North Avenue Rising: Take the Survey

In November, kick-off meetings were held for the North Avenue Rising project, a $27,330,000 project to improve transit stops, install bus lanes, and make targeted streetscape improvements to North Avenue. The project is a federally funded Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, or TIGER grant. The project has additional financial support from MDOT MTA and Baltimore City. 

Our Ask

Take the project survey available here. 

In questions #6 and #10, please state that you would like to see dedicated, separated transit and bike lanes throughout the corridor, and that you would like to see a center-running transit option.

Background

We wrote a detailed post in July of 2016 about how to make this project better. It is available here. In short:

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The red bus lane stops and starts throughout the corridor.

For dedicated transit lanes to be successful, they should be contiguous and ideally separated, or at minimum, curbside. The project as planned currently has parking-adjacent bus lanes, which stop and start throughout the corridor depending on traffic volume. This will result in conflict between buses and cars during every parallel parking attempt and abuse of the lanes by stopped cars and delivery vehicles. 

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"Parallel" bike facilities, blocks away.

For bicycling to be comfortable for people of all ages on the North Avenue corridor, and for the planned bike share stations to be utilized safely and effectively, separated bike lanes must also be present on North Avenue, at least along the wider section where buses are most frequent. Presently, bikes are relegated to "parallel facilities," which are not parallel. Worse, there is no connection across the bridge, requiring bicyclists to dismount and walk or illegally ride on the sidewalk. 

These constraints mean we're going to spend millions of dollars on a project that still prioritizes moving and storing private cars over moving people via foot, bike, and transit. The end result will be a street with only moderately improved transit travel times, a street with no safe place to bike, and a street that will still be dangerous to cross as a pedestrian. 

According to NACTO's figures on person throughput, North Avenue today can move 6,000 people per hour. The TIGER grant as designed may improve this to 11,200 people per hour. Our fix can move 34,100 people per hour.

The Fix

The fix is easy, it just costs more money. Based on costs of other dedicated alignment bus corridors, an additional $20-30 million could elevate North Avenue from the flawed project outlined above to a truly transformative corridor.

Wider Section of North Ave

The wider section of North Avenue that has the highest bus volume could have a center-running, separated busway. This would allow for curbside protected bike lanes, parking, and a single travel lane for personal automobiles.

North Avenue wide segment at a bus stop, with center running transit way, protected bike lanes, and parking.

Narrower Sections of North Ave

If we removed on-street parking on one side of the street in the narrower sections, areas furthest east and west on North Avenue, we could continue the center-running, separated transit lane by making it bi-directional. Bus frequency is low enough along this segment that oncoming buses would rarely encounter each other, but if they did, they could merge into the regular car travel lane to pass each other.  This design is being used in Indianapolis with the IndyGo Red Line Bus Rapid Transit project, which has similar bus timing to these parts of North Avenue. 

North Avenue narrow segment, where buses share a bi-directional lane and pass each other in the regular travel lane. Parking is restricted on one side of the street to allow for the bus lane and protected bike lanes.

North Avenue narrow segment at a bus stop. Parking is further restricted to make width for the bus stop and allow for protected bike lanes.

While parking would need to be reduced on these edges of the corridor where the street is narrower, this is exactly where neighborhoods have zero-car household rates far above the city average, and where adjacent streets have very low on-street parking utilization. Many buildings also have alley garages and rear parking access. Removing parking would be a challenge, but it would be in line with focusing on the majority of road users in these segments, who lack access to a car and instead walk, bike, or take transit.

Perspective on Cost

$20-30 million is a fraction of the money Governor Hogan reallocated away from Baltimore and to rural highways with his cancelation of the Red Line. Baltimore City could also come up with this money over the several year project timeline. In just the few months since Councilman Dorsey passed legislation to increase the fine for parking in bus lanes and bus stops to $250, the city has already failed to collect nearly $500,000 because they haven't updated their ticketing software to the new amount. 

We can afford a project that gets this right the first time, and sets up a future on North Avenue that could easily be upgraded to real Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail Transit. We can't afford to spend $27,330,000 on the existing project. North Avenue and the people of Baltimore deserve better than this. 
 

> Take the project survey available here.
 

Tonight, speak up about North Ave Rising!

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Tonight is the first meeting about North Avenue Rising. We hope you'll make it out, even if you can't make it until after work!

Here are the main points we'd like you to make:

1. North Avenue Rising must have separated, dedicated transit lanes throughout the entire project corridor.

2. North Avenue Rising must have separated, dedicated bicycle lanes at minimum between Pennsylvania Avenue and Broadway, where there is high density, frequent bus service, and a wider right-of-way.

