The red line: What is taking so long?

[Mirage52]

I know this issue has been discussed to death -- but something hit me over the weekend while looking at the 2002 Regional Rail Plan that featured the red line, extended green line and a new light rail line through Greenmount Ave through Towson.

It's been NINE YEARS since that map was released and we have nothing to show for it!

What has happened in the last 9 years? Why are we no closer to breaking ground than we were back then? This is also including a good span of time where the economy was doing well and rail projects were being built all over the rest of the country (LA, Charlotte, etc...).

So why is Baltimore still dragging its feet?

[marcszar]

^ One roadblock is that NIMBYs and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything*) have seized the local conversation and frequently imply that the Red Line would destroy Canton or Edmonson Village or some other neighborhood along the proposed route.

*Except for more parking.

The way we tackle transportation projects these days is so pathetic, and it's actually understandable why NIMBYism took root. The planners of the immediate postwar era wrecked a lot of perfectly good urban neighborhoods with their highways (Baltimore has many examples here), so it's easy to see why this negative memory lingers in the public imagination. (What's to stop the planners from wrecking even more urban neighborhoods with yet another massive surface transportation corridor, like what happened to Howard Street?)

But light rail doesn't need to be obtrusive and unwieldy - just look at any European city or old photos of Baltimore's streets before WWII. The neighborhoods are/were lively, bustling, and enjoyable even with heavy streetcar traffic. I think part of the reason behind the livelihood is that they didn't/don't run insanely long trains down the middle of the street - relatively short single or paired streetcars (trams) are better suited to heavily-trafficked urban streets, and would probably work better in B'more than the long trains the MTA uses now. But they'd also need to boost the frequency of the streetcars to make up for the short lengths (so that they aren't easily overcrowded).

There are other concerns, like finding the money. (Even though we still manage to find the money to build/upgrade highways - and the gas tax provides only a partial and rapidly diminishing portion of the funds; replacing a single highway interchange can easily cost just as much as building a new light rail line.)

[Liam0711]

Well there are numerous reasons, but lets not forget that some progress has been made since 2002. The existing light rail line has been completely double tracked and the overall ridership of transit has increased both locally and nationally. Additionally, the city added the circulators, which if anything gets more and more people open to the idea of using mass transit. Now compared to the grand master plan presented by the MTA in the early 2000s, these may seem like slow steps, but they're steps nonetheless.

Politically and economically, the last decade has not been very kind towards the idea of transit expansion. Much of the state's transportation trust fund has been either used towards the 2.6 Billion dollar ICC (which should be fully complete by the end of the year) or plugging holes in the states seemingly annual budget deficits. By the time the nation elected a President who actually supports the notion of mass transit and high speed rail, the global economy crashed in a manner of severity not seen since the Great Depression. All of these things and more contribute to the fact that Baltimore has not witnessed major mass transit expansion since the 1990s. The scene on Capitol Hill is one of frustration. The country is way too divided at this point to rationally choose a route for the nation and its urban areas.

A best case scenario is as follows:

Congress solves the budget crises without completely hacking federal transportation funding. This would allow for the State of Maryland to strike a deal with the federal government where the cost of the Red Line is split evenly between the state and the feds. Secondly, the State of Maryland solves its own budget crisis without completely raiding the transportation trust fund that is used to pay for transportation upgrades and maintenance. Third, political leadership that backs the funding and expansion of mass transit must remain in charge. (Yes, that means Democrats. I wish that Republicans overwhelmingly backed rail transit but that's just not the case in present times.) A lot of what happens in the 2012 election will determine the outcome of the Red Line. An election similar to 2010, where the Republicans seize more control of the legislature, and possibly the Presidency, will not be good for the prospects of the Red Line breaking ground in the next few years. Lastly, and most importantly, the economic recovery must continue and sustain itself for a good bit so that sufficient revenue returns to government budgets and more demand for adequate transportation takes place. Now, if all of this goes to plan, I think its possible that we could see shovels hit the ground for the Red Line in either 2013 or 2014. Again, in my mind this is a BEST case scenario. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

[Mirage52]

Originally Posted by Liam0711

Well there are numerous reasons, but lets not forget that some progress has been made since 2002. The existing light rail line has been completely double tracked and the overall ridership of transit has increased both locally and nationally. Additionally, the city added the circulators, which if anything gets more and more people open to the idea of using mass transit. Now compared to the grand master plan presented by the MTA in the early 2000s, these may seem like slow steps, but they're steps nonetheless.

