Yesterday Governor O'Malley did, what he likes to do most, breaking ground. Literally. Sitting in a backhoe he rammed a hole in the deck of the never completed urban expressway in West Baltimore, the highway to nowhere. For many years ArchPlan has worked with the community to turn this into an area "to somewhere". Now with federal TIGER grants are used to level the unused concrete structures, retaining walls and ramps so that more MARC parking can be built. The real goal, though, is to re-create normal city blocks that can be developed with mixed use and which will nit the community back together and allow transit centered community development.
Ramming a hole in the side of more expressways might be a quality idea!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, re-establishing the street grid is very important to restore connections among people, places, bugs, and bunnies.
Let's hope that the mixed-use development concept blossoms throughout that area, replacing concrete with urbanity.