations, Dwight Kines, a guy from Baltimore, just ascended to become the president of the Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association.

According to a recent article in the BBJ, Kines is "not an Uber hater" but wants to "learn from Uber and Lyft" to make the old cab service more relevant again. This must be a fairly new insight, in December 2014 Kines still blogged under the title "Uber putting everyone at risk" and made slanderous pronouncements like this:

Across the country, we’ve seen disturbing reports of Uber drivers allegedly kidnapping, raping and physically and sexually assaulting passengers. Many believe the reason for these numerous assaults is that Uber conducts cheap and ineffective criminal background checks...

Kines then went on to demand:

Cities and states must recognize that Uber is providing for-hire vehicle services and therefore must adhere to local laws overseeing such activity. We in the taxi industry are not asking for special treatment. We are simply asking that Uber not be allowed to thumb its nose at the law while continuing to make victims of the public and place our community at risk. 

Kines' new stand of wanting to learn from Uber sounds like a smart insight since fighting Uber with bureaucracy won't go anywhere and just delay the adjustments the taxi industry needs to make to remain competitive. 

Of course the requirement of installing $1,200 a pop credit card readers isn't promising. It continues the trail of burdens put on cabbies when more elegant options like Square (the cube stuck into a smart phone) seem to work for taxis elsewhere for much less cost. 

View of the Uber app on a smartphone showing where nearby cars are and
what the expected wait time is.

"Our industry has a service problem and we need to take care of that", Kines now acknowledges.

Amen to that. At this point, the Uber and Lyft convenience is just so much better than that of a conventional taxis, from the method of ordering, to the wait time, to the transparency what is actually happening after the order was placed, to the predictability of the cost, to the quality of the ride itself ending with the convenience of payment at the end of the trip, Uber or Lyft win hands-down on any of those categories. So its seems quite obvious that taxis need to become more like Uber and not the other way round.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

corrected regarding Kines' new position 9:30am

Ashkanazi "removes the identity of these sheds"

UDARP was split in their opinions about the redesign of the HarborPlace Pavilions which have been before the design review panel for a second time. David Rubin is "very positive about this" but the other panelists, Richard Burns, Gary Bowden and David Haresign were much less impressed. Even the generally rather accommodating Planning Director Tom Stosur bemoaned elements that are "to heavy", "keep the lightness", he admonished.

wood and steel frames dominate the refurbished waterside facades as well
as a big rooftop sign that may well be illegal

Ashkanazi proposes to replace the glass house additions with trellis structures on the upper level and fully built out first floor levels allowing extended decks above on the first level. They suggest to eliminate the mall like interior hallway in the Pratt Street pavilion with a central passage from which the second floor "marketplace" could be reached via stairs and elevator.
To improve the backs of the pavilions they suggested more glass and green walls on the concrete near Conway Street. As materials for solid wall areas they propose copper for the street sides and wood for the water sides.

I appreciate the challenge you are facing. A lot of the moves you are doing are good. Where you lose it is the waterside where the frame is lost. The frame should tie it all together. It needs to be the same logic on Pratt and Waterside. I don't see wood as an appropriate material choice. Why does the copper not reappear on the waterside? With your choice of materials you reinforce that whole problem of front and back. There should be consistent around the building. (Richard Burns)

MG2, a Seattle retail design firm said they wanted to bring the Pavilions back to their original design intent by Gary Bowden had to remind them what that intent was: It was the idea of re-inventing the former industrial sheds that had stood along the harbor and re-interpret them as market places. He missed in the new design "the jewelry aspect of the old design" with which he meant that the old design followed a concept of the "decorated shed", the jewelry being the glass houses that bulged out, the steel and cable railings and the round steel columns that articulated the frame. Bowden observed that "all elements of grid and structural system have been erased on the first floor" and summarized with the new design "we removed the identity to these sheds, the proposed elevation is too simple".

Even this unfocused screen shot shows that the existing elevation (above) is much more detailed and
fine grained than the proposed one below

MG2 flanks the existing round concrete columns with W steel posts that according to UDARP members buried the concrete columns rather than emphasizing them. MG2 also set out to make the backs of the pavilions more attractive by reopening glass panels that had been covered up, a move that Richard Burns doubted would be successful. "Retailers need a back of house area" he said and predicted they would cover the rear openings once again.

