Your Monthly Update: Fire Access, Our Legislative Agenda & More

Missed our Members' Meeting last week? Here's what you missed! Plus, we've heard that you want more regular project updates, so this is the first of our new monthly advocacy update series.

And the Q&A from the members' meeting will be published later this week!

Advocacy Updates

Baltimore Greenway Trails Network

• Preliminary outreach and engineering work on

  • Gwynn Falls Parkway-Connecting Druid Hill Park to Leakin Park

  • Middle Branch-Connecting GFT, Westport, Port Covington, and Inner Harbor

• Develop designs w/ BGE regarding connection between Herring Run and future Highland Town Rail-Trail

• Working w/ Planning Dept to integrate Green Network Plan

• Developing project name/branding

→ More about this project.
→ Rails-to-Trails staff is available to speak at community meetings to learn more: contact jim@railstotrails.org

Big Jump: Druid Park Lake Drive

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Big Jump is a national 5 year program to expand biking in neighborhoods from PeopleForBikes. Baltimore was awarded for Remington and Reservoir Hill, to improve the biking and walking connection across the 28th Street bridge. Councilman Pinkett is advocating hard to use the maintenance-of-traffic agreement from the Druid Hill Park reservoir project to implement this solution, but the city is currently not agreeable.

→ More about this project.

Bike Share

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Planned stations. Last column is current status, with community, contractor, MTA, developer, legal indicating the reason for a hold up.

• 27 live stations (32 by next week)

• 220 bikes in system (not all on street due to weather)

• 300+ bikes by mid February

• Theft no longer an issue, BUT vandalism due to attempted theft still ongoing but manageable

• Bike app accuracy issues resolved--95% accurate

• Significant sponsor coming on in February--with specific goal of increasing membership

• Baltimore being considered for Bewegen US bike manufacturing site

→ More about this project.

Downtown Bike Network

• Maryland Avenue (construction hold)

  • It's 95% done, but on hold for fire access issue. Maryland Avenue has been deemed non-compliant by the Baltimore City Fire Department per Baltimore City DOT, though no documentation to that affect has been provided from our Public Information Act request.

• Preston and Biddle Streets (construction hold)

  • These lanes are standard bike lanes that do not affect fire clearance, but they are also under construction hold because of the fire access issue.

• Madison and Monument Streets (construction hold)

  • We're currently working with Hopkins to leverage their power, with the goal of a fully protected facility here that makes it safer and more comfortable to ride on these streets that are better lit and have more activity. The city currently plans for these to only be partially protected, and that protection would need to be removed to make them compliant with the fire access issue.

• Potomac Street (completed)

  • This is done! Hoorah!

• Inner Harbor Jones Falls Stain (construction hold)

  • The plan calls for staining the inner harbor route green to be more clearly a bike route, but this is on hold because the Fire Department wants to review it even though it does not affect the width of the road.

→ More about this project.

Fire Access Issue

For more on this, read our latest blog post. But the short of it is that the city is choosing to apply the International Fire Code clearance rules to repaving projects with bike lanes on them, but not on any other roads. 

Mt Royal

Our last update on Mount Royal and the Midtown Streetscape project can be found here. In short, nothing has changed. The city broke its promise to hold construction until stakeholder concerns were addressed. The project is currently under construction, and will spend millions of dollars while making the street arguably more dangerous.

Miscellaneous Projects

• 28th and 29th Street Traffic Calming (beginning neighborhood organizing phase)

  • Neighbors from GRIA, CVCA, and Harwood have formed a committee to advocate for calming traffic on these highway connector roads. Bikemore is helping facilitate. → Next meeting is 1/22.

• 41st Street Road Diet (in progress)

  • Neighbors organized around the too wide and too fast 41st St. Graham Young from DOT advocated for taking away one of the travel lanes and adding a protected bike lane, serving as a connector from Woodberry across Falls Road to the new Union Collective. So far the lane reduction and bike lane are in place, with flex post installation to protect the lane scheduled for this spring.

• 39th Street Road Diet (planning)

  • Road diet and traffic calming project on 39th and Argonne that was supposed to be in the form of protected bike lanes, but Councilwoman Clarke and constituents are advocating for parking and turn lanes. Advocacy will need to begin on this project shortly.

• Covington Street Lane (planning)

  • Bike lane was supposed to be installed in 2016, is due to be installed in 2018, will serve as a neighborhood connector from Rash Field to Federal Hill to Riverside Park.

Legislative Agenda

• Complete Streets: Delay due to racial equity focus through disparity study. Want to get it right, even if it takes more time. → More.

• Parking Cash Out: Gives people option to take parking subsidy from employer (if provided) in form of cash payment. Starting with city employees first. →More.

• Parking Minimums: Parking is expensive to build, harms affordability, harms walkable, dense neighborhoods.

