Transit line potential discussed

[Mitch]

I fail to understand why light rail would kill the business community along its route. Using Howard Street at your example is tremendously flawed - this corridor was abandoned long before light rail. Take a trip to Portland, where light rail is the centerpiece of urban renewal (http://www.portlandmall.org/) . Or to Denver, where the 16th Street Mall is a thriving commercial zone. Baltimore could easily make Aliceanna from Harbor East to Fells Point a pedestrian zone that encourages restaurants to set up outdoor seating and creates an atmosphere where Baltimore residents and tourists can enjoy the city. The city of Munich in Germany did something similar with its central business zone. And, predictably, the business community was skeptical. Now, the Marienplatz and surrounding pedestrian zone is the very heart of the city. There are lots of innovative solutions that can inject life into Baltimore.

[Red Line Fan]

Fells Point MD wrote:

To John C. The current Red Line plans do not connect the current light rail with the proposed Red Line - users of either will have to walk two blocks to change lines. Ridiculous I know, but this is the current plan. Please get someone with a little sanity involved in this planning process!!!

The Red Line would absolutely connect with the light rail at the convention center station.

[CroMagnon]

^No, it won't.

^^Mitch, Munich also has a heavy rail system of significance, so surface rail lines simply act like high-ridership bus line/trolleys. In Buffalo, like Baltimore, the retail strips were in decline, but the LR was the nail in coffin.

Denver is not dense like Baltimore, and Portland is out of capacity on its system and will require more capital investments that would not be necessary were it done in tunnel. Outside of the urban core, Portland is smaller and less dense than Baltimore.

[Ray]

Mitch wrote:

I fail to understand why light rail would kill the business community along its route. Using Howard Street at your example is tremendously flawed - this corridor was abandoned long before light rail. Take a trip to Portland, where light rail is the centerpiece of urban renewal (http://www.portlandmall.org/) . Or to Denver, where the 16th Street Mall is a thriving commercial zone. Baltimore could easily make Aliceanna from Harbor East to Fells Point a pedestrian zone that encourages restaurants to set up outdoor seating and creates an atmosphere where Baltimore residents and tourists can enjoy the city. The city of Munich in Germany did something similar with its central business zone. And, predictably, the business community was skeptical. Now, the Marienplatz and surrounding pedestrian zone is the very heart of the city. There are lots of innovative solutions that can inject life into Baltimore.

Have you attended any community meetings?

You will learn that the process was/is with the MTA study a closed one to only suit one of several options that has the best chance of getting the funds.

Your thoughts and everyone elses have been tossed out the window.

This will not be the DC metro but instead a badly designed poor mans system.

In DC ridership is boosted by the design around downtown and the Mall.
This system design does not even include a red line stop at Camden Yards/Convention Center.

The MTA is a joke. Very disappointing, but very believing.

[Chris]

Red Line Fan wrote:

<quoted text>
The Red Line would absolutely connect with the light rail at the convention center station.

1) No it won't, and 2) It will be connected to the Subway by underground tunnel, if anything. Not the worst possible outcome, but considering how much money that new tunnel will cost, still pretty bad. If they MUST dig a new tunnel Downtown, it should be under Fayette; Lombard is further from Baltimore St. than Fayette is, but Fayette and Baltimore are close enough to the Harbor to act as a legitimate connector to Harborplace.(I mean, they'll be walking anyway - why not a few extra blocks?)

[Chris]

Mitch wrote:

I fail to understand why light rail would kill the business community along its route. Using Howard Street at your example is tremendously flawed - this corridor was abandoned long before light rail. Take a trip to Portland, where light rail is the centerpiece of urban renewal (http://www.portlandmall.org/) . Or to Denver, where the 16th Street Mall is a thriving commercial zone. Baltimore could easily make Aliceanna from Harbor East to Fells Point a pedestrian zone that encourages restaurants to set up outdoor seating and creates an atmosphere where Baltimore residents and tourists can enjoy the city. The city of Munich in Germany did something similar with its central business zone. And, predictably, the business community was skeptical. Now, the Marienplatz and surrounding pedestrian zone is the very heart of the city. There are lots of innovative solutions that can inject life into Baltimore.

I fully admit that I've never been to any of those cities, so I'll leave the specific arguments to others, but essentially, I'll just say this: those cities ain't Baltimore, and I'd venture to say that the streets on which those LR lines run aren't as narrow as Eastern, Aliceanna and Fleet.