The renderings clearly show, that the fine-grained texture of the pavilions will be lost in favor of larger, flatter and less linear surfaces. MG2 defended this by saying that they needed "to strike a balance" between respecting the pavilion design and modern retailers expectations. That balance, obviously is quite a different aspiration than reinstating the original design of the sheds.

This rendering shows "the hanging thing" suspended under the gables of
the porches facing the waterfront

The large rooftop sign that MG2 is especially proud of, is very much in question for legal reasons: The current Baltimore zoning code simply prohibits rooftop signs. Only the new zoning code currently stuck in City Council has at least a provision for an exception.

One thing that all UDARP members agreed on, "that hanging thing" shown suspended under the gables of the pavilion that face the waterfront has to go. "It is denying the porch", said Bowden.

In spite of the rather fundamental criticism UDARP let Ashkanazi advance to the next level. The designers have to come back one more time for a review of the working drawings and UDARP expects that the architects will have addressed the concerns by then.


Klaus Philipsen, FAIA


See also BBJ report about the design review and my previous article about the new design after the first UDARP session (Doublespeak)

This screen shot shows how massive the first floor build out would appear compared to today's glass house additions

The proposed green wall on the back of the Light Street pavilion with a new stair going up to the second level
traversing the enclosed electrical transformer along the way.

The Northeast Corridor

While the public is captivated by flashy news about Maglev for the 38 miles piece of the Northeast Rail Corridor (NEC) that connects Baltimore to Washington, Amtrak is plugging away on a study of improvements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which moves such studies in a glacial pace from "Scoping" and Purpose and Needs" analysis to development of alternatives and an assessment of the environmental impacts reported in a Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIS for the NEC was published on November 11 and occupies many volumes of materials, all published on this website.

The future of Baltimore will depend on many things, but transportation on the Northeast corridor will be a major factor. Rail transit will be a matter of growing importance the more roadways like the infamous New Jersey Turnpike become congested at all times of the day.

To make it easier to get a quick overview I cut and pasted major components of the NEC study below:

NEC Facts and Figures

The Northeast Region:

• Is home to 51 million people (1 in 7 Americans) and is expected to grow to approximately 58 million by 2040.
• Generates 1/5th of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.

The Northeast Corridor is heavily traveled:

• 2,220 passenger trains use the NEC daily. View Train Animation
• 70 freight trains use the NEC daily (over 14 million car-miles of freight per year).
• 720,000 people ride along some part of the corridor each day.
• In 2011, there were 11 million passengers on Amtrak's Northeast Regional and Acela Express services.
• NEC riders account for 69 percent of the combined airline and rail market between Washington, DC and New York City and 51 percent between New York and Boston.

The NEC is 457 miles long and has:

• 17 tunnels
• 1,186 bridges

The current NEC took nearly a century to build. It was built by several railroad companies between 1830 and 1917.

Purpose and Need

The purpose of the NEC FUTURE program is to upgrade aging infrastructure and to improve the reliability, capacity, connectivity, performance, and resiliency of passenger rail service on the NEC for both intercity and regional trips, while promoting environmental sustainability and economic growth.

State of Good Repair

Service quality currently falls short, due to the aging and obsolete infrastructure that has resulted from insufficient investment in maintaining a state of good repair on the existing NEC. Achieving and maintaining a state of good repair is needed to improve service.

Connectivity

There is a need to improve the reach and effectiveness of the passenger rail network currently limited by gaps in connectivity among transportation modes and between different rail services.

Capacity

In order to accommodate both existing riders and future growth in ridership, improvements at critical infrastructure chokepoints are needed to fix severe capacity constraints that limit service expan-sion and enhancements.

Performance

In many markets, the trip times on passenger rail within the study area are not competitive with travel by air or highway. Improvements in travel times, frequency, or hours of service are needed to make passenger rail competitive with other modes.

System-Wide Resiliency

The NEC is vulnerable to the effect of severe storms. A more resilient and redundant passenger rail network is needed to enhance safety, security, and the reliability of the region's transportation system.

