Give M-TAG a fair chance
As executive secretary of the Maryland Transportation Authority, the agency that oversees Maryland's seven toll facilities, I would like to respond to Gregory Williams' letter to the editor regarding the state's new M-TAG electronic toll-collection system (M-TAG system broke what didn't need fixing," May 20).
Mr. Williams is correct that the transition and testing phases of the new program have caused some additional delays at the toll plazas. The temporary delays have started to subside since April 21 as the first commuters began to use the M-TAG system in staffed toll lanes at the Baltimore-area plazas.
On May 24, Gov. Parris N. Glendening announced the opening of M-TAG dedicated lanes at the Fort McHenry and Baltimore Harbor tunnels and the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The opening of these dedicated lanes which, for the first time in Maryland history, allow customers to proceed through the toll plaza without stopping, will begin to showcase the true value of the M-TAG system.
As more of our 60,000 to 70,000 daily commuters switch from commuter tickets to M-TAG, and we are able to open additional dedicated M-TAG lanes, customers should experience a noticeable time savings during rush hours.
The benefits of M-TAG are numerous. Not only will it save time and enhance convenience for our commuters, it will also reduce overall congestion at the toll plazas and minimize delays for other toll users.
The reduction in traffic congestion and engine-idling time will lead to improved air quality.
Additionally, as part of the E-Z pass InterAgency Group of Northeast Toll Authorities, the Transportation Authority is working to develop a seamless system of electronic toll collection throughout the Northeast.
Once this complex system is in place, our M-TAG customers will be able to travel all the way to Massachusetts and pay the out-of-state tolls electronically using their M-TAG transponders.
Experience in other states has shown that implementing electronic toll collection requires an initial learning period on the part of customers and employees. After this brief transition period, the vast majority of customers overwhelmingly favor the technology.
On behalf of Governor Glendening, Transportation Authority Chairman John D. Porcari and the six citizen members of the Maryland Transportation Authority, I thank our daily commuters, as well as other users of our facilities, for their ongoing patience as our personnel and customers alike become accustomed to the new system.
We believe the public will soon agree that M-TAG has indeed decreased congestion, improved convenience and enhanced air quality at Baltimore's three harbor-crossing facilities.
Thomas L. Osborne, Baltimore
Art in the 20th century eludes simple distinctions
In an otherwise perceptive article ("Art that expresses an age," May 25), Glenn McNatt overlooks the fact that Walter Benjamin's distinction between art mechanically reproduced and more traditional forms, such as painting and sculpture, had little to do with the distinctions we make between good and bad, lasting art or mere entertainment.
As art, ultimately no inherent distinction exists between "Star Wars" and Picasso's "Guernica" -- although the former is merely an entertaining, if immensely popular, film while the latter is a great painting.
Yet both are well-known to the public -- as the reproduction of "Guernica" The Sun ran with Mr. McNatt's article suggests.
The distinction between popular and great art is difficult in a century whose most advanced thinking both in science and art is not generally accessible to most people.
How many people really understand Cubism or, for that matter, Jackson Pollock any better than they do Einstein's Theory of Relativity?
So it's truly rare when a great work of modern art such as the film "Casablanca" bridges the gap and becomes both popular and accessible at the same time. This is, not least, I think, because that film deals with the heroism inherent in all of us.
Yet how many realize that "Barry Lyndon," Stanley Kubrick's decidedly unheroic excursion into the past, is a much finer picture than "Gone With the Wind," a glorified soap opera that expresses little more than the need of a troubled and sentimental age to keep its head buried in the sand?
Like Mr. McNatt, I'd be hard-pressed to argue that art and sculpture or great literature such as James Joyce's "Ulysses" or William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" are any less quintessential to the 20th century than art forms which depend on modern technology for their existence.
Yet, as we have become so inured to the intrusion of techniques of mass persuasion into our daily lives that we now entrust them with much of our political discourse, it is important that we recall Benjamin's famous dictum that "propaganda is the lubricant of totalitarianism."
Jack Eisenberg, Baltimore
Running down Smart Growth
In recent weeks several letter writers have written on Smart Growth, in direct or indirect response to Steven Hayward's Opinion Commentary article ("Smart Growth policy is chock-full of dumb ideas," May 10). Mr. Hayward argued that a growing and increasingly affluent population's preference for the low-density, suburban lifestyle make Smart Growth fatally flawed.
Like Mr. Hayward, my view is that Smart Growth is ultimately doomed because of the way the marketplace functions. A look at the popularity of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) may help explain.
Compared to the sedan, the SUV is more polluting, consumes more of our limited resources, is more life-threatening to others in crashes and more annoying and dangerous when obstructing the view of other drivers and shining headlights into their rearview mirrors.
But SUVs are immensely popular because people want for themselves (and others be damned) a massive and powerful behemoth that provides the best odds of surviving an accident and the best view of the road.
Low-density suburban living has much in common with the SUV. It, too, wastes limited resources, threatens overall quality of life, obstructs our view of diminishing open space and does not promote the common good, but it strongly appeals to many people.
And if families can afford, at least for the time being, an SUV or a big house on a big lot, even with added costs for infrastructure investment, what is going to stop them from exercising their preferences?
It's a perfect example of the market satisfying demand. But look at what that has given us on our roads.
As more and more families accumulate enough wealth to express their preferences, the SUVs and the sprawling developments will proliferate, rolling over our crowded roads and our feeble Smart Growth policies.
But diminishing supplies will eventually have an impact.