True. Don't forget the Quick Bus routes which were created under Ehrlich's admin, which were also nice steps in the right direction.

Originally Posted by Liam0711

Politically and economically, the last decade has not been very kind towards the idea of transit expansion. Much of the state's transportation trust fund has been either used towards the 2.6 Billion dollar ICC (which should be fully complete by the end of the year) or plugging holes in the states seemingly annual budget deficits. By the time the nation elected a President who actually supports the notion of mass transit and high speed rail, the global economy crashed in a manner of severity not seen since the Great Depression. All of these things and more contribute to the fact that Baltimore has not witnessed major mass transit expansion since the 1990s. The scene on Capitol Hill is one of frustration. The country is way too divided at this point to rationally choose a route for the nation and its urban areas.

A best case scenario is as follows:

Congress solves the budget crises without completely hacking federal transportation funding. This would allow for the State of Maryland to strike a deal with the federal government where the cost of the Red Line is split evenly between the state and the feds. Secondly, the State of Maryland solves its own budget crisis without completely raiding the transportation trust fund that is used to pay for transportation upgrades and maintenance. Third, political leadership that backs the funding and expansion of mass transit must remain in charge. (Yes, that means Democrats. I wish that Republicans overwhelmingly backed rail transit but that's just not the case in present times.) A lot of what happens in the 2012 election will determine the outcome of the Red Line. An election similar to 2010, where the Republicans seize more control of the legislature, and possibly the Presidency, will not be good for the prospects of the Red Line breaking ground in the next few years. Lastly, and most importantly, the economic recovery must continue and sustain itself for a good bit so that sufficient revenue returns to government budgets and more demand for adequate transportation takes place. Now, if all of this goes to plan, I think its possible that we could see shovels hit the ground for the Red Line in either 2013 or 2014. Again, in my mind this is a BEST case scenario. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

I think it depends on what happens in the White House with the next election. If Obama is re-elected, I can see the red line making headway. If not, then I think all of the rail projects that Obama wants are going to die like they have in states where a republican is the governor.

I also don't see the big divide in this country going away any time soon. No matter what happens in the next election, the losers are only going to get more angry and nasty in their attacks of the other side.

It's just a shame that something like mass transit has become a political issue.

[LtBk]

Baltimore is a transit black hole in comparsion to most of older cities, and will remain so as newer cities like Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles builds mass transit that is superior to ours in next 10 or so years. If Baltimore doesn't want mass transit, than so be it.

[uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn]

Originally Posted by LtBk

Baltimore is a transit black hole in comparsion to most of older cities, and will remain so as newer cities like Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles builds mass transit that is superior to ours in next 10 or so years. If Baltimore doesn't want mass transit, than so be it.

May as well say that Baltimore is a Black Hole for Highways and Transit and the last I checked Denver, Seattle, and LA not only have a great Transit System but also a Healthy East-West and North-South Interstate Highway System......

[smokeybandit]

Originally Posted by marcszar

^ One roadblock is that NIMBYs and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything*) have seized the local conversation and frequently imply that the Red Line would destroy Canton or Edmonson Village or some other neighborhood along the proposed route.

*Except for more parking.

The way we tackle transportation projects these days is so pathetic, and it's actually understandable why NIMBYism took root. The planners of the immediate postwar era wrecked a lot of perfectly good urban neighborhoods with their highways (Baltimore has many examples here), so it's easy to see why this negative memory lingers in the public imagination. (What's to stop the planners from wrecking even more urban neighborhoods with yet another massive surface transportation corridor, like what happened to Howard Street?)

NIMBYism is a good reason why I70 doesn't connect to I95 like it was originally supposed to. Ironically that's why the Metro DOES go to Owings Mills, too, as a response to the highway project being canned.

[marcszar]

Originally Posted by smokeybandit

NIMBYism is a good reason why I70 doesn't connect to I95 like it was originally supposed to. Ironically that's why the Metro DOES go to Owings Mills, too, as a response to the highway project being canned.

Yes, but I think it ultimately was a good thing that highway wasn't completed. Many people argue that the completion of these canceled highway projects would have economically strengthened downtown Baltimore's commercial and residential neighborhoods. But highways, at least those in the US, tend to drain economic activity and street vitality from the central cities. They provide many benefits to suburban commuters and visitors (ease of access) but they don't provide any benefits in reverse - i.e. - benefits to the city dwellers who see their neighborhoods fragmented by the highways.

