Baltimore?s proposed Red Line transit system would destroy the historic character of downtown, Fells Point and Canton neighborhoods, critics said.
Many of the 300 residents who turned out at the Baltimore Convention Center on Saturday for a meeting about the 12-mile line ? pitched by city officials as vital to Baltimore?s future ? said it needs to move underground to win their support.
“We don?t want a train rumbling through the neighborhood on the street,” Fells Point resident Anne Gummerson said. “And we don?t want the congestion it might cause either.”
City officials hope construction starts by 2010, and the state transportation planners are considering numerous options, including burying part of the line and running part of it above ground.
The line would go from Woodlawn through Fells Point and Canton to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The city has secured $236 million in state and federal funding for the design phase. But total costs are estimated to be $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion, with the bulk financed by a federal mass-transit subsidy program called New Starts.
Sources close to the project said it faces stiff competition from other transportation initiatives, including Montgomery County?s Purple Line rail system in the Washington metro area.
The Red Line has been a priority of Mayor Sheila Dixon?s administration, which appointed a special “Red Line coordinator” in March.
Advocates for transit riders Saturday cited flaws in the proposed Red Line route, including gaps to the existing light rail and the added construction costs of digging new tunnels.
“Our proposal would use existing tunnels, so it will cost less,” said Ed Cohen, executive director of the Transit Riders Action Council.
Cohen?s organization is backing a north-to-south heavy rail line from West View to Camden Yards, then north up the St. Paul Corridor to Johns Hopkins University, a proposal state transit officials in March deemed too costly.
Cohen said his line would attract about 43,000 riders, more than the east-to-west line running from Security Square to Bayview Medical Center favored by state transit officials.