Environmental Sustainability

Throughout the Study Area, energy use and emissions associated with transportation affect the built and natural environment. Passenger rail can help meet the region's mobility needs with fewer environmental impacts.

Economic Growth

A transportation system that provides options for reliable, efficient, and cost effective movement of passengers and goods is need-ed for continued economic growth in the Northeast region. The region's knowledge-based economic sector, including academic research and medical facilities, is especially reliant on access to convenient, reliable, and frequent rail service.

Below a comparison between current conditions and three alternatives with progressive investments.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Current service:

Number of Daily Intercity Trains between Representative
Station Pairs

Number of Daily Intercity Trains - Connecting Corridors

Shortest Travel Time

Alternative 1 maintains the role of rail as it is today, increasing service to keep pace with growth in population and employment. This is accomplished by expanding capacity, adding tracks, and relieving key chokepoints, particularly through northern New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

Number of Daily Intercity Trains between Representative
Station Pairs

Number of Daily Intercity Trains - Connecting Corridors

Shortest Travel Time

Alternative 2 grows the role of rail, with service that accommodates a larger proportion of Northeast travelers as population and employment grow. This alternative maximizes the capacity and service provided on the existing NEC. A supplemental route between New Haven, Hartford and Providence serves new passengers, reduces trip time and increases resiliency.

Number of Daily Intercity Trains between Representative
Station Pairs

Number of Daily Intercity Trains - Connecting Corridors

Shortest Travel Time

Alternative 3 transforms the role of rail, positioning it as a dominant mode for Intercity travelers and commuters across the NEC. In addition to major service upgrades on the existing NEC, a two-track second spine is added within the Study Area to support high-performance rail service between major cities. Four route options are under consideration for the northern portion of the second spine, as shown on the map.

Number of Daily Intercity Trains between Representative
Station Pairs (average)

Number of Daily Intercity Trains - Connecting Corridors (average)

Shortest Travel Time

Hearing: Thursday, January 14 Baltimore, MD

What would be the cost of each alternative?

The Tier 1 EIS is a high level, programmatic study. As such, the cost estimates prepared in the Tier 1 Draft EIS represent relative levels of investment that could be required to fully build out each vision. These estimates are for comparative purposes. The estimated level of investment for the No Action Alternative is approximately $20 billion. Investment in improving the existing NEC would range from approximately $65 billion (Alternative 1) to $135 billion (Alternative 2). To improve the existing NEC and construct a second spine the length of the corridor would require an investment of approximately $290 billion. These costs would be spread over many years. Not all projects will necessarily be implemented, and some may be built differently as further studies are done.

For all of the Action Alternatives, projects would be implemented incrementally as needed to meet operational requirements. The FRA has developed a Universal First Phase, described in Chapter 10 of the Tier 1 Draft EIS, consisting of projects required to implement any of the three Action Alternatives. These fundamental building blocks are included in all of the Action Alternatives. They collectively address the Study Area’s most pressing capacity and state-of-good-repair challenges. The cost for this Universal First Phase would be approximately $34 billion and could be implemented over a 10-15 year time frame.

Desolation into Hope: Example Westside Theater Initiative Le Mondo

The 400 block of Howard Streets is a sad affair, on the east and on the west side. If it all goes by plan, things should look quite different just a couple of years from now.

the 400 block of Howard Street, future home of  Le Mondo 

Three city owned buildings have been awarded by BDC to Ted Rouse and the Le Mondo Theater team. Since then one of the buildings has caught fire and now isn't part of the redevelopment anymore, the team acquired an adjacent building on the market instead . 

The sad rear view of the backside of 400 block
of  Howard Street (photo: Archplan)

Seen from the conference room back window of my office, the roof of the burnt building remains charred, untouched and open to the elements. When I recently met with one of the mayoral contenders with this ruin in plain view, it elicited an incredulous "isn't the City going to do anything about this?" (I asked BDC CEO Bill Cole and was assured that they are "actively working" on the matter.)
The rear of the buildings on Hoard Street is an eyesore even more than the front. The setting is decrepit enough to make one weep, were it not for the crane visible in the same frame, attributable to actually happening Westside progress on Mulberry Street.


The hope that comes from plans cannot be seen on a photo but can spring from eating lunch with Le Mondo's theater group creative directors as I did last week. 

