Donald C. Fry is the President of the Greater Baltimore Committee. He is a resident of Harford County and he holds no elected political office in the region. When a controversial Baltimore City issue like the Red Line is brought up his opinion is always mentioned prominently by the media. Mr. Fry has not been elected by the citizens of Baltimore to represent them though. He is in charge of the GBC:

It goes onto point out that what is best for the fat cats of the GBC isn’t always in the best interest of the citizens.

The Red Line is a prime example of this. The Baltimore Sun blindly listed the people who support the Red Line Alternative 4C that the governor supports:
“But the governor’s choice is the clear favorite of Baltimore business and political heavyweights. Among those joining O’Malley at the Red Line announcement were U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Greater Baltimore Committee President Donald C. Fry and representatives of Mayor Sheila Dixon and Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith.”

Why is Donald Fry even mentioned i the same paragraph as our elected officials? Is he king of Baltimore?

The story also details Mr. Fry’s more than $8,000 in donations to key politicians and summarirzes:

Do not be fooled by the so-called big names and big organizations who say that light rail is the best solution to the Red Line dilemma and that people who are against this plan are only NIMBY’s.   TRAC [Transit Riders Action Committee] has proven on numerous occasions through well thought out logic that Heavy Rail is the only logical solution.   All the plans presented by all the so-called big names and groups are nothing more than development schemes designed to enrich a few.

Read the complete story here.

It seems our correspondants know what they are talking about, engineering degrees or no. We know this because their observations are supported by a blog post from Gerald Neily a former Transportation Planner for the Baltimore City, who participated in the planning of the Red Line, which, “follows a long tradition of inefficiency and well-known problems,” reads the blog.

You can read all of the reasons that a credentialed former planner with intimate knowledge of the project thinks the Red Line is a bad idea on Baltimore’s Indypendant Reader.

You can read more about the Red Line from Gerald Neily at Baltimore Brew.

Did they fudge it?

MTA uses math tricks to fudge the federal formula.

Governor O’Malley completed the state’s expected pantomime Tuesday, choosing the $1.6 billion-plus Red Line Alternative 4C as the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA). It was chosen partially because it’s the most “viable,” meaning that it’s closest to meeting preferred cost standards for Federal money. Their numbers have improved 24% since than the last time the project was formally evaluated.

But you have to wonder – what did the MTA do to 4C to approach that preferred standard?

One way was to cut corners on the project. Making a single-track “Death Trap tunnel” under Cooks Lane is reckoned to save perhaps $70 million. But single tracking is an option the MTA rejected before because it causes, in their own words, “Longer travel times – this is due to the need to wait for trains in the opposing direction; Less frequent service – resulting in a less convenient, attractive service; Lower passenger capacity due to less frequent service, not allowing for future ridership growth, and overall operational and maintenance flexibility.”

What all that means is that the system is less reliable and slower. The end-to-end travel time has now increased to a sluggish 44 minutes, an average speed of 19mph.

Another way is to make the numbers is to cook the books. One way to reduce the cost per rider is to increase the estimated number of riders, which is exactly what the MTA has done.

The MTA Deputy Administrator Henry Kay claimed the mathematical model for determining the number of riders had been refined. Had it ever. Suddenly ridership estimates increased from 42,190 to 54,000, a jump up of 28 percent. To date, the MTA has offered no explanation for this sudden rush of commuters.

Finally, you can rig the numbers by underestimating the costs. Two years ago the estimated cost of the Red Line was $1.8 to $2 billion. Then, after so called refinement of the mathematical model, estimates were lowered to $1.6 billion. Now, after making cuts and adjustments the cost is still $1.6 billion. How reliable can any of these numbers be?

Of course, there is also an option of actually cutting costs in a sensible way, and there are some real opportunities there. For instance, there are to be stations at both Harbor East and Fells point, a literal 5-minute walk apart.

Combing those two stations at a mid point would make sense and save at least $50 million, provided developers can do without doorstep service.

Instead, the MTA eliminated the unwanted SSA West Station, a good move, but a comparatively small savings. It also cut the University of Maryland’s underground station.

The fact is this system design has too little to do with transit, and too much to do with politics. It is designed to benefit potential development on anointed turf – at the expense of the pioneering homeowners who reclaimed the neighborhoods and made them worthy of anointing.

The silver lining for proponents of sensible mass transit may be that may be that these ridiculous changes to “4C” make it easy for Federal Agencies to see that they are being gamed. That this project as presented can’t be the success that the state claims. For more technical details on the MTA’s Double Take on Single Track and how they fudged the numbers, check out this article at Maryland Politics Watch.

Then Baltimore might be able to put forth a real project—a well-connected, fast rail system, operating in an exclusive right-of-way with minimal harm to traffic and the neighborhoods that make Baltimore great.