Atlanta, LA, Detroit, Hartford, and scores of other small, medium, and large cities from the Sunbelt to the Midwest have fantastic highway access, but their downtowns are dead, desolate, and uninviting for the most part. (Detroit is a great example - there is superb highway access to every part of the city, but this hardly helped improve Detroit's neighborhoods, rather the highways bisected them and emptied them out.) Improved highway access only deadens downtowns, it rarely strengthens or revitalizes them.

New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and an increasing number of other cities have removed many of the highways from their downtown cores or converted them to boulevards, and far from deadening their downtowns, the removal of the highways only enlivened those cities further.

I can only imagine how Baltimore would probably be even more desolate if all those postwar highway projects were completed - large swathes of Canton, Fell's Point, Federal Hill, Otterbein (B'more's oldest, most attractive, priciest neighborhoods) would have been demolished. The waterfront would have been a desolate wasteland walled off from the surrounding neighborhoods by what would have essentially been a concrete fence. And even if the highways had been elevated (allowing people to walk under them), the waterfront would still be dead because the psychological barrier would still be there - people avoid places that look desolate and empty, and concrete highway overpasses don't help. This is why the area around San Francisco's Ferry Building was a desolate, abandoned wasteland until the elevated Embarcadero Freeway was destroyed and demolished, even though you could always walk under it. This is also why gentrification stubbornly refuses to spread eastward from Mount Vernon and Midtown-Belvedere over the JFX to the convenient neighborhoods immediately to the east - even though you can walk over or under the JFX (depending where you are), it forms a barrier that is too desolate to cross. I think this is also why B'more's waterfront neighborhoods ultimately did gentrify in the 80s and 90s - since the JFX turns into President Street in Little Italy/Harbor East, there was no desolate barrier dividing the downtown from the waterfront residential neighborhoods, so they all stitched together into a highly desirable, unified district.

People have also made the ridiculous claim that the disintegrating neighborhoods surrounding the "Highway to Nowhere" would have been better off if the highway had been completed as planned. I always found this argument specious - these neighborhoods are practically adjacent to the downtown CBD, so a completed highway wouldn't have made them any more attractive to gentrifiers who work downtown (commuters from these neighborhoods wouldn't even need to use the highway to go downtown since it is already so close). Only commuters from the suburbs would have benefited. These neighborhoods would have been just as decrepit if the highway had been completed - there still would be the desolate physical barrier ripping them apart. If you look at a satellite image of the Highway to Nowhere, you can literally see a "gangrene" spreading out from the highway - the blocks closest to the highway are the most desolate/fragmented/pockmarked and they improve gradually as you move further away from it.

Unfortunately, it looks like the MTA stupidly wants to maintain this physical barrier by running the Red Line down it - this wouldn't improve the surrounding neighborhoods one bit. This strategy is like building the typical suburban transit station surrounded by acres of parking lots - there never is a chance for a commercial/residential "TOD" node to grow around the transit station because there is a physical barrier separating the station from all the surrounding communities. I think the sunken Highway to Nowhere should be completely filled in and the Red Line and infill rowhouses built on top - they could always build a concrete tunnel underneath in case there are future plans to extend a subway line there.

Originally Posted by LtBk

Baltimore is a transit black hole in comparison to most of older cities, and will remain so as newer cities like Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles builds mass transit that is superior to ours in next 10 or so years. If Baltimore doesn't want mass transit, than so be it.

Yeah, but Baltimore also tends to be a lot more walkable than these other cities. LA is sprawled out, so you really need to have some light rail to traverse the vast distances between the neighborhoods (Even the traffic engineers realized it was pointless building more highways in LA - they only induced more traffic - so now transit is the only practical way to move forward). Denver has your typical blank-walled downtown filled with superblocks, and, apart from some recent New Urbanist condo construction, it still is composed mainly of dispersed houses. Seattle has a nice downtown and the immediate neighborhoods surrounding it are pretty compact, but once you get out of this small, dense ring, the city sprawls out with dispersed housing too.

