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August 20, 2001

Barry Bergman, Project Manager
Baltimore Metropolitan Council
2700 Lighthouse Point East
Suite 310
Baltimore, MD 21224-4774

RE: Baltimore Region Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Greenway Transportation Plan

Dear Mr. Bergman,

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the 2001 Baltimore Region Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Greenway Transportation Plan. As you know, the Baltimore Regional Partnership is a coalition of civic, environmental, and smart growth advocacy groups working on land use, transportation, and equity issues in the Baltimore region.

As you know, we strongly support the promotion of bicycling and walking as viable transportation modes in this region, and we welcome the development of this plan. You address many key issues for bicyclists, pedestrians, and greenway preservation in the draft document. In particular, we believe that Chapter 7: Mobility Friendly Policies and Practices, which focuses on the importance of local zoning, development codes, and design practices, is well-done and comprehensive.

We also strongly support the education and enforcement elements of this plan. We believe it is critical to educate motorists on the rights of pedestrians and bicyclists and on how to respond to bicyclists on roads. We also see it as crucial to provide effective education for bicyclists, particularly in terms of proper riding in automobile traffic. Finally, we believe it is essential that police enforce safety laws and rights of way, particularly Maryland’s requirement for drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

We do have several suggestions that we believe can help this draft plan become more specific and make more of an immediate difference for our air quality and in the lives of citizens in the Baltimore region.

While we realize that this plan is a companion to the 2001 Baltimore Regional Transportation Plan that covers 2007-2025, we believe its benefits are too important not to act on right away. We urge the

Baltimore Regional Transportation Board to make significant funding available for these measures in the near-term. We also urge the Maryland Department of the Environment include the plan’s goals, with credited emissions reductions, in the Smart Growth Innovations State Implementation Plan (SIP) for the Baltimore region, currently under development.

We are glad to see the plan does include significant discussion of Safe Routes to School and connections to transit. We urge that these be included in the Milestones and Performance measures.

For example, one milestone could be safe routes for walking and biking to all schools and major transit stops in the region by 2005. Interim milestones would be: ample funding to assure full identification of current network barriers and hazards by mid-2002, identification of design standards by end 2002, strategies to overcome barriers and hazards with capital budget recommendations by mid-2003, and full safe access by 2005.

We suggest another goal of safe routes for walking and biking connecting all transit stops, public facilities, and employment centers by 2007, with a similar staged approach
to progress as described above. One example of the need for this would be the lack of even a sidewalk linking the Hunt Valley light rail stop to the relatively close corporate campus.

We are encouraged by the substantial discussion in the plan of the public health, education efforts, and the need for bike and pedestrian-friendly community design. We encourage the linking of these in public health studies and public education initiatives evaluating how community design affects levels of physical activity, walking and biking, and related levels of obesity in Baltimore regional neighborhoods among both children and adults. Such initiatives could also explore how changes in community design and street management policies can increase physical activity, walking and biking, and
contribute to reduced air pollution and obesity.

As mentioned above, we are pleased to see substantial discussion in the plan of the need for connections to transit, but we did notice that guarded, sheltered bike parking at transit stations is not mentioned. We encourage you to include goals for such parking at most major transit stops throughout region, modeled on the increasingly widespread "Bike Stations" in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Western Europe.

Strategy 9: Encouragement Programs wisely includes employer programs to promote biking and walking to work, and it mentions monetary incentives. We urge you also to highlight Maryland’s innovative Commuter Choice tax credits, which for-profit and non-profit 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) corporations can use for this type of program. Employers can offer their employees added cash income for not using a parking space, thus providing a concrete financial incentive to bike or walk. For-profit companies are also eligible for federal tax breaks for these programs.

We urge you to include financial incentives, particularly in light of Maryland’s Commuter Choice tax incentives in your performance measure of 25 large corporations having encouragement programs by 2010. It would also be useful to have a definition of "large corporation" in the plan, perhaps using number of employees.

It is our understanding that there have been problems in New Jersey with the state repairing shoulders on roads and counting them as "new bikeways." We encourage you to make clear the requirements of new bikeways in the Baltimore region.

We also would urge the plan to reach 100 miles of new bikeways per year before 2006. An aggressive near-term effort to establish bikeways would mean nearer-term benefits for bike commuters and our air quality.

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and nearby attractions would seem to be a natural place to start to encourage biking and walking. Pedestrian crossings on Pratt and other streets near the Inner Harbor are not as friendly as they could be. Similarly, there is likely a market for tourists who would like to rent bikes to reach nearby attractions and their hotels. Enhanced bike and pedestrian connections around the Harbor would benefit tourists, commuters, and local sightseers alike.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment on this plan. Please contact me at (410) 385-2910 if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Dan Pontious
Director

Cc: Baltimore Regional Transportation Board designees

Baltimore Regional Partnership · 512 Orchard Street  · Baltimore, MD 21201-1947
 phone: (410) 523-8150  x249 · fax: (410) 523-4022