Revival hope rides on MARC rail stop

The Baltimore Sun

By 6 a.m., the free parking lot at the West Baltimore MARC station is almost full.

The only sounds on the rickety wooden platform: cars whizzing by on U.S. 40, the blare of a police siren and the horn of the incoming train, a cue for the sweep of people that rushes inside.

This is no Penn Station. There are no coffee shops or places to buy a paper, just mounds of trash along the side and a few partial shelters that don't do much good in the rain and snow.

But city and state planners view the threadbare West Baltimore train station as the potential key to unleashing the redevelopment of an area long neglected and decimated by an unfortunate endeavor dubbed "the highway to nowhere."

Located in the 400 block of N. Smallwood St., the station is part of the MARC Penn line. The average daily boardings at the West Baltimore station have nearly doubled since 1997, reaching 653 last year - still just a quarter of those at Penn Station.

Though long overshadowed by commuter train stations at Camden Yards and Penn Station, the West Baltimore MARC station and area appears to be slowly attracting the likes of young, professional former Washington-area residents like 38-year-old Wallace Farmer.

Here he is now, having just walked the few blocks from his large, renovated Harlem Park home, ready for the hourlong commute to Washington.

Ten minutes after Farmer boards the train, Anthony Ogbuokiri slips onto the platform. The 34-year-old former Washington resident bought a house in Midtown Edmondson a year ago.

Next train it's Lianne Thompson-Totty, a 25-year-old newlywed who moved to a neighborhood south of the station after she got married last year. "I wish they would develop this train station, there's nothing here," says Thompson-Totty, as the sun begins to rise.

A few blocks away, Zelda Robinson, a 66-year-old community activist and longtime West Baltimore resident, recalls the last time planners came to them with visions of a transportation plan - and ended up dividing a community.

The "highway to nowhere," they call it now.

The wounds, she says, still sting.

"People have not forgotten what took place when this area was going to be used for that expressway," says Robinson, who lives in Midtown Edmondson and leads the West Baltimore Coalition consisting of representatives from 15 different area neighborhoods.

"A lot of people were displaced for that," she continues. "That road to nowhere sort of divided the communities and it hasn't been the same since."

Built in the 1970s, the city cut through a then-stable swath of predominantly black neighborhoods in West Baltimore to begin a six-lane highway that abruptly ends after less than two miles.

The highway was supposed to connect Interstate 70 to Interstate 95. Now called U.S. 40, the highway stopped short after a few years because of political opposition from wealthier communities.

But the dead-end project resulted in the demolition of hundreds of homes, and the displacement of nearly 3,000 people.

Joyce Smith, now 54, was one. The Franklin Square resident's family was displaced from the 400 block of Gilmor St. during construction of the highway. "I remember people were just so upset," she says. "We were just so dislocated. We didn't have a voice."

Her family was separated from her aunt and grandmother, who lived in the 1600 block of Mulberry St. "It separated our churches, it separated our services, it separated our families," shesays. "The whole sense of community was shattered. It had a devastating effect

"That's why I'm involved now," says Smith, who is executive director of Operation Reach Out Southwest, a coalition of neighborhoods south of the MARC station. "Being involved is the first step in the right direction."

Community

It is a weekday evening, and city and state planners and residents gather in the Edmondson Community Center, the thump of bass from cars driving by filtering into the room.

Paul Morris with PB Placemaking, a consultant hired by the state, cheerfully presents the group with a series of slides titled, "West Baltimore Transit Centered Community Development."

"The emphasis is not only on transit, but on the community," Morris says to an audience that clearly cares more about the latter.

In fact, another official points out, the name of the project was even tweaked to include "community."

When a woman asks about making some of the vast spaces from the highway to nowhere into green space, Morris tells them they can turn their streets into their own version of the Champs-Elysees, the famous boulevard in Paris.

Further slides detail plans such as developing retail businesses, making walking to transit safer and more convenient, and increasing the variety of housing and employment available.