Sprawl and SUVs will come under control when gasoline and land approach $10 per gallon and $10 million per acre.
Nelson L. Hyman, Randallstown
Finding charm in older midtown neighborhoods
Bravo to Thomas Waxter Jr. for stating what many of us have known for years: Baltimore is a beautiful city ("April in Paris, May in Baltimore," letters, May 28).
But it's not just in the leafy neighborhoods of north Baltimore, it's in the older mid-town neighborhoods, too.
Nowhere else in this region will you find the quality of housing stock that can be found in neighborhoods like Bolton Hill, Mount Vernon or Charles Village.
We're talking about block upon block of beautiful and affordable houses with hardwood floors, fireplaces, marble steps, 12-foot ceilings, stained glass and substantial interior mouldings all fronted by thick, solid masonry walls of brick or stone or marble.
All of this on blocks punctuated with spectacular churches, stately buildings and parks with monuments to heroes and statesmen.
With the symphony and opera at our doorstep, museums at the other end of the block and the Inner Harbor as our "backyard," we seldom need to venture to the suburbs.
I struggle to imagine the suburbs in 50 years. Will people be "restoring" the drywall, plywood, wall- to-wall carpeted, vinyl- covered boxes on go-nowhere cul-de-sacs? I think not.
Sounds like a job for a bulldozer if you ask me.
Instead, people will continue the restoration of the great mid-town neighborhoods that has been going on for quietly for decades.
With the beautiful architecture, exciting attractions and strong sense of community that they'll find here, they will wonder how they ever survived the "burbs."
Greg Baranoski, Bolton Hill
Getting around in a wink
The Sun has had several recent letters deprecating Baltimore City. I thought I might lend a different perspective.
I remember this city years ago as dark and dismal. Traveling in and around Baltimore was an unpleasant adventure at best. A bus ride in and out meant a sure change of clothes when I got home.
Highways and beltways didn't exist so zigzagging around town by car was time-consuming as one battled traffic jams. Anyone I knew who traveled through Baltimore City never thought of landing there permanently. Culture was at a minimum and tourism a joke.
Forty years later, images of rat-infested wharves and a red-light district that went on for blocks have given way to a renewed city.
Baltimore's concerted effort to renew itself is the principal reason I and other members of my family have chosen to return.
Sure, Baltimore City could use many more parks and playgrounds. Yes, our city school system must renew itself to become a magnet for young families. And, there's no question that Baltimore's crime rate must be brought down and more neighborhoods restored.
Nevertheless, Baltimore's ideal location and future-oriented vision of itself have convinced us that this city is just right for us. Hotels and bed and breakfasts have been popping up all over the city too, so obviously we're not the only ones choosing to come.
In every neighborhood, whether in the city or the outskirts, I'm constantly bumping into "transplants" who have chosen Baltimore over life in huge cities with their outrageous taxes, filth, graffiti and unreal traffic snarls at almost any time of day.
In Baltimore we have found that we can travel to the downtown area and all its attractions in a wink. Art, music and all kinds of culture are here for the asking, with easy access.
Even parking is a non-issue, by comparison with other cities.
And if you hate driving, there's the light rail and the Metro.
Our walking tours with out -of-town guests have elicited "oohs" and "aahs."
Camden Yards, sprouting neighborhoods with innovative architecture in keeping with Baltimore's Federal style, beautiful office buildings and renovated industrial structures have replaced many of the rundown areas of the past.
What a massive change from 40 years ago. I'm sure happy to be back.
Devorah Brooks, Baltimore
Recalling Druid Hill Park's rise from penny tax on railway fares
The Sun's front-page article concerning the Baltimore Zoo's boat lake pavilion touched upon the intriguing history of Druid Hill Park when it mentioned "the 1801 Mansion House, an estate sold to the city in 1860 to form the center of Druid Hill Park" ("Reclaiming an urban refuge," May 31).
A public park in Baltimore was initiated in 1858, when the City Council raised the passenger railway fare from 3 to 4 cents, with the extra penny going to a fund "for the purchase of a park or parks."
Within two years the fund was large enough for Mayor Thomas Swann to appoint four "discrete persons" to choose among eight locations.
The potential sites quickly narrowed to two, each containing the required enclosed structure to serve as a public shelter.
Indications are that William Wyman's acreage at Stony Run (the present site of Johns Hopkins University) was the first choice, but Mr. Wyman refused to include either his own newly built 1853 Italianate villa (which was ultimated leveled by Hopkins for a parking lot) or the historic 1801 Homewood House, built by Charles Carroll of Carrollton for his son, Charles Jr.
Since Lloyd Nicholas Rogers was willing to part with his mansion house on the estate named "Druid Hill," it was his land that the city acquired for its park.
The Sun's article also mentioned "a former exhibition hall built in 1876."
That edifice was originally constructed on the grounds of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park for America's centennial celebration.
After the exposition closed in Nov. 1876, the Maryland House was dismantled and re-erected on its present site in Druid Hill Park. Although little used for a half-century, it was reopened as the museum of the Natural History Society of Maryland on May 3, 1936.
Bennard B. Perlman, Baltimore
Druid Hill Park was my front yard, 1929-1949. From my parents' bedroom window, I could look through winter's bare trees and see if people were skating on the frozen lake. Then off we would go to enjoy this sport.
It would be great to relive this activity. Having just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, my husband and I reminisced about the long walks we took around the boat lake as we were courting (1943-1949).
We're happy to see the renovations and restorations.
Doris Eisenberg Bernhardt, Baltimore
Pub Date: 6/05/99