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September 9 2005
BTA Board Meeting Scheduled for September 28, 2005 The BTA Board of Advisors will meet Wednesday, September 28, 2005 from 8 to 10 AM at GBC's offices, 111 S. Calvert Street. Meetings are open to Board members only.
City, State Confer on Plan to Speed Light Rail Through Downtown Responding to BTA's call for improving the performance of Light Rail through downtown, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and State Transportation Secretary Robert Flanagan recently pledged to work together to implement a new traffic signal timing plan on Howard Street. Neither the city nor state have made this a priority previously, resulting in some of the slowest travel times of any downtown light rail line in the country. Speeding up trains by reducing the number of times they stop for red lights requires the city to update the timing plans used by electronic controllers at each intersection and requires MTA to purchase and install equipment on each train that can "talk to" detectors along the track. Subject to the installation of new intersection controllers by Baltimore City, improved timing plans can be implemented by late 2005 and a fully operational "pre-emption" system can be in place in late 2006.
MTA Misses Labor Day Deadline for Light Rail Re-Opening The battle against rain, rock, and buried high voltage electrical cables has apparently proved too much for MTA's Light Rail double track project schedule. The multi-year project is adding a second track to approximately nine miles of the thirty-mile line. Work was completed last December on the sections between downtown and BWI Airport following a six-month shutdown. Contractors then moved to the area between North Avenue and Hunt Valley, and service was shut down in January with the promise it would be open in time for the State Fair in late August. Instead, fair goers were treated the same shuttle bus service that commuters have been using in the mean time. MTA's new schedule calls for a phased re-opening through the end of the year, perhaps in time for the majority of Ravens games at M&T Bank Stadium.
"Transit Oriented Development" Comes of Age in Baltimore Region Signs abound that local jurisdictions in the Baltimore region are paying special attention to development projects proposed near transit stations. In Baltimore City, dramatic plans to re-make the Westport community as "Harbor West" reflect the proximity of a Light Rail station. Following a week-long brainstorming session earlier this year, state and city planners unveiled a plan for more than 100 acres of publicly-owned land around the State Center Metro and Light Rail stations that includes thousands of new housing units and a half million square feet of regional retail space. A similar effort is in the works for the West Baltimore MARC station which occupies a highly visible parcel between Franklin and Mulberry streets on the west side. Completed or soon to be completed projects include Streuver Bros. Eccles & Rouse's Clipper Mill project; Bank of America's Centerpoint on Howard Street; Quadrangle Development's 221-unit apartment building at Howard and Lombard; and Symphony Center, a mixed use project by David S. Brown and A&R Development. In Baltimore County, Brown and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company broke ground over the summer for a new Metro Center at Owings Mills in the parking lot of the Metro station.
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