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S-Kunst t1_iwzvcvc wrote

I no longer think that a comprehensive transportation plan needs to run through the center of the city. It implies that the center of the city has goods and services which cannot be had elsewhere, and it further gashes the already scarred landscape. Plans like this one are popular, as they follow a decades old idea that everyone wants or needs to travel in town. More tracks or paths need to be circulating outside the cit to take people from Towson to Catonsville or other outer areas which are now accessed by cars.

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Xanny t1_iwzynu7 wrote

The downtown does have something that all those other places don't have, the opportunity for density. Towson, Catonsville, etc were built for cars. They are seas of parking lot, endless stroads, and no amount of transit buildup with close the distance between places there. The only actual city in the Baltimore region is Baltimore, and the only place we can build actual dense walkable urbanism is in Baltimore.

> further gashes the already scarred landscape

Roads did that. Rail takes up a fraction of the space, most of the right of ways of at grade proposals for rail in the area are in existing road medians or along rights of way that were set aside decades ago with nothing there, and any proposal worth hearing today should be tunneling under downtown. The red line proposal was so good because it had a tunnel from the road to nowhere to Boston St that crossed the whole city with a half dozen stations. Likewise, the best of the NS MTA proposals is the heavy rail option because its the only one that commits to comprehensive tunneling in the downtown - the light rail proposals all put at grade tracks that get stuck in traffic like the existing line in the city proper.

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Previous-Cook t1_ix011i4 wrote

surrounding areas weren't built for cars, they just adapted more quickly than the densely urban parts of Baltimore could. The entire metro area grew up around a trolley system.

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Xanny t1_ix02tvk wrote

Catonsville less so, it still has a bit of old town left to it, but most of the time nowadays when you talk about Catonsville people are going to sprawl mall on 40 not what is left of the small town on Frederick.

And even that Catonsville is one street surrounded by single family setback houses with quarter acre yards. Its not got the density to support anything but car dependency.

Towson though. Its population tripled from under 20k in 1960 to 1970, and since then has just turned into a giant shopping center. Rosebank is better suited to be closer to a walkable city, but again, a lot of these areas are singular main streets surrounded by setback detached single family houses with driveways and garages.

In theory, sure, you can rezone entire towns and have developers bulldoze single family housing to put up 5 over 1 mixed use after you build a subway through it. Thats kind of what has happened around a lot of DC metro stations like Silver Spring or Clarendon. But those are islands, they are tiny strips of urbanism made possible by the train but then still are surrounded by a sea of car culture impermeable and incompatible with the urban ambitions of the core around the station.

Downtown Baltimore still has the opportunity to be that, to be a true livable, dense, walkable city. The zoning changes are less severe, and while a lot of rebuilding is needed, a lot less of it is pissing off white boomers who don't want to lose the sprawl suburb they bought into half a century ago. It just makes way, way more sense to put fixed infrastructure into the city itself first, make it livable, and then grow out from the core than to try to retrofit areas that exist only in opposition to the urbanism we are seeking to achieve. The white flight sprawl is only there because it doesn't want to be Baltimore. Trying to turn it into a city like Baltimore is fighting a mental battle from a losing opening position.

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gaytee t1_ix004xi wrote

So just because I should be able to buy groceries in my neighborhood, I shouldn’t be able to get downtown for fun with friends? Anyone who wants to get from towson to cville can do it on the various busses and trains that can connect you. The point of light rails is to move a lot of people more efficiently between popular areas, busses are mid grade, last mile always generally sucks a bit and that’s a portion of why scooter and bike companies have blown up, is the ‘last mile’ commute.

In general though, in every city, People do want and need to travel downtown more than any other portion or neighborhood. are you serious with this post?

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ElevenBurnie t1_ix0denb wrote

I think the poster believes that just because they don't need to travel into downtown, the thousands upon thousands of people that do are unimportant.

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S-Kunst t1_ix3ez28 wrote

Your gripe over my opinion makes me think you are one of the coddled suburbanites who see the city as your entertainment center. I would think my idea of having more axial transit paths would appeal to you. It would allow you to cross one part of Balt county to another without having to travel, first, all the way in town, transfer, to another spoke heading out of town.

Is your idea of spending millions of dollars for public transportation just so you can go downtown for fun? THAT is the reason the light rail was installed, to get people to the stadiums. For most people downtown is the old business district, its where the courts and city offices are located. Far fewer people regularity venture into that area, over the past 40 years, as there is not much but these civic and corporate institutions there. It would be great if the downtown became more populated, but look at the proposed map, What you see is more of the same. Ways for suburbanites to get to entertainment venues.

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gaytee t1_ix4h8g4 wrote

My point is that you don’t have to go downtown to get around the county, but you chose to skip over that. To get from cville high to randallstpwn high it’s one bus. To get from cville to towson it IS faster to go downtown and get on the 8 @ gay/Fayetteville or take the light rail from Pratt. You’re being dramatic.

Transit in baltimore does actually work decently AND the map OP posted makes perfect sense for rails, while busses can compliment along routes that aren’t necessarily directly into the city center but between neighborhoods or cities.

And for what it’s worth? I’ve lived, owned and paid taxes on property on mccabe, fawcett, Evesham, and many other “not so perfect” streets in this city while using the transit system just fine, so go fuck yourself.

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