This time around, as officials take the beginning steps of planning, they are being especially cautious and inclusive.

Still, at a weeklong planning workshop in the fall, tensions ran high at the last meeting. Another series of workshops is planned next month.

Even state officials acknowledge a high level of distrust and suspicion, which they're trying to address by being inclusive from the start.

"I think there is a lot of fear," says Don Halligan, assistant director of planning for the Maryland Department of Transportation. "The highway to nowhere is a living example of that. Obviously, they have a reason to be distrustful.

"We need to be extra sensitive, and we're reaching out as broadly as we can," he adds.

The idea behind the project, says Halligan, is to revitalize the community, defined as a half-mile radius around the station. That means physical and social infrastructure improvements, in addition to transit ones, he says.

Another factor to take into account is the possibility that the station could be a stop on the proposed east-west Red Line metro, though the planning process is going forward regardless of that project's fate.

The state intends to compile a set of recommendations with its consultants after the second series of workshops in May, which they'll hand over to the city, says Halligan.

"We're trying to create a partnership to create a better neighborhood, to create a healthy environment around what we feel is a significant transit hub," says Halligan. "We want to build the capacity of the existing neighborhoods. We want to create a better place that increases the accessibility for residents to regional opportunities, whether they're educational, jobs, or housing."

The idea originated with the Baltimore Neighborhood Collaborative, which works on transit-centered community development projects.

"This is an area that has experienced a tremendous amount of disinvestment," says Ann Sherrill, director of the group. "The transit station offers an opportunity to really capitalize on attracting new investment to the area. We're trying to do revitalization in a way that protects and helps the homeowners there."

She points to the Ice House as an opportunity for development. The industrial building was damaged by a fire.

Commuters

The ultimate goal, Sherill says, is to have a mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhood where residents can live together with a high quality of life.

That is starting to happen slowly through people like Farmer, who commutes to the Library of Congress in the District every day. Farmer has attended some of the planning meetings and is excited about participating in his neighborhood's future.

He bought a three-story, 3,000-square-foot renovated house for just $180,000 about a year ago.

"It's huge, it's too much house for me," he says. "The joke is the taxes. It's an empowerment zone, so it's $73 a month in taxes. I don't know why more young people aren't coming into the area."

Farmer's mortgage now is less than what he charges for rent in his one-bedroom condominium in Greenbelt.

"Somebody has to be a front-runner," he says. "Somebody has to say I'm not going to be scared. My neighborhood is so quiet because they're emptying it out, they're cleaning it out."

And his commute isn't too bad. Farmer walks to the MARC station, hops on the one-hour train, and can walk to work from there. The station, he says, is getting more crowded. "You can tell the people who moved from D.C. and other areas," he says. "They talk about it. We talk amongst each other."

Standing at the West Baltimore MARC station early one recent morning, Ogbuokiri, who commutes to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he is a network engineer, says he had never heard of the development plans. "I think that would be a good idea," he says "as long as the constituents are accommodated in the planning and something is done to help these neighborhoods."

For the moment, they are. And pleased to be part of the process.

Robinson and Smith were both at the recent meeting, listening intently to the presentations.

"I'm pleased with the process because at this time community folks have a chance to voice what we want to see in the project," says Smith. "Now if it actually happens, that would be even better, but to even be invited to express your concerns - it's nice."

Robinson agrees. Their part of West Baltimore, she says, has long been overlooked by the city for urban renewal projects.

This is their opportunity, she says, to "really press in and get those things we've been trying to get ... for the benefit of the whole. Not just those who are going to use that MARC train station."

Things like more recreation and parks, employment opportunities and better schools.

Still, she can't help but pose the question, one she says she has posed to planners. "If it weren't for the MARC train station in the area, would they be in here trying to help us do anything?

"I believe the answer is they would not be here," she says. "We would still be an overlooked community, a community that has just been devastated by abandonment."

sumathi.reddy@baltsun.com

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