Operation Orange Cone Blog

Southeast Baltimore Complete Streets Plan Draft

The Southeast Complete Streets Plan is a long range guide to improve the safety, livability and aesthetics of city streets while accomodating all transportation modes .  The plan will serve as a complete streets educational document, a toolkit for neighborhoods to use to create their own complete streets designs, and a sustainable infrastructure improvement guide for Southeast Baltimore.

The following issues are addressed in the plan:

• Green Streets/Beautification – Where can we add trees and new planting areas? How can we make our streets more attractive to encourage new residents and businesses to invest in our communities?
• Traffic Calming –Which neighborhood roads act as high speed through routes? How can we slow cars down while meeting other complete streets goals?
• Parking – In what neighborhoods do parking shortages affect resident’s quality of life? What are the ways we can increase parking while reducing the need to drive or own a car? How can we integrate angle parking into complete street designs?
• Outdoor spaces/Shared spaces – Are there opportunities for small “pocket parks” on neighborhood streets? Where can we encourage the sharing of space between automobiles, cyclists and pedestrians? How can we get more “eyes on the street” and create lively, safer neighborhoods?
• Urban Greenway/Way finding – How can we better connect the major community assets of Southeast Baltimore through a consistent network of walking routes?

A draft of the plan can be downloaded here:

http://www.orangeconeproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Southeast-Baltimore-Complete-Streets-Guide-public-draft.pdf

We encourage public comments and participation, and would like to hear your thoughts about the plan. Questions and comments should be directed to Mark R. Brown, City Planner II (mark.brown@baltimorecity.gov).

Southeast Complete Streets Plan Workshop #2

Thanks to everyone who attended our second Southeast Complete Streets workgroup session on January 10th. As this meeting was dedicated to parking issues, angle parking conversions, the Residential Parking Permit program, and Zipcar were discussed in detail. In summary:

• Zipcar is looking to expand east into Fells Point and beyond. Contact Tiffany James (tiffany.james@baltimorecity.gov) for more information. Studies show each shared vehicle can take 15+ cars off the street. This means a reduction in parking demand and less time spent looking for spaces.
• Residential Parking Permit applications and information can be found here.
• We are selecting candidate streets for angle parking conversions which:
  ~Are already one way
  ~Not on a truck route
  ~Not on an MTA bus route
  ~Wide enough to accomodate angle parking (min 38′)

Based on the comments we’ve received so far, BCDOT be identifying and narrowing down a selection of existing one-way streets for angle parking conversion within the next week. A map of our candidate streets will then be made available to the public for discussion and review by communities throughout southeast Baltimore.

Here are the base maps distributed during the workshop. If you have additional questions about the SE Complete Streets Plan contact Mark R. Brown (mark.brown@baltimorecity.gov) or Tia Waddy (tia.waddy@baltimorecity.gov).

First Workgroup Meeting For The Southeast Complete Streets Plan

Thanks to everyone who attended our first workshop for the Southeast Baltimore Complete Streets Plan. Here is the powerpoint from the meeting.

One thing we didn’t get a chance to talk about last night is the concept of “shared spaces”. You saw a bit of this in the examples I showed from Broadway Ave. in NYC – delineations between pedestrian spaces and traffic lanes are minimized – sometimes these spaces are even merged together, encouraging street life while slowing down traffic. Examples of these designs can be found in the UK at:

http://www.shared-space.org/

A presentation about these concepts can be found here.

While not all of these concepts can be applied to Baltimore, I do want to encourage the workgroup to think creatively about how to encourage more street life. There are several retail corridors in our project area which could be good candidates for certain “shared space” design features.

Our next meeting is on January 10th – 6:30pm at the Highlandtown branch of the Enoch Pratt Library. This meeting will be dedicated to parking issues. In the mean time, please share last night’s presentation with your neighbors and community associations.

Southeast Complete Streets Website Moved

We’ve moved the Southeast Complete Streets posts from Posterous to the DOT’s Official Blog, Operation Orange Cone. You can read all of the current project posts at secompletestreets.orangeconeproject.com. Please direct all of your comments to this site.

Please tell your neighbors about this site so we can have more community input on the plan.

Thanks much!

Butchers Hill Master Plan

Neighborhood Design Center and the Butchers Hill community did a great job with the Butchers Hill Master Plan. I’m posting the link here because the transportation section shows some stormwater treatment ideas, bumpout/traffic calming designs and angle parking possibilities which may be applied to the entire southeast section of the city.