• Dedicated Pot: We’ve added revenue streams and will add more, we should dedicate to active and public transport.

North Ave Rising

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The top is the current proposed design, but we're advocating for the bottom design.

• The TIGER grant will improve operations for buses but won’t be great. We think the street should be great. We think great looks something like the bottom image to the right. Councilman Pinkett is leading the effort, in coordination with the Greater Baltimore Committee, to advocate for more money to build a better street.

→ More about this project. 

Trail and Bike Route Safety

• 500 people signed our petition for safety improvements along JFT

• We met with Rec and Parks to discuss our demands

• Next steps:

  • Rec and Parks are creating an estimate for installation of light poles (Spring 2018)

  • Trees will be tagged for removal, will need volunteers (with chainsaws!!) to come help remove (Winter 2018)

  • Section of fence on north side being removed to serve as bail out

  • Continuing to work with partners like Public Defender's Office, Community Conferencing, City Agencies, BPD, and business to create a comprehensive safety and restorative justice approach

→ More about this.

Program Updates

 

Mobile Bike Shop

• Pilot project started in 2016

• Have hosted 10 “shops” to date

• Currently seeking funding to bring project to scale

→ More about this. 

 

Growing Bikemore

• We’ve reached staff capacity

• Will likely hire more staff in the next 12-18 months

• We will outgrow our co-working space with additional staff/programming

• On the hunt for a permanent space, likely in the next 1-2 years

  • Transit/bike accessible

  • Hub for all volunteer run bike programs to have meeting space/ access to resources to grow

Financial Snapshot

• FY18 Budget $225K

• We are about 75% of the way toward our fundraising goal for the year. About $50K more left to raise to meet our budget.

• We are currently spending slightly under budget — 46% of total expenses — a little more than halfway through the fiscal year.

• 35% of our income is individual gifts

• Our average individual gift size is $123

Arbitrary and Capricious: City Only Applying Fire Clearance Rule to Bike Projects

Nearly 10 months ago, rumbling began over the proposed width of the car travel lane in the redesign of Potomac Street that included a protected bike lane. Neighbors cited a portion of the Baltimore City adopted International Fire Code, which states that Fire Apparatus Access Roads must maintain 20 feet of clear width, and that Aerial Fire Apparatus Access Roads must maintain 26 feet of clear width. 

Our existing street network analyzed for clear width. Purple streets would need parking removed on both sides of the street to be compliant. Red streets would need parking removed on one side of the street to be compliant.

We've written about that battle extensively. It received national attention. We filed suit against the city since we felt this fire code ruling was being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner to one street. We were granted a temporary restraining order to halt removal of the bike lane while we negotiated a solution with the city that worked for all parties.

In those negotiations, we were told by the Mayor's Office and the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (DOT) that, at the time, Potomac Street was the only project under consideration for re-design or re-evaluation, and that a clear protocol for Baltimore City Fire Department review and approval of city street redesign would apply going forward. 

Weeks later, in a Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Commission meeting, we learned from now departed Bike Share Coordinator Jay Decker that all bicycle construction projects were on hold citywide pending review of the "entire bike plan."

Along with that news, we also knew of many ongoing resurfacing projects throughout the city that didn't involved bicycle projects, and that many of these projects failed to meet the Baltimore City adopted IFC clearance standards. So we decided to investigate.

On September 29, we requested a list of resurfacing and reconstruction projects occurring in Baltimore City. On October 11, DOT provided us with their Orange Code list for 2017, which details all resurfacing and reconstruction projects planned, ongoing, or completed for the year.

That very day, we evaluated all street resurfacing and reconstruction underway or planned for July 2017 or later, giving a few months of leeway after the Potomac Street issue was raised, and we were told, addressed.

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Using GIS centerline data for city streets, we determined the streets highlighted above failed a 20 foot clearance if the street contained parking. In total, at the time of our evaluation:

• 40 of 62 streets completed since July 2017 failed clearance.

• 12 of 33 streets currently under construction failed clearance

• 24 of 55 streets to be completed failed clearance.

On October 11, we immediately reported this information to the new Director of DOT, Michelle Pourciau. We requested an urgent meeting to discuss the inconsistency of moving forward with what appeared to be every resurfacing and reconstruction project in the city except for those with bike lanes.

We were not given a list of available meeting times until November 6, and the available times were at the end of November. Knowing this would allow all seasonal paving to be completed before our meeting occurred, we immediately filed a Public Information Act request with DOT and Baltimore City Fire Department. 

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In lieu of a timely meeting with DOT, our goal with this request was to get clarity on the fire clearance policy that the Mayor's Office and Baltimore City Department of Transportation said was developed in response to the Potomac Street fight, and better understand why exceptions were granted and signed for resurfacing and reconstruction of some non-compliant streets but not others. Maryland state law requires receipt of disclosable records within 30 days.