3. North Avenue Rising must have a road diet, calming the street and allowing space for high quality bike and transit lanes while maintaining parking for businesses.

4. These requirements should lead to North Avenue Rising including center-running transit, which will further spur economic development and transit growth on North Avenue, and allow for a potential rail transit future for North Avenue once that growth demands it.

There are community meetings Monday through Thursday this week for you to attend. We're encouraging folks to #filltheroom at Monday night's meeting, but we encourage you to attend whichever meeting you're able to.

Monday, November 13, 2017
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Impact Hub
10 East North Avenue

Tuesday, November 14, 2017
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Bluford/KASA at Walbrook
2000 Edgewood Street

Wednesday, November 15, 2017
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Rita R. Church Community Center
2101 Saint Lo Drive

Thursday, November 16, 2017
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Parkview Recreation Center
2610 Francis Street

>> Want to know more about North Ave Rising? More about the project and our take.

Jones Falls Trail Incidents - Volunteers Needed

This past weekend, there were several documented incidents involving youth assaulting users of the Jones Falls Trail in the vicinity of the switchbacks between Falls Road and the Stieff Silver building. Over the years, flare ups of these incidents are infrequent enough that police patrolling and brush clearance have been ineffective, but frequent enough that we must make structural changes to the trail. 

Short Term

This week we are stationing volunteers on the switchbacks between Falls Road and the Stieff Silver Building on Wyman Park Drive. You'll be stationed with a group of volunteers to have added presence and eyes on the street and trail. You'll also be asking folks that are passing to sign a petition demanding immediate brush clearance and trail improvements including lights, cameras, and an emergency call box.

Scroll to the bottom of this page to sign the petition now or to sign up to volunteer.

Long Term

Baltimore City has applied for a Maryland Bikeways grant to redesign the Jones Falls Trail along the Falls Road corridor. Bikemore is serving on the steering committee for this project, hosted by Central Baltimore Partnership, and will advocate for improved trail security as part of the redesign. Initial public meetings around this project will occur this winter and early spring, and we will encourage you to attend and advocate for changes you would like to see on this portion of the trail. 

Bikemore is also part of the Baltimore Greenway Trails Network Coalition, advocating for the creation of a connected trail loop network in Baltimore by combining existing trails with new connections. This project would dramatically increase trail usage/eyes on the street while allowing us to invest in trail maintenance and technology to increase safety.

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Online Petition

I demand Baltimore City immediately add the section of Jones Falls Trail between Falls Road and Stieff Silver on Wyman Park Drive to regular police patrol, remove and cut back brush on the switchbacks, and install lighting, cameras, and emergency call boxes.

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Midtown Streetscape Update

A person riding a bike crosses Mt. Royal. Photo Credit: Fern Shen-Baltimore Brew

Last week, construction began on the Midtown Streetscape project, which includes significant changes to Mount Royal Avenue. Last night, Baltimore City Department of Transportation held a meeting to update the public on the project.

Background

We have been long advocating for improvements to this project, beginning with advocacy to include bike lanes, as they were removed early in the project due to opposition from MICA's former president.

Revised plans included a segment of two-way protected bike lane that ended prematurely before North Avenue and dangerously at the Mount Royal JFX offramp, where bicyclists were encouraged to transition to sidewalk. Baltimore City's Bicycle Friendly City status was renewed on a commitment by then DOT Director William Johnson to make design changes to extend the protected facility for the entirety of the Mount Royal Corridor, and make changes to the offramp to improve safety.

After years of these discussions, leadership transitions, and project delays, last summer Baltimore City Department of Transportation held a 95% design meeting. No changes discussed in the prior near-decade had been implemented. Our summary of that meeting is here.

Bikemore immediately coordinated with Councilman Eric Costello to organize stakeholders along the corridor to advocate for further study and redline changes to the 95% design plans. These stakeholders included Mount Royal Improvement Association, Mount Vernon Belvedere Association, MICA, UB, and the Lyric. In those meetings, held in August and September of 2016, DOT committed to study the following, and report back before the project was awarded:

1. A road diet, meaning removing one of the car travel lanes in each direction, either a) the entirety of the corridor, b) from Guilford to Maryland, c) from Maryland to North Avenue. This would allow for an on-street protected lane or no loss of parking, and no reduction to medians, saving millions of dollars in concrete work and the need for tree removal.

2. Closure of the I-83 off-ramp at Mount Royal and Saint Paul Streets entirely, and at minimum closure of the Mount Royal slip lane of the offramp.