Compared to these cities, Baltimore has a really compact urban fabric that is a lot more conducive to walking around, which reduces the need for a sprawling transit network. Course, I still think the city needs a MUCH better integrated transit system, and I think it would be used quite frequently because of Baltimore's compact, walkable urban fabric. After all, Baltimore is already 6th on the list of US cities with the highest percentage of carfree households, though the main reason behind this is probably that many people can't afford a car. 36% of B'more's households don't have a car, compared to 16% for Seattle and 17% for LA (Denver doesn't even make the list).

[oneworld25]

Originally Posted by marcszar

Yes, but I think it ultimately was a good thing that highway wasn't completed. Many people argue that the completion of these canceled highway projects would have economically strengthened downtown Baltimore's commercial and residential neighborhoods. But highways, at least those in the US, tend to drain economic activity and street vitality from the central cities. They provide many benefits to suburban commuters and visitors (ease of access) but they don't provide any benefits in reverse - i.e. - benefits to the city dwellers who see their neighborhoods fragmented by the highways.

Atlanta, LA, Detroit, Hartford, and scores of other small, medium, and large cities from the Sunbelt to the Midwest have fantastic highway access, but their downtowns are dead, desolate, and uninviting for the most part. (Detroit is a great example - there is superb highway access to every part of the city, but this hardly helped improve Detroit's neighborhoods, rather the highways bisected them and emptied them out.) Improved highway access only deadens downtowns, it rarely strengthens or revitalizes them.

New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and an increasing number of other cities have removed many of the highways from their downtown cores or converted them to boulevards, and far from deadening their downtowns, the removal of the highways only enlivened those cities further.

I can only imagine how Baltimore would probably be even more desolate if all those postwar highway projects were completed - large swathes of Canton, Fell's Point, Federal Hill, Otterbein (B'more's oldest, most attractive, priciest neighborhoods) would have been demolished. The waterfront would have been a desolate wasteland walled off from the surrounding neighborhoods by what would have essentially been a concrete fence. And even if the highways had been elevated (allowing people to walk under them), the waterfront would still be dead because the psychological barrier would still be there - people avoid places that look desolate and empty, and concrete highway overpasses don't help. This is why the area around San Francisco's Ferry Building was a desolate, abandoned wasteland until the elevated Embarcadero Freeway was destroyed and demolished, even though you could always walk under it. This is also why gentrification stubbornly refuses to spread eastward from Mount Vernon and Midtown-Belvedere over the JFX to the convenient neighborhoods immediately to the east - even though you can walk over or under the JFX (depending where you are), it forms a barrier that is too desolate to cross. I think this is also why B'more's waterfront neighborhoods ultimately did gentrify in the 80s and 90s - since the JFX turns into President Street in Little Italy/Harbor East, there was no desolate barrier dividing the downtown from the waterfront residential neighborhoods, so they all stitched together into a highly desirable, unified district.

People have also made the ridiculous claim that the disintegrating neighborhoods surrounding the "Highway to Nowhere" would have been better off if the highway had been completed as planned. I always found this argument specious - these neighborhoods are practically adjacent to the downtown CBD, so a completed highway wouldn't have made them any more attractive to gentrifiers who work downtown (commuters from these neighborhoods wouldn't even need to use the highway to go downtown since it is already so close). Only commuters from the suburbs would have benefited. These neighborhoods would have been just as decrepit if the highway had been completed - there still would be the desolate physical barrier ripping them apart. If you look at a satellite image of the Highway to Nowhere, you can literally see a "gangrene" spreading out from the highway - the blocks closest to the highway are the most desolate/fragmented/pockmarked and they improve gradually as you move further away from it.

Unfortunately, it looks like the MTA stupidly wants to maintain this physical barrier by running the Red Line down it - this wouldn't improve the surrounding neighborhoods one bit. This strategy is like building the typical suburban transit station surrounded by acres of parking lots - there never is a chance for a commercial/residential "TOD" node to grow around the transit station because there is a physical barrier separating the station from all the surrounding communities. I think the sunken Highway to Nowhere should be completely filled in and the Red Line and infill rowhouses built on top - they could always build a concrete tunnel underneath in case there are future plans to extend a subway line there.


Yeah, but Baltimore also tends to be a lot more walkable than these other cities. LA is sprawled out, so you really need to have some light rail to traverse the vast distances between the neighborhoods (Even the traffic engineers realized it was pointless building more highways in LA - they only induced more traffic - so now transit is the only practical way to move forward). Denver has your typical blank-walled downtown filled with superblocks, and, apart from some recent New Urbanist condo construction, it still is composed mainly of dispersed houses. Seattle has a nice downtown and the immediate neighborhoods surrounding it are pretty compact, but once you get out of this small, dense ring, the city sprawls out with dispersed housing too.