In short, the problems with Light Rail on busy surface streets, in my opinion:

1) Unless the streets are wide enough to fit the tracks in the median (a la parts of Boston's Green Line), the trains will essentially overwhelm the street life. Cars should not be treated as the Great Satan in urban planning. One of the main issues with Howard, IMO, is that the tracks meander all over the place - which makes driving on the street a nightmare, which discourages people from driving there, which decreases the chances that ground-level retail will thrive.

2) Even if you give the trains signal priority, even if you allow for a balance of transport types, the trains will not go as quickly as if they were in a tunnel. They just won't. In order to get choice riders (i.e., people who could drive, but choose not to - a rare breed in Baltimore), the system has to be fast! Amid all this talk about chi-chi pedestrian corridors (which I'm all for, by the way), let's stick to the basics here: transporting people from destination to destination as quickly as possible.

It's quite a paradox: make the surface rail quick enough to make it a truly regional rail system, and you'll kill the pedestrian life on the street; make it pedestrian-friendly enough to encourage walkability, and nobody will ride it because it's too slow.

There's an easy solution: Dig a tunnel and make the damn thing heavy rail.

And yes, it pisses me off to no end that the money that could have built a world-class subway for Baltimore is currently being completely pissed away in Iraq.

[Mitch]

Chris, I think we disagree over what enables a thriving retail corridor. It is not auto-traffic on the street; it is foot traffic. Lombard Street has tons of auto traffic and numerous garages are accessible via the route. But little--if any--ground level retail. I've never seen anyone make a (ahem, legal) purchase from their auto in Baltimore. They actually have to get out and walk into a store to shop. If you focus urban planning on the auto, then that's what you will get: congestion, inadequate public transit, parking garages taking up valuable street front. A debate over transit is a worthy one, but it must be had in the larger context of urban planning. I absolutely agree that heavy rail that is grade separated is the ideal form of public transit. However, it is also very expensive, perhaps prohibitively so. Considering the limited funds available, isn't it better to design the project as well as possible, rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good?

[Mitch]

CroMagnon wrote:

Mitch, Munich also has a heavy rail system of significance, so surface rail lines simply act like high-ridership bus line/trolleys. In Buffalo, like Baltimore, the retail strips were in decline, but the LR was the nail in coffin.
Denver is not dense like Baltimore, and Portland is out of capacity on its system and will require more capital investments that would not be necessary were it done in tunnel. Outside of the urban core, Portland is smaller and less dense than Baltimore.

Munich has only heavy rail, I believe. And their system is really two systems - one that feeds the suburbs and another that acts as an urban subway.

How is Denver "less dense" than Baltimore? Perhaps from a region-wide view, but the urban core would seem to be very similar, in my opinion. And Portland is more dense than Baltimore from a regional perspective because they have effective land use regulations in the surrounding ex-urban regions. They don't have people who commute from the equivalent of York, Wilmington or the Eastern Shore.

The point of those examples was that light rail needn't look like Howard Street with pawn shops and shoe stores the only life near the line. Rather, thriving retail zones can grow up around light rail.

[Ray]

Mitch wrote:

<quoted text>
Munich has only heavy rail, I believe. And their system is really two systems - one that feeds the suburbs and another that acts as an urban subway.
How is Denver "less dense" than Baltimore? Perhaps from a region-wide view, but the urban core would seem to be very similar, in my opinion. And Portland is more dense than Baltimore from a regional perspective because they have effective land use regulations in the surrounding ex-urban regions. They don't have people who commute from the equivalent of York, Wilmington or the Eastern Shore.
The point of those examples was that light rail needn't look like Howard Street with pawn shops and shoe stores the only life near the line. Rather, thriving retail zones can grow up around light rail.

Cute the idea of pedestrian zones. Problem: as Aliceanna sits today, how will delivery trucks deliver to the pedestrian zone business? The only place today is to park on the street and block a lane of traffic, there will be no place with no lanes of traffic and no place even with the current light rail plan.

The following statement about a new urban school in Canton reflects the same frustration about no community input for this red line:

City Councilman James B. Kraft, who represents the area, is so angry about the decision -- which he said was made with no community input -- that he is threatening to hold up the school system's budget when it comes before the council for approval. He said a majority of council members have agreed to support him

From what I understand Fells Point will fight the poor planning to the end.