All three, Carly J Bales, Evan Moritz and Ric Royer are vested on the Westside, 

Ric is operating a venue as a tenant on Park Avenue called "Psychic Readings".  I was a bit incredulous about the name and imagined somebody reading Tara cards, not something one wouldn't find in Baltimore but not what I expected from Ric. But it seems the title is tongue in cheek and alludes to the more subtle read of reality  performances in his venue express.

Psychic Readings is dedicated to the advancement of a higher histrionics through exaggerated examples of life and death. Psychic Readings was formed in 1999 to challenge the decline of aliveness in live performance. (Website)

Carly is vested in the EMP Collective on West Baltimore Street located on the first floor of a cast iron Building previously occupied by Sarah Doherty's gallery as as part of a Downtown Partnership storefront grant.

EMP COLLECTIVE also runs and manages EMP, a multi-use arts space in downtown Baltimore, where they produce their own varied work and regular programming as well as playing host to a slew of talented local and visiting artists. “A hub of artistic activity” recognized as Best Arts Collective and Best Multi-Use Arts Space (Baltimore City Paper), EMP has been lauded as one of the boldest “visions to change Baltimore” (Baltimore Magazine).

The third partner is the Annex Theater with Evan Moritz, also operating in the Westside on Park Avenue. (after being in Station North's Chicken Box).

Baltimore Annex Theater is committed to producing plays which constantly expand the notions of experimentation, theatre craft and community involvement.

The Le Mondo project is envisioned as a performing arts incubator with works and studio spaces, practice and performances spaces, workshops, living spaces and a cafe in 16,000 sqft of space. Between the complicated agreement with BDC for the city "disposition properties" and a building acquired on the "free market", the Le Mondo group and its supporters have embarked on an ambitious and costly project that will be implemented in stages. 

The Le Mondo project stands for an entirely different approach to the revitalization of the Westside than the grandiose BDC approaches of the past from Centerpoint (a success) to the Superblock (a failure). In the process of this new approach all sides have to learn a lot. 

Artists have to learn to be developers, owners and folks with equity that will eventually give them a much stronger stand in a possibly gentrified future, avoiding the usual fate of artists that were first pioneers to then get kicked out when an area turned around.

But BDC and developers have to learn as well. The lessons? The Westside needs to thrive on local initiatives and many small entrepreneurs that collectively make the old Westside a new destination that is uniquely Baltimore. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

see also these related Westside articles on this blog:

Matchmaking

The Superblock

New Life for the Westside?

Street Smart

Former New York City commissioner, traffic columnist ("Gridlock Sam") and transportation consultant Sam Schwartz has written a book about urban streets and "The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars". (You can see a 2012 video with him here).

In the book he is hopeful and somewhat nostalgic about streets, thinking that they could return to what they were for thousands of years before. And he doesn't mean sewers and drainage ditches but places of public life, commerce and interaction.

“Horse-drawn carts trying to negotiate a road like Bedford Avenue would have had to dodge pedestrians who filled the street,” Schwartz writes. “Peddlers and other tradesmen were as entitled to the street as wagons. Children played in the middle of those roads, and adults met one another there". (Street Smart)

Naturally, the Wall Street Journal doesn't like the book much and the online comments under the WSJ review are full of the liberals against free market warfare in which much of the transportation debate is being couched these days.

Schwartz will be on Midday today with Aaron Hankin as the show's moderator and me as a second guest. 

Brooklyn intersection (Brooklyn Magazine)

We will have to find out that Baltimore is not yet a city with "smart streets" but instead filled with Moses/Barnes devices and methods that still hang on all the way from the fifties to now, such as:

• - peak hour restricted parking lanes that become dangerous travel lanes in rush hour
• -one way streets that became traffic sewers
• - timed traffic signals that encourage speeding through entire neighborhoods without slowing down
• - lack of bike and ped facilities
• - ineffective transit. 

Of course all of this is supposed to change. 2016 will bring us us bike share, a reorganized bus system and possibly fewer one way streets. Hearings and public conversations about buses, one way streets and mayoral candidates' qtransport policies are beginning right now. 

Rather late than never. Tune in today at noon (88.1fm) and participate in the conversation. 

