Antero Pietila
2007-09-26 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

One-way streets have sown much instability in Baltimore. That’s why it is troubling that city planners are considering expanding their use, putting commuters’ interests above those of local residents.

A recent proposal would turn Aliceanna and Fleet streets into one-way throughways. “It is a proposal,” said the city’s transportation director, Col. Alfred H. Foxx Jr. “We presented the idea to the community and they didn’t like it.”

So is that the end of the plan? Col. Foxx didn’t say.

It is unlikely that the one-way street concept will disappear. The city has no real alternatives along the Fells Point/Canton waterfront, where a condominium construction boom has been allowed to take place despite inadequate roads and clogged intersections. Something must be done. (I tried to provoke Col. Foxx into that conversation, but he just smirked).

Recently designated one-way throughways in Curtis Bay seem to reverse a previous policy that was adopted about a decade ago. Under that practice, which itself reversed a decades-long policy, the city returned two-way traffic to Lombard Street, between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Avenue, as well as to Pratt Street, from Broadway to Patterson Park. Both stretches have reaped visible benefits since. Just look at the investment in the form of new construction and housing renovation.

If far-reaching one-way decisions are made, they should be subject to the City Council’s approval. Votes must be counted, elected officials held accountable. This is too important to be left to bureaucrats alone. Neighborhoods’ viability is at stake.

One-way streets were originally introduced in Baltimore soon after World War II. Baltimore, a major war production center, was a traffic nightmare. There were no high-capacity roads to handle traffic from New York to Washington, so local and through traffic came together downtown. The gridlock was unbelievable, some of the worst in the nation.

One-way traffic was seen as part of the solution. It was initiated on several important north-south streets, such as Calvert and St. Paul. That spelled a disaster to stable residential blocks. Once the rumble began, established families began moving away. Businesses were also hurt. On Charles Street, one-way traffic first killed carriage trade, then the famed double-decker buses, and, ultimately, once-thriving specialty stores.

The city exhibited particular callousness on Druid Hill Avenue and McCulloh Street, the most prestigious addresses in black Baltimore. Those streets were designated one-way without any prior consultation with residents. The impact was instantaneous: Cracks appeared in plaster walls as foundations shook.

Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., NAACP’s lobbyist in Washington who lived on Druid Hill Avenue, threatened to sue the city. He said that the traffic decision “might be all right if we had a decent American community where people could move to the outlying sections of the city. But no matter how much money these people have, they cannot move to the outlying districts. We must live where we live now.”

Mitchell was wrong. The one-way decision came soon after the U.S. Supreme Court had invalidated the enforcement of racially restrictive covenants. In 1949, William L. Adams became the first notable black to break out of the ghetto, moving from Druid Hill Avenue to Forest Park. He was Baltimore’s wealthiest black man. He became a trendsetter. Whites ran.

When legendary Henry A. Barnes became Baltimore’s traffic czar, he added new one-way streets with gusto. He had a mandate to solve the congestion problem. He understood that his job was to move traffic, not worry about neighborhoods. He did not worry. He soon went to create one-way streets in Manhattan.

One-way streets destroy stable neighborhoods. I hope it won’t happen to yours.

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