[Chris]

Mitch wrote:

Chris, I think we disagree over what enables a thriving retail corridor. It is not auto-traffic on the street; it is foot traffic. Lombard Street has tons of auto traffic and numerous garages are accessible via the route. But little--if any--ground level retail. I've never seen anyone make a (ahem, legal) purchase from their auto in Baltimore. They actually have to get out and walk into a store to shop. If you focus urban planning on the auto, then that's what you will get: congestion, inadequate public transit, parking garages taking up valuable street front. A debate over transit is a worthy one, but it must be had in the larger context of urban planning. I absolutely agree that heavy rail that is grade separated is the ideal form of public transit. However, it is also very expensive, perhaps prohibitively so. Considering the limited funds available, isn't it better to design the project as well as possible, rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good?

Mitch,

You misunderstood my point. I am not saying that we should plan for the car over pedestrians and transit.(Did you read the rest of my post?) Just as Pratt Street Downtown is a nightmare for pedestrians because it was built for the car only, Howard Street Downtown is a nightmare for the car because it was retroactively built for transit ONLY.

I'm saying that for street-level transit to work, it has to fit into the streetscape, not overwhelm it. Howard, Aliceanna, Eastern, Fleet, Boston - none of these streets are wide enough to accommodate regional rail transit such as Light Rail. Both the street and the system suffer.

The only rail that works on streets as narrow as Fleet, etc., is a streetcar (or trolley, or whatever we're calling it these days). Light Rail IS NOT supposed to be a trolley - it's supposed to be comparable to heavy rail.

That's why, as I said in my previous post, the Red Line corridor would be better-served by three new projects:

1) Subway extension to Bayview, largely along existing rights-of-way;

2) Streetcar/trolley with signal preemption from Bayview through Fells and Canton into Downtown;

3) Light Rail from Woodlawn to Lexington Market in the median of Rt. 40.

There are many other worthy proposals floating around out there, but that's my favorite.

Light Rail doesn't work through Fells and Canton, and it costs too much Downtown because it needs a new tunnel.

[Chris]

Mitch, I should reiterate that I believe that ideally, streets should properly accommodate all modes of transport - car, some form of transit, pedestrians and bikes. I totally agree that pedestrians are key to creating beautiful and functional spaces. I just don't think that the car should be completely left out. Howard Street, for example, would work better for both cars and transit if the tracks and car lanes remained consistent for the entire two-mile stretch.

[Mitch]

Chris wrote:

Mitch, I should reiterate that I believe that ideally, streets should properly accommodate all modes of transport - car, some form of transit, pedestrians and bikes. I totally agree that pedestrians are key to creating beautiful and functional spaces. I just don't think that the car should be completely left out. Howard Street, for example, would work better for both cars and transit if the tracks and car lanes remained consistent for the entire two-mile stretch.

I would argue that Howard Street was planned for both, and thus works for neither. Either make it the transit way and leave the rest for pedestrians or make it a road and plan accordingly.

As for your comment that Pratt Street is miserable for pedestrians, you couldn't be more correct. I hope that the Pratt Street study actually addresses that issue. But I have one question: why aren't the red line and Pratt being planned to complement one another, rather than separately? Typical segmented planning that leads to poor solutions.

[Chris]

Mitch wrote:

<quoted text>
I would argue that Howard Street was planned for both, and thus works for neither. Either make it the transit way and leave the rest for pedestrians or make it a road and plan accordingly.

If by "planned for both" you mean that there are lanes for car traffic and rails for Light Rail, then you're right. The fact is that driving on Howard Street is an absolute nightmare, especially when compared to other northbound streets. Think about it: You're on Pratt St. downtown and need to drive to, say, Charles Village - would anyone in their right mind take Howard rather than Charles or MLK?

I argue that this imbalance has really hurt the (admittedly feeble) efforts to revitalize Howard. My feeling is that Howard St. is a completely forgotten part of the City for anyone who doesn't ride either LR or the 27 bus. The car lanes are so fragmented that nobody drives there, so fewer people see current and potential business along the road. I'm not saying the track layout is the only reason that the Howard redevelopment hasn't worked, but it is one reason.

The Charles St. corridor is a well-developed part of the city, partly because drivers have an innate sense that "This street goes north, and it gets me to where I want to go." Howard St. does not inspire the same kind of subconscious trust, and for good reason.

