Last week, Bikemore’s Executive Director Jed Weeks testified at the Baltimore City Planning Commission on the FY2027 DOT Capital Improvement Program - which is the capital budget that funds construction and retrofit of our roads and bridges.
“I want to start by saying I see a lot of good things in this year's CIP - critical safety projects that have been long paused now advancing, and a focus on hardening quick build infrastructure into permanent installations - reducing maintenance costs and eyesores. I want to especially thank DOT's planning chief and team for the progress we are seeing here - and I truly think they're the best thing happening at DOT right now. And I know we have a director that knows the stakes and is a believer in designing streets to save lives.
Since the adoption of the Complete Streets Ordinance in 2018, I have testified before this commission concerned about other divisions' seeming inability to follow that ordinance and since 2021, I have pointed to work that goes explicitly against the 2021 Complete Streets Manual guidance.
My concerns continue today.
Specifically, the agency has been unable to lawfully execute resurfacing and continues to advance expensive, legacy streetscape projects that have no impact on safety and overbuilt bridges that still don't comply with the law.
I have flagged projects like Belair Road Streetscape to this commission for years - this project directly undermines the goals of MTA's bus prioritization for the corridor and entirely contradicts the recommendations of the ULI study from which the project supposedly originated.
As I shared the past two years, the Sisson Street bridge in this year's CIP is engineered to accommodate double stacked freight - despite CSX lowering the tracks so that is not necessary. It has 15 foot wide lanes for truck traffic for a walmart that doesn't exist, and no shared use path or bicycle facility as required under adopted city plans.
We are paying millions more than we need to for an outdated design that's not compliant with complete streets, and we will pay even more to later retrofit it into compliance, just like we've had to do with the Harford Road and Wilkens Avenue bridges.
Have the other bridges in the project pipeline been designed in compliance with ordinance? We don't know, because despite asking this question every year, we've never been given an answer.
Of the 58 TEC Division resurfacing projects scheduled for 2025, 25 required retrofit to include all-ages bicycle infrastructure or shared use walking and biking paths under ordinance. As resurfacing began this past spring, zero of those plan sets were designed, and the city admitted that to achieve their resurfacing goals, they'd have to break the law.
Every single other resurfacing in the city this year broke the law in some way. Just look across the plaza to Lexington, where the city striped illegal travel lane widths and stop bar setbacks. It's literally in view of the agency office and city hall.
DOT needs more money.
We have and will continue to fight for new revenues for the agency and a larger share of transportation dollars from the state, as we have successfully advocated in prior years alongside members of this commission, other advocates, and city and state elected officials.
But it makes that fight for resources hard when we have seen no meaningful reform of the broken divisions at DOT that are lighting that money on fire.
DOT has an opportunity to change that - with new leadership and key positions out for hire.
Moving forward, I hope that the Planning Commission can help DOT ensure projects are only funded when they are generated from the agency's planning team, based on a goal of advancing adopted city plans, and demonstrably in compliance with ordinance.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.”