Immediately after submission of the PIA request, we received an email granting us a meeting with Director Pourciau on November 16. At that meeting, we had not yet received the results of our Public Information Act request, and were told that the City Solicitor's office had advised against disclosing any information that may be a part of the official PIA request. Regardless, we learned the following:

• All construction work had been stopped on the Downtown Bike Network, even on streets where the re-striping would not affect clear width.

• No construction work had been stopped on resurfacing of streets without bicycle infrastructure. DOT claimed that "resurfacing of existing conditions" was not a part of the new fire clearance policy.

• No construction work had been stopped on reconstruction of streets without bicycle infrastructure, even ones like Preston Gardens and Saint Paul Street, which are total reconstructions that provide a new clear width identical to Potomac Street, but are adjacent to skyscrapers instead of two story row homes.

We were told at this meeting that over the winter, DOT would evaluate these projects and their road width policies and fire clearance access rules. This seemed to imply that these things had not already been done, which was a departure from our discussion around Potomac Street. We asked why bike lanes couldn't also continue non-conforming construction like other projects, and were given no answer.

Today, we received the response to our PIA request, 60 days after the request and 30 days after the legal deadline for disclosure of records. The paving season is completed, the non-compliant projects we questioned were installed.

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The response to our PIA request verifies what we suspected.

• Since the Potomac Street debacle, DOT and Baltimore City Fire Department have created no tool to evaluate streets for compliance with Baltimore City adopted fire code.

• No fire apparatus access road classification map exists.

• No single list of project evaluations exists, and no promised written exemptions are available.

• And, the only record of an evaluation of a street was a single bike lane striping.

Both Chief Niles Ford's affidavit and the City Solicitor's argument in our Potomac Street suit clearly state that a lack of 20 foot clearance is a life safety issue and severely hampers fire access operations. If this sworn testimony is true, the city is grossly negligent in not using resurfacing as an opportunity to improve clear width to fire code standards, particularly when we experienced a 5-year high in fatal fires in 2017. If we accept that the testimony was hyperbolic to prove a point, we must acknowledge that it was simply a vendetta against a bicycle lane. Neither of these possibilities is acceptable.

We are encouraged that DOT has committed to developing a standard for road clearance over the winter, and we hope it will result in uniform application of law.

And, since other existing major reconstruction projects have continued, we expect the Downtown Bicycle Network to be installed in the first week of the spring paving season without fire clearance based redesign. 

If this doesn't happen? Well, we're familiar with the terms arbitrary and capricious.
 

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.

On Crime and Bikes

We wanted to craft a thoughtful response to the recent assaults and robberies that are impacting the Baltimore bike community--both describing the actions we’ve taken, things we plan to do in the future, and our analysis of this issue as a policy organization. 

We are not experts in adolescent development or juvenile justice, but Baltimore is full of people who are. We’ve spent the week discussing the recent assaults and robberies with some of these experts, and will continue to engage in conversations. As a policy organization, we believe in exploring issues deeply and making recommendations based on evidence. 

Children assaulting and robbing people is a serious problem. Every human being deserves safety. But we know, without equivocation, that youth crime is a symptom of a society that has disinvested in its children to such a degree that they are left without the support necessary for healthy adolescent development. We cannot address this issue without acknowledging the structural systems that got us here, and the policy solutions that can help us emerge. 

We are angry that people have been victims of assault and robbery. It isn’t right, and it has to stop. The kids responsible also need to be held accountable. We are attempting to work with Baltimore City Police to provide any information that can help bring an end to the ongoing violence and robberies so people can feel safe again riding their bikes. Sadly the two hot spots - Maryland Ave and the Jones Falls Trail - are two of the only places to ride your bike and feel safe from speeding cars. We have to restore safety to those integral routes. We also know that policing alone cannot ensure these types of attacks won’t happen again, and that a result that places children into the criminal justice system will likely lead to additional harm and an outcome that makes our community less healthy and safe in the long term. 

Last week we recruited volunteers to hang out in the hot spots where crime was occurring to be a friendly face to folks biking by, and collect signatures to support environmental design solutions that can improve safety on the Jones Falls Trails. We are pleased to report that we have over 500 signatures to deliver to the City in support of these request. If you’d still like to sign, you can do so here. Baltimore City Police have already committed to placing a light tower on the switchbacks of the Jones Falls Trail while funding for a more appropriate lighting solution can be procured. Rec and Parks has committed to clearing the brush to improve sight lines. And we are in the beginning stages of conversations with community partners that may be able to support the placement of an emergency call box. Thanks to everyone that volunteered. 