3. Extension of the bicycle lane to Guilford Avenue and to North Avenue.

No report back ever occurred. All stakeholders continuously followed up requesting updates, and those emails and phone calls went unreturned. The project was awarded this past winter, in violation of the agreement, and again emails and phone calls requesting comment were unreturned.

Last week, the project broke ground without notification to stakeholders.

Last Night's Meeting

At last night's meeting, the same project boards were presented, showing no changes to the design. However, the power-point was updated, showing a slightly redesigned bicycle facility, and former DOT Interim Director Frank Murphy acknowledged that a DOT staff meeting had occurred just an hour before the public meeting to discuss implementing the red line changes stakeholders had been advocating for the past five years. 

We will be working with Councilman Costello's office to participate in a re-convening of stakeholders again to reiterate these requests, and demand that any redline changes that are possible to make at this stage are made.

We will likely end up with a project nobody is happy with, but we still must advocate to make it safe and adequate. There are a thousand larger questions surrounding this project: Why we are moving forward with a design nobody likes? Why was over 5 years of direct input ignored? And how we can change our city's transportation planning culture to prevent things like this from ever happening again, by passing robust Complete Streets legislation and empowering our city council members with tools to get real answers from agencies and be able to hold them accountable?

Potomac Street Victory Lap

With our policy director away on vacation, we are going to skip writing a longer post analyzing the final design for Potomac Street and what it means long term for Complete Streets and bike infrastructure in Baltimore today. But know that it’s coming.

We did want to share our perspective on Department of Transportation’s decision and share the final design. DOT hosted an Open House to share the feedback received from the latest round of community input on a design meant to address Canton residents’ and BCFD’s concerns around fire access.

The design that will move forward will be the one presented at the last community meeting. The revised design retains a two way bike lane, removes street parking from the West side, and changes East side on street parking from parallel to rear angle.

Bikemore has maintained that with a few tweaks to improve emergency vehicle access, the existing design that is currently in the ground would work. But we also believe in compromise when possible, and while we still believe that 20ft clear access for emergency vehicles is not necessary or always appropriate in urban environments, it was important to move forward. This design addresses concerns around fire access by creating 19ft of clearance. Additionally it addresses neighborhood concerns around parking loss by maintaining roughly the same amount of parking as the original design by changing it to rear angle parking. Most importantly the revised design maintains an all ages, high quality two way bike facility--which was the original intent of the project.

You can click through the boards and slides presented at the meeting here to get all the wonky facts surround the new design:

Potomac Street was the biggest fight we’ve ever taken on. Our small staff and dedicated volunteers and attorneys put in many long hours. We sued the city. We stopped the arbitrary removal of a bike lane based on nothing more than a handful of resident complaints (loud ones, but not in the numbers they reported to have). We forced stakeholders and the city back to the negotiating table to think through a thoughtful redesign. We stood firm in our stance that we cannot go backwards, that Baltimore desires and deserves high quality bike infrastructure, and that we cannot allow every public project to improve mobility in this city — whether it’s bike lanes or bus stops — to become derailed when some neighbors don’t want to see change in their neighborhood.

In this latest round of community input to respond to the redesign, DOT received 560 emails. Of those 447 supported the Potomac Street redesign. 113 did not. What’s more, what became the rally cry for redesign — emergency access — received only 16 comments out of a total of 560 emails. Concerns over parking loss received 75. It confirmed what we always knew. That backlash to bike lanes is about nothing more than people placing their personal convenience over public safety and mobility.

Community input is important. No community should ever feel as though a project is being placed upon them without listening to their concerns. But after multiple meetings, and a litany of press, Potomac Street has arguably received the most attention of any eight blocks in the city. The concerns around safety were addressed. Other concerns like parking were accommodated as best they were able. We are satisfied with the outcome. We are looking forward to being able to focus our policy work on Complete Streets that looks at how to prioritize the safety and mobility of people on all city streets, in every neighborhood.

This was a decisive win for people who bike. Not because Bikemore is some inside influence with tons of resources to bring to the table like some would claim, but because of you. Our members. Your letters were inspiring to read. You showed up when you were called to, you were bold in your position for safe streets for all users, and gave generously to allow us to focus all our efforts on the issue at hand.

We have a long way to go before Baltimore is truly safe and accessible for people of all ages and abilities to ride a bike. But we are closer today because of your support. We need your continued support to keep us moving forward.

Please consider making a recurring donation to Bikemore. Whether it’s $10 each month or $1000 a year, you can be certain that your dollars are helping to build a force for biking in Baltimore. We look forward to having you join us as we continue to #fightforbikes.