Compared to these cities, Baltimore has a really compact urban fabric that is a lot more conducive to walking around, which reduces the need for a sprawling transit network. Course, I still think the city needs a MUCH better integrated transit system, and I think it would be used quite frequently because of Baltimore's compact, walkable urban fabric. After all, Baltimore is already 6th on the list of US cities with the highest percentage of carfree households, though the main reason behind this is probably that many people can't afford a car. 36% of B'more's households don't have a car, compared to 16% for Seattle and 17% for LA (Denver doesn't even make the list).

Very excellent post. I think a lot of the reasons people think Baltimore would be better off had I 170 been completed has to do with race and class. Essentially people feel that since those neighborhoods are mostly black and working to lower-class neighborhoods, they are somehow expendable.

You also mention some issues with the Red Line going down the highway to nowhere. You might want to take a look at the Baltimorphosis website which proposes redeveloping the ditch. I've posted a picture of this proposal at the bottom.

www.baltimorphosis.com

[uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn]

Originally Posted by oneworld25

Very excellent post. I think a lot of the reasons people think Baltimore would be better off had I 170 been completed has to do with race and class. Essentially people feel that since those neighborhoods are mostly black and working to lower-class neighborhoods, they are somehow expendable.

Wow that it is very strange, because West Baltimore have some of the worst Neighborhoods(Crime and Corruption) in the Nation....

If I-70 would have been built there would have been more options to redevelop the neighborhoods in West Baltimore whether you want to admit the reality or not...

And you missed me with the Race/Class BS because I-66 in Arlington, Virginia runs right through some of the most heavily populated Middle Class Multi-Racial(Mostly Caucasian) Communities...............

[uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn]

Originally Posted by marcszar

Yes, but I think it ultimately was a good thing that highway wasn't completed. Many people argue that the completion of these canceled highway projects would have economically strengthened downtown Baltimore's commercial and residential neighborhoods. But highways, at least those in the US, tend to drain economic activity and street vitality from the central cities. They provide many benefits to suburban commuters and visitors (ease of access) but they don't provide any benefits in reverse - i.e. - benefits to the city dwellers who see their neighborhoods fragmented by the highways.

Not true at All......

And I have information to prove that it is not true.....

[marcszar]

Originally Posted by uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn

Not true at all......
And I have information to prove that it is not true.....

Well, go ahead and prove it. Just be aware that if you're going to post info from Joel Kotkin, Randal O'Toole, or someone similar, you'll just be posting specious, misleading econometrics.

You may disagree, but most planners and 60+ years of observation have shown us that highways fuel dispersion of all kinds - residential, commercial, whatever. I'm not arguing that this means they're "evil," but that this is the fundamental nature of highways. Even Kotkin and O'Toole would agree - they argue that this dispersal/dispersion is a good thing, and a lot of other people would do the same.

If you want to argue that economic and commercial growth in the suburbs is more important than growth in the central cities, that's fine - that's what plenty of people promoting highways already argue. But you can't argue that highways promote urban densification and residential/commercial concentration in urban cores - practically every planner and urban designer will disagree with you. And the postwar history of virtually every city in America proves the dispersive nature of highways too - how else would people have been able to flee into the suburbs if there had been no highways leading out of the cities?

Just take a look at the "booming" sunbelt cities - the common knowledge is that they've been growing phenomenally since the 1960s, right? And they all have great highway access, right? Well, take a look at their populations. The number of residents and businesses in the city proper of many sunbelt cities has FALLEN or stagnated, not risen:


City: 1960 pop. (pre-highways); 2000 pop.
Atlanta: 487,455; 416,474
Birmingham: 340,887; 242,840
Louisville: 390,639, 256,231
etc., etc., etc.

The booming growth has actually taken place in their suburbs and "edge cities," not in their downtowns. Even those sunbelt cities who have seen their downtown populations grow* (such as many cities in Texas), that growth has been far outstripped by the growth in their surrounding suburbs. This growth took place in those fringe areas precisely because of the highways - before 1950, the growth in these cities took place in the downtowns because there were no highways providing access to cheap rural land on the fringes of town.