We are currently working with the Community Conferencing Center to provide an alternative path toward accountability for these crimes. If you have been a victim of these recent assaults and robberies and would like to learn more about the restorative justice techniques they use, send an email to liz@bikemore.net. We will be organizing an information session so those who have been impacted can learn more about the choices available to them if they are able to identify the kids who have been committing these crimes. This method does not make light of the seriousness of the crimes, but acknowledges the real harm that comes from sending a child through the criminal justice system, and the lack of autonomy and restitution a victim can experience in the criminal justice system. If you want to have a say in how a crime committed against you is resolved, Community Conferencing can provide that pathway, and in no way rules out the option of pressing charges later if a satisfactory resolution is not reached. 

As Bikemore, we are here advocating for the safety of all people on bikes. What makes this particular situation so sad, is that a healthy city is one where children are free to ride bikes with their friends around the neighborhood. When a crime pattern creates suspicion of children riding bikes together, that has serious impacts on every family in the city. We can only imagine the difficulty some families experience in having to refrain from allowing their child to ride a bike--for fear of being attacked, robbed, or profiled by police. It also forces us to confront the very real disparity that is evident by people who have mobility, transportation choice, and relative wealth biking through neighborhoods full of people that do not. Regardless of the intent of these crimes, that disparity is at its root. And it has no simple solutions. 

We want to share some short term and long term strategies we are working on to both help put an end to these crimes, and be unwavering in our position of advocating for the health and safety of all people in Baltimore--especially our city’s children. In this instance that means following the lead of those who are making a difference in the community preventing, intervening, and restoring justice for crimes committed by children. 

How to Stay Safe in the Short Term: 

• Keep riding. The more of us out there in the afternoons and evenings, the more difficult it is for someone to be a victim. 
• Use resources like social media (the Unofficial Bikemore Forum and Women Bike Baltimore are good examples) to find a riding buddy that has a similar commute. 
• Avoid stopping along your commute to engage with folks especially in hot spots like Maryland Ave north of Lanvale and Falls Road. Keep pedaling. 
• Stay alert. No headphones, use a super bright front light, and if you’re able--use a camera. 
• If you are confronted, remember property is replaceable. Keep yourself safe and retreat. 
• Make a report. Call 911 when you’re in a safe place. If you are unable to wait for an officer due to the lag folks often experience when trying to report a crime not in progress, you can make a report in person at a station or online. 
• Record your bike’s serial number and follow up after making a report to ensure that information is included. If it’s stolen this can help it be recovered and/or help lead police to the people committing the assaults and robberies. 
• In the end, you’re in charge of your safety. Follow your gut and make decisions that are right for you. That can also mean not riding for awhile. We support you. 

How to Create Safety in the Long Term

Correcting the impacts of generational poverty that cause people to remain with little access to healthy food, healthcare, and opportunity costs money. As an American society we often tend to think about these things as personal problems. These problems however are rarely personal failings, but often structural. Someone with power made a decision that made it more difficult for certain people to attain health and safety. A city with people who aren’t healthy is not safe. This means ensuring our children have access to proper health care--including trauma informed care, nourishment, and opportunities that foster development is directly tied to making our city safer. This is how you prevent crime. 

source: Open Budget Baltimore 

Baltimore instead chooses to invest heavily in policing rather than the things we know prevent crime. We spend 53% more on policing than we do on schools. 82% more on policing than transportation--when we know access to transportation has proven critical to escaping poverty. 96% more on policing than on recreation. In times of high crime, the narrative of policing being our only option in reducing crime perpetuates this imbalance. In a strong Mayor system like we have, the Mayor is responsible for setting those amounts. The City Council has limited authority to make other advisory recommendations and authorize cuts. . Because Baltimore has a relatively low voter turnout compared to cities of similar size, and our Mayor is often decided during the Democratic Primary among a broad field--it is nearly impossible to elect a Mayor to whom the majority of Baltimoreans cast their ballot. Without a voter mandate, leadership has no incentive to listen to advocates or organized groups of citizens.  

Achieving different outcomes for Baltimore means radically shifting how we invest our tax dollars. That type of leadership is politically risky. We have not elected a politically risky Mayor, and our chances of doing so in the near term due to the nature of our elections is unlikely. It’s why as a city we must seriously consider shifting how we budget. Revising our City Charter so that City Council has more authority could lead to the the type of innovation necessary to evoke change. This was something discussed last year, but was a political non starter. With the new crop of younger, more progressive council members, perhaps it’s time to revisit. 

While the people that ride bikes in the city are incredibly diverse, the ones directly engaged in bike advocacy are less so. This means that relative to the city, the people we reach most with our blog or social media posts are likely wealthier, better educated and have better health. It is out of that privilege and the incredible compassion that comes from experiencing this city that we love up close from our bike that we must approach these complex situations with mindfulness. We aren't the right people to lead on this issue, but we are able to lift up the work of others and ensure we are not contributing to further harm. No one of us is directly responsible for the trauma and disparity that exists right now in Baltimore, but we all can do more as citizens to fight for things that help bring stability, health and safety to all of our neighborhoods.