SE traffic pattern needs to be rethought

S.E. traffic pattern needs to be rethought

Editor, The Guide:
There’s no reason why maintaining only two lanes should cause undue congestion in the Eastern Avenue “saddle” between Highlandtown and Greektown (Guide, April 18). After all, there are already only two lanes on the rest of Eastern Avenue between Highlandtown and downtown anyway. There is also no need to prohibit parking in the business districts on either end of the construction project in order to funnel traffic down to two lanes. Why displace parking with orange barrels when parked cars do it just as well and help the businesses too?
It would make much more sense to rebuild just two of the four lanes in the Eastern Avenue “saddle” and use the remaining space to make the “saddle” more attractive and pedestrian-friendly, and less saddle-like. The objective should be to weave this no-man’s land between Highlandtown and Greektown into the communities and create an integrated urban whole. Elsewhere in Baltimore and other cities, fine old industrial buildings such as the Crown complex just above the Eastern Avenue saddle walls are being renovated for new urban uses. This construction project is a perfect opportunity to promote this.
The potential of the industrial corridor between Highlandtown and Greektown is truly dazzling. The broken unused overgrown railroad tracks that run above Eastern Avenue just east of Haven Street could be made into a rapid transit line that would extend southward from the Amtrak/MARC corridor, providing an extension to the Metro from Hopkins Hospital for easy access to downtown and commuter rail to DC, Fort Meade, Aberdeen, etc. Besides Highlandtown, other stations could be located along this line at Brewers Hill and Canton Crossing. This would be much less expensive and disruptive and far more useful than the MTA’s proposed Red Line being planned amid the narrow congested streets of Southeast Baltimore.
Ed Hale, Bill Streuver and other visionaries are already planning for the future of this corridor, looking beyond the already developed waterfront to the untapped potential of the industrial area. It is time that the City and MTA did as well.

Gerald Neily

Butchers Hill