*Also keep in mind that in many cases, the city proper populations appear to have grown not necessarily because more people actually moved into the cities, but rather because these cities have continued to annex their outlying suburbs into the city proper. This is another reason why highway-friendly southern cities are "growing" - northern cities haven't annexed their suburbs since the 1920s, while southern cities continue to annex them today. Just look at the boundaries and land area of northern cities and compare them to the boundaries and land area of southern cities - northern city boundaries tend to be uniform and easy to follow, and their land areas are relatively small, while southern city boundaries tend to be wild, irregular, and sprawl in every direction, and their land areas tend to be huge, since these cities are eager to annex every scrap of outlying land.

[scando]

Originally Posted by marcszar

.....Compared to these cities, Baltimore has a really compact urban fabric that is a lot more conducive to walking around, which reduces the need for a sprawling transit network. Course, I still think the city needs a MUCH better integrated transit system, and I think it would be used quite frequently because of Baltimore's compact, walkable urban fabric. After all, Baltimore is already 6th on the list of US cities with the highest percentage of carfree households, though the main reason behind this is probably that many people can't afford a car. 36% of B'more's households don't have a car, compared to 16% for Seattle and 17% for LA (Denver doesn't even make the list).....

It would be interesting, however, to look at how income influences the stats on carfree households. I'd bet that compared to Seattle, Baltimore's carfree households would be better described as car-unable-to-afford households rather than living-in-the-city-without-a-car households. Unfortunately the MTA is the transportation mode for lower income people. I'm one of the few middle class people that I see on the MTA and believe me, riding in DC is a completely different experience. In DC, people are well dressed, going to jobs, etc whereas in Baltimore, the MTA is a venue for drug sales, a place to sleep and get out of the rain, etc. All that influences the likelihood that we will get anything big because the people that influence those decisions won't get on the MTA if their lives depend on it. I don't have much hope for this changing, but maybe I'm too pessimistic.

[Mirage52]

Originally Posted by scando

It would be interesting, however, to look at how income influences the stats on carfree households. I'd bet that compared to Seattle, Baltimore's carfree households would be better described as car-unable-to-afford households rather than living-in-the-city-without-a-car households. Unfortunately the MTA is the transportation mode for lower income people. I'm one of the few middle class people that I see on the MTA and believe me, riding in DC is a completely different experience. In DC, people are well dressed, going to jobs, etc whereas in Baltimore, the MTA is a venue for drug sales, a place to sleep and get out of the rain, etc. All that influences the likelihood that we will get anything big because the people that influence those decisions won't get on the MTA if their lives depend on it. I don't have much hope for this changing, but maybe I'm too pessimistic.

So no one uses the MTA to get to work?

And have you heard about all the attacks and beatings going on in DC metro stations over the last few months?

[uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn]

Originally Posted by marcszar

^ One roadblock is that NIMBYs and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything*) have seized the local conversation and frequently imply that the Red Line would destroy Canton or Edmonson Village or some other neighborhood along the proposed route.

Sounds like Karma for what the "BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything*)" did for I-70 in West Baltimore back in the 1970's......

[scando]

Oops...mistaken post.

[oneworld25]

You can read all about the planning behind the subway at the following link.

http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Baltimore_Metro.html

Here's the (fixed) link to the article I was talking about.

http://baltimoreinnerspace.blogspot....ine-would.html

[pepperjack]

Someday we'll be able take the metro to Frendship Int. Airport. Someday...

[uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn]

Originally Posted by pepperjack

Someday we'll be able take the metro to Frendship Int. Airport. Someday...

Speaking of Airports it would be nice if Maryland can build two or more Airports that have Air Flight Connects to All of the US Major Cities and International Cities.....

If I am not mistaken the Hampton Roads aka 7 Cities have two Major Airports I would think Baltimore can handle two Major Airports....

[Tricia_Lvs_Baltimore]

Originally Posted by uptn1bx2hrlm5blyn

Speaking of Airports it would be nice if Maryland can build two or more Airports that have Air Flight Connects to All of the US Major Cities and International Cities.....

If I am not mistaken the Hampton Roads aka 7 Cities have two Major Airports I would think Baltimore can handle two Major Airports....

This is news to me! Hampton Roads has two major airports with only 1.7 million people in their metropolitan area? Something is wrong with this picture LOL.