If we get to talk about Times Square it may even get juicy: how traffic calming has induced public nakedness. 

Of course the sad reality is that "street smart" in Baltimore has nothing to do with traffic and little with sex. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Below some of the upcoming public meetings related to transportation:

Bus system reform:

You are invited to learn more about BaltimoreLink, the multi-phase plan that will create an interconnected transit system and will redesign the entire local and express bus system throughout Baltimore. The plan also includes adding 12 new high-frequency, color-coded bus routes that improve connections to jobs and other transit modes.  

Workshops will be conducted, open house style, to provide updated information on the BaltimoreLink system and to collect feedback. Presentations will be provided and staff will be available to answer questions. The same information will be presented at each workshop.

We want to hear from you! Please join us at any of the following workshops (drop in during the workshop when convenient for you). You can also learn and participate online by going to ourBaltimoreLInk webpage.

Location	Address	Transit Access	Date and Time
War Memorial, Memorial Hall	101 N. Gay Street, Baltimore, MD 21202	Nos. 5, 5X, 7, 8, 10, 15, 15X, 19, 19X, 20, 23, 26, 31, 35, 36, 40, 46, 47, 48, 91, 150, 160, 310, 420 and Metro Subway	Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 11:00 AM -3:00 PM
Owings Mills Library Meeting Room A	10302 Grand Central Avenue Owings Mills, MD 21117	Nos. 18, 56, 59, and Metro Subway	Monday, November 9, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00PM
State Center Office Complex, Room L1	201 W. Preston Street Baltimore, MD 21201	Nos. 3, 5, 5X, 11, 19, 20, 23, 27, 31, 91, 310, 420, Light Rail and Metro Subway	Monday, November 16,2015  4:00 PM -6:30PM
Brooklyn Park Community Library	1 East 11th Avenue Baltimore, MD 21225	Nos. 14, 64	Thursday, November 19, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00PM
Towson Library	320 York Road Towson, MD 21204	Nos. 3, 8, 11, 12, 48	Tuesday, December 1, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
North Point Library	1716 Merritt Boulevard Dundalk, MD 21222	No. 4	Monday, December 7, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Northwood Library Use of library meeting space does not constitute endorsement of this organization, this program or its content by the Enoch Pratt Free Library.	4420 Loch Raven Boulevard Baltimore, MD 21218	No. 3, 33, and 103	Wednesday, December 9, 2015 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Coppin University  Talon Center, Room 218 A	2500 W North Avenue Baltimore, MD 21216	Nos. 1, 7, 5, 13, 16, 21, 22, 51, 52, 53, 54, 91 and 97 (Mondawmin Shuttle)	Thursday, December 10, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Catonsville Library	1100 Frederick Road Catonsville, MD 21228	Nos. 10, 10X, 23, and 77	Wednesday, December 16, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
White Marsh Library	8133 Sandpiper Cir. Baltimore, MD 21236	Nos. 35, 58, and 120	Thursday, December 17, 2015 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

City Council Transportation Forums:

Traffic delays.  Reliability.  Access to Jobs.  What will the City Council do to improve transportation for Baltimore City? Now is the time for a serious discussion about how we can have a world class transit system in Baltimore.

Brought to you by Transit Choices, Citizens Planning & Housing Association, 1000 Friends of Maryland and the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance.

Dates:

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 for candidates running in Council Districts 1 - 8

Wednesday, December 16, 2015 for candidates running in Council Districts 9 – 14 and City Council President

(Event for mayoral candidates will be held in early 2016)

Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Location: Lord Baltimore Hotel, 20 W. Baltimore Street - Baltimore, MD 21201

Space is Limited so please register today.

One way Streets:

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation will hold three community meetings to discuss the St. Paul Streets and Calvert Streets Two-Way Conversion Study.  Please select the most convenient date that fits your schedule.

December 15, 2015

Benton Building

417 E. Fayette Street

Baltimore MD 21202

3^rd Floor Conference Room

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

December 1, 2015

Saint Philip and James Church

2801 N. Charles Street,

Baltimore MD 21218

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

December 9, 2015

Baltimore Montessori School

1600 Guilford Avenue

Baltimore MD 21202

7:00 PM to 8:30 PM