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July 13, 2001 J. Craig Forrest Dear Mr. Forrest, We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the first draft 2001 Baltimore Regional Transportation Plan. For the most part, our comments focus on the draft regional plan as a whole and the process used to develop it so far, rather than on specific projects. The Process to Develop the Draft Plan There are elements of the process used to develop the current draft plan we are glad to see. First, we appreciate the local meetings held in each of the Baltimore region’s county-level jurisdictions. We believe those meetings did help educate interested citizens and that they provided a much more convenient and welcoming venue than holding only one meeting in the Baltimore Metropolitan Council office in Canton. Secondly, we believe the posting of information on the BMC’s web site, including county maps showing Priority Funding Areas, was quite helpful. We also have some concerns about this process. With respect to the public meetings, for example, we are concerned with how the meetings were publicized. In general, people around the region did not know the meetings were occurring. In fact, many learned of the meetings from newspaper stories afterwards. We would think a pro-active media strategy would have resulted in some kind of newspaper notice of the meetings beforehand. The Baltimore Sun, for example, often prints briefs explaining local upcoming meetings such as these. In addition, people have expressed to us that some of the meeting rooms were difficult to find. We believe there should have been clearer signs directing people to the meeting once they arrived at the appropriate building or complex. Other procedural concerns relate to the presentation of the draft Preferred Alternative. Since financial considerations are such an important constraint in preparing the long-range plan, we were surprised that costs of specific projects were not presented in the meetings around the region. The large pie-charts in the packets were helpful to get a sense of the overall financial picture, but we would think that citizens would want to know how their tax money is being spent on specific projects, as well. We were also surprised at the process presented at the public meetings for developing the draft Preferred Alternative. One would think from the meetings that the overriding strategy of the Board in preparing the plan was to identify areas of traffic congestion in the region and to widen roads in an attempt to relieve them. There was no sense of a larger comprehensive transportation strategy. Finally, we are surprised that, even now, with the comment period ending, the draft Preferred Alternative itself is not posted on the BMC web site. While it is helpful to be able to view the candidate projects, apparently it was necessary to attend one of the public meetings to learn which of them is included in the draft Preferred Alternative. Elements of the Plan We do have a few substantive comments on the overall draft regional plan. First, while we believe the plan could and should go further, we are pleased to see substantial expansion of funding for transportation demand management (TDM) activities and transit initiatives, compared to the 1998 plan. We are very disappointed, however, to find that the expansion of the Metro to the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus and accompanying MARC stop were not included in the draft preferred scenario. A Metro stop from the Hopkins Hospital to Bayview is an important connection between these medical facilities. With a Park-n-Ride facility at the Metro line’s eastern terminus, such an extension would also provide improved transit access to downtown, both to MARC travelers from the entire region and to express bus and auto commuters from Baltimore and Harford Counties. Similarly, such an extension would improve reverse-commute transit access from downtown to employers in Harford County. Should funding become available because of changes in other projects or deletions of other projects, we strongly urge the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board to boost funding for TDM measures and to fund the extension of the Metro from Johns Hopkins Hospital to the Hopkins Bayview campus. Furthermore, we believe it is shortsighted to delay so many transit projects until 2020. We urge you to accelerate at least some of those projects in the plan. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft 2001 Regional Transportation Plan. Feel free to contact me at (410) 385-2910 if you have any questions. Sincerely, Dan Pontious, Director
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Baltimore
Regional Partnership · 512 Orchard Street · Baltimore, MD 21201-1947 |