Mitch wrote:

<quoted text>As for your comment that Pratt Street is miserable for pedestrians, you couldn't be more correct. I hope that the Pratt Street study actually addresses that issue. But I have one question: why aren't the red line and Pratt being planned to complement one another, rather than separately? Typical segmented planning that leads to poor solutions.

Agreed about the fragmentation, but I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at - do you think the Red Line should run under Pratt St., or just have excellent signage pointing people to the line? What is your vision for Pratt, while we're at it?

[Mitch]

More to the point that whatever gets decided for the red line should integrate with whatever visions the planners have for a redeveloped Pratt Street. Major locations for shopping/retail/etc. need to be close to stops and vice versa. Considering the sheer size of Pratt Street (it's like 6 lanes wide, huge pedestrian areas on both sides and even a service lane or two), it seems to me an ideal spot to actually run the red line (since, unfortunately, heavy rail is likely a pipe dream). Thus making the red line visible from the major tourist spots along the harbor yet still accessible to the employment centers of downtown. Whatever Pratt Street becomes, it needs to have large open spaces for pedestrians and for congregation. The harbor is great because of the fantastic "boardwalk" from Federal Hill to the acquarium and large open spaces for street performers and such. Pratt Street should incorporate many of the same ideas, but with a more retail/dining focus than the strolling/tourist oriented harbor. Sidewalk cafes & beer gardens, art galleries, etc. And by the harbor, Pratt Street needs to be more than the backdoor to the Pratt Street Pavilion. Baltimore in general has too much unused ground level space; parking garages, office facade, etc. Use that space for storefront and restaurants.

And while we're at it, we need to figure out a way to convince the tourists that Baltimore doesn't stop at the ESPN Zone. You get to the power plant and Panera and all of a sudden it feels like you've crossed out of the tourist area. Any suggestions for integrating Little Italy back to the harbor? I know you can walk around by Pier V (the hotel), but even then you get to the concert pavilion and those parking lots and it feels like its time to turn around.

[BAT]

Yeah I'm not going to research this at all, but that seems like a hell of a lot of money for something that isn't even as labor intensive as a subway.

[Chris]

Mitch wrote:

More to the point that whatever gets decided for the red line should integrate with whatever visions the planners have for a redeveloped Pratt Street. Major locations for shopping/retail/etc. need to be close to stops and vice versa. Considering the sheer size of Pratt Street (it's like 6 lanes wide, huge pedestrian areas on both sides and even a service lane or two), it seems to me an ideal spot to actually run the red line (since, unfortunately, heavy rail is likely a pipe dream). Thus making the red line visible from the major tourist spots along the harbor yet still accessible to the employment centers of downtown. Whatever Pratt Street becomes, it needs to have large open spaces for pedestrians and for congregation. The harbor is great because of the fantastic "boardwalk" from Federal Hill to the acquarium and large open spaces for street performers and such. Pratt Street should incorporate many of the same ideas, but with a more retail/dining focus than the strolling/tourist oriented harbor. Sidewalk cafes & beer gardens, art galleries, etc. And by the harbor, Pratt Street needs to be more than the backdoor to the Pratt Street Pavilion. Baltimore in general has too much unused ground level space; parking garages, office facade, etc. Use that space for storefront and restaurants.
And while we're at it, we need to figure out a way to convince the tourists that Baltimore doesn't stop at the ESPN Zone. You get to the power plant and Panera and all of a sudden it feels like you've crossed out of the tourist area. Any suggestions for integrating Little Italy back to the harbor? I know you can walk around by Pier V (the hotel), but even then you get to the concert pavilion and those parking lots and it feels like its time to turn around.

I agree generally with most of what you say, but running the Red Line under Pratt St. would only exacerbate the disconnectedness that will already plague the Red Line as it's currently being planned.

Connecting the Red Line to existing transit is far more important than making it obvious to Inner Harbor tourists. While serving tourists is certainly important, I'd rather serve actual Baltimoreans first.

[Mitch]

Check out the actual plan guiding this development; integration is a very large part.

http://www.baltimoreregiontransitplan.com/lin...

The main point is that the north/south light rail is a work in progress; it is planned to eventually link with central downtown and create a central square with the Inner Harbor, Mt. Vernon, UB and Camden Yards serving as the four corners of the central city.

This is the plan that is pictured behind the speaker in the article on the Sun site.

[TechBalt]

As I have said before and I will say again the TRAC guys are right and we need heavy Rail!

http://www.examiner.com/x-284-Baltimore-Polit...