Antero Pietila
2007-08-29 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

If Sheila Dixon wins the Sept. 11 primary, Baltimore’s worsening traffic situation will be among her headaches for the next four years.

Traffic is building everywhere. Last week it took me 90 minutes on Interstate 95 to reach College Park from Mount Washington, a mid morning drive that usually takes 45 minutes max.

But what can a Baltimore mayor do about region-wide congestion?

Plenty.

For example, the mayor can — and must — fight for two crucial state-funded mass transit initiatives on the planning board. One is the new Red Line. It would run from Woodlawn, home of the Social Security Administration, to Patterson Park, near the rapidly expanding Johns Hopkins medical research complex.

The state will decide the alignment of that line and its mode — light rail or bus — but the mayor’s position is pivotal.

Forget about a dedicated bus lane favored by the Ehrlich administration. Go green, go light-rail. But insist that it be double-tracked from the get-go. Otherwise the line will be a joke.

The other mass transit piece is the Green Line, which would extend the existing Metro beyond Johns Hopkins Hospital to Morgan State University, Good Samaritan Hospital and ultimately to White Marsh. This decision, too, requires City Hall leadership.

Both of these mass transit projects are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to revitalize core city residential neighborhoods that have been decaying since the 1960s. This chance must not be squandered.

There is no better way to understand what’s at stake than to visit the vast East Baltimore demolition moonscape rapidly being transformed into a biotech center near the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Construction is everywhere. And it hasn’t even seriously started yet.

This almost unimaginable remake’s latest spin-off appeared last week. A sign at Baltimore and Wolfe streets proclaimed that new town houses, with garages, will fill two city blocks vacant since subsidized apartments were razed.

This is not any old town house project. It will bridge the Johns Hopkins complex with the Patterson Park neighborhoods and Fells Point. More people will be able to live without cars, if they want to.

Ha, that will be the day, you may say.

In fact, the day is already here. Johns Hopkins is sponsoring a car-sharing program both at the East Baltimore location and Homewood campus. Students, faculty, staff and “friends and neighbors of JHU” can join by paying a redeemable $35 annual membership fee. That entitles them to rent a Flexcar for $6 an hour (or $60 a day), including gas, insurance, roadside assistance and 150 free miles.

Flexcar operates nationwide to make money. It targets people who make only occasional use of a vehicle. Among such users are Clint and Mary Roby, Butcher’s Hill residents who now don’t need a second car. Clint bikes to his job at Hopkins, a couple of minutes away. If he needs sturdier wheels, he uses a Flexcar.

What’s in this for Hopkins? It will need to construct fewer expensive parking garages and deal with less traffic congestion.

The next mayor must encourage other employers to sponsor Flexcar-like programs. Along with better mass transit, they are essential to the success of the live near your work strategy.

A new mindset is needed at City Hall. The next mayor must recalibrate the city’s attitude toward high density. For the past four decades, high density has been seen as an evil. But unprecedented downtown apartment and condo construction has now produced a counter-trend — increased density.

The next mayor must recognize high density as an opportunity. It makes public transit workable. And a better transit system is key to Baltimore’s future.

Antero Pietila is writing a book about how bigotry shaped the Baltimore metropolitan area. He can be reached at hap5905@hotmail.com.