After moving right up to the (angled) line, Baltimore City is now taking a step back.
Following its announcement that the city had preliminarily approved head-out angle parking on certain streets in Canton, volunteers were set to begin carrying around petitions on blocks that would be affected by changeovers.
Now, the Department of Transportation has decided that it was perhaps not the best idea after all.
According to a memo, the city would “like to take a step back to make sure angled parking in Canton is implemented in a strategic manner with an eye toward sustainable green streets and a reduction in car use.”
Say what?
Basically, it means the city wants to study other street design alternatives — alternatives they say will result in traffic calming and more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly streets.
Of course, the memo doesn’t really explain what the city is going to do about Canton’s already tight parking situation. Many residents who had been told that head-out angle parking would add about 50% more parking spaces to each street, were not altogether pleased to know about the new plan.
A meeting has been scheduled by the Department of Transportation to discuss the issue, according to Canton Community Association president Darryl Jurkiewicz. Jurkiewicz noted that many CCA members had accepted the fact that the implementation of the new angle parking pattern would mean that certain streets would have to be converted to one-way traffic patterns. Now, he adds, this isn’t going to be the case.
“(The city has) asked us to do the North/South streets only that are already one-way: Lakewood, Kenwood and Potomac,” he adds. “They want to do a more comprehensive study of Canton and talk to us about this new concept called ‘Green Streets.’ We will be all ears and I’m sure more than a little perturbed at our next meeting with them.”
The meeting will be held on Thursday, July 15, 6:30 p.m. at the Canton Community Association office in the Broom Factory. The meeting is open to the public.
The text of the memo from city planner Mark R. Brown that went out last week on the Canton list-serv, stated that the city’s Department of Transportation “thinks it’s best to hold off on any angle parking conversion which requires a traffic direction change. This will accomplish two things; it will buy us time to better plan more comprehensive street improvements as part of the upcoming Canton Transportation/Greening Plan, and it will reduce some of the pushback surrounding such large-scale parking/traffic changes.”
According to Brown, “the terms ‘green streets’ and ‘sustainable streets’ are often used interchangeably. These are streets which accommodate all users (walkers, bicyclists, transit, cars) equally, and often act as outdoor living rooms instead of just a conduit for automobiles.”
—by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com
This is a joke. Residents of Canton pay outrageous property taxes, only to come home from work to find there is no place to park their automobiles and go into their homes. The city has turned a deaf ear to this issue for years and the problem has reached crisis proportions…and now it’s about “greening” city streets? The simple solution is permit parking – I can only assume that greedy bar owners prefer that the locals be crowded out of their own neighborhoods so that partiers can park with impunity. I’ll be putting my house on the market within the year if the problem isn’t addressed — and, sadly, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend that anyone buy it.
It just makes me worry when the City is looking out for me. That usualy means that its going to cost me more soon…
Canton does not need “outdoor living rooms”; Canton needs more parking, as do adjacent neighborhoods. Is it possible that the city is reluctant to increase the number of legal, on-street parking spaces because Canton residents are viewed as cash cows? Why else would parking officers troll Canton streets day and night to write tickets? Perhaps it is because Canton residents actually pay parking fines. Jim Kraft has repeatedly stated that Canton and adjacent neighborhoods are short thousands of parking spaces. Reverse angle parking (RAP) would not solve the problem but would at least add hundreds of desperately needed parking spaces. In addition, converting streets to one-way single lanes of traffic increases the safety for walkers, bicyclists, transit vehicles, and automobiles. The successful installation of RAP in Fells Prospect is a example of the city responding to resident needs. I suspect the city’s concerns are more related to the Red Line than “outdoor living rooms”.
The Canton community should be honored to have the city looking out from them. By taking some time and looking at a comprehensive transportation plan, Canton will be able to capitalize on greening, reducing impervious pavement, improving water quality, providing bicycle & pedestrian infrastructure while still getting the additional parking. It’s good to see Baltimore’s Transportation Department doing what cities across the world are doing – thinking beyond the steering wheel.