The very organization that is pushing the death trap single track tunnel for the Red Line had rejected single track (without a tunnel, mind you) for the Purple line because it makes the trains slower, causes longer waits between trains, they can carry fewer passengers, it restricts future growth, and makes the rail system harder to maintain. Their words!

How can it be so bad for one rail line and yet the right solution for a nearly identical line?

All of the details and an in-depth summary (and PDF files of the MTA’s case against single tracking) can be found at Maryland Politics Watch. it’s a juicy read.

Jon Hyman, Canton resident, and other members of the Canton and Edmondson communities protest the surface rail portions of the proposed Red Line at Tuesday announcement. Photo – The Daily Record.

Press Release [pdf]: Governor O’Malley’s support for a surface train line through Baltimore neighborhoods was loudly shouted down by Baltimore residents at his Tuesday Press Event held at the West Baltimore MARC station.

“The Governor has ignored our concerns about this project, if this is the only way to get him to hear us, this is what we will have to do,” said Jon Hyman, a member of the West-East Coalition, a volunteer citizen group supporting a properly designed mass transit system.

In his speech, the Governor spoke of jobs and Federal money the project would bring, but failed to mention that $1 billion would have to come from the state itself.

Congressman Elijah Cummings also proudly proclaimed that no one would have to be relocated from their homes for the project, but did not mention that it would cause roads to encroach closer to the homes people are staying in, that a network of wires would appear overhead, or that it would prevent people from taking direct routes to their homes because left turns will be prohibited.

To try to get costs down low enough to qualify for the federal funds the project has cut corners, including a proposal for a “death trap tunnel,” that would accommodate high speed two-way traffic on a single set of rails. It would be the only such project ever attempted in the country.

“The city is so desperately focused on Red Line Alternative 4C that it has ignored more sensible, less expensive and less disruptive alternatives, some of which had been proposed by the MTA itself,” said Nancy Braymer of the Canton Square Homeowners Association. “We all want what is best for Baltimore, not a project that is barely good enough.”

The West-East Coalition against Red Line Alternative 4C is a volunteer organization representing community leaders, neighborhood groups, and citizens from all parts of Baltimore concerned by the negative effects of the Red Line as currently proposed. The Coalition supports mass transit and the Red Line, including several alternatives proposed by MTA project engineers.

Learn more about 4C and it’s detrimental effect at www.baltimoreredlineunderground.org.

Press Inquiries contact baltimoreredlineunderground@gmail.com

For those who prefer to read it in plain text, it’s copied below.

July 31, 2009

The Honorable Martin O’Malley

Governor

State House

100 State Circle

Annapolis, MD 21401

Dear Governor O’Malley:

I was notified yesterday, July 30, 2009, by your office that you will be at the West Baltimore MARC station on Tuesday, August 4^th at 10:15 a.m. to announce your decision on the Red Line.  Before you take any action, please take into consideration the homeowners in Canton.  Please remember these are the people we wanted to come and/or remain in the City.  We spent millions of dollars improving Boston Street for these residents.

Keep in mind that I, along with the residents of Canton, support public transportation.  Their concern is that the Red Line is proposed to be built above ground through their neighborhood.  The residents are not a bunch of NIMBYs.  All they want is for the Red Line to go underground at least as far as the Clarence “Du” Burns Arena.

Granted, there have been public meetings supposedly for public input.  The residents have left those meetings with the worst impressions of how our government conducts public business.  The most blatant example was at the last meeting of the Citizen’s Advisory Council held at Holy Rosary Church on July 9, 2009.  The meeting included opportunities for comments by elected officials and for comments by the public.  We were advised near the end of the meeting that, in fact, the opportunity for public comment on the Red Line had closed in December, 2008.  For the life of me, I don’t understand why the meeting was held in the first place.  Many of the residents were called by your office and informed that the meeting was to take place.  Needless to say, everyone left the meeting with the worst of impressions.  You even had an employee of yours, Ashley Valis, from your Intergovernmental Affairs office in attendance. No one there knew who she was or who she worked for other than me.

The Honorable Martin O’Malley

July 31, 2009

Page two

There have also been concerns expressed to me regarding Mr. Henry Kay, Project Manager of the Red Line. Mr. Henry Kay is on loan from the Greater Baltimore Committee, which has left everyone with the impression he is their agent.

The minutes of the Citizen’s Advisory Council meetings are posted on the internet at baltimoreredline.com/citizens-advisory-council.  To date, a copy of the minutes of the July 9^th meeting has yet to be posted.  I can only conclude that the employees of MTA who coordinate the meetings are having an impossible task of finding the words to describe the meeting.

I have spoken to members of the Citizen’s Advisory Council during this process and they have told me that they really never had any choices regarding the Red Line.  It turned out to be an exercise in connect the dots from Woodlawn to Downtown to Inner Harbor East to Canton Crossing and finally to Bayview Hospital.

As of this date, those individuals who were appointed to serve on the Citizen’s Advisory Council, who spent over two (2) years of their lives on this project, have not even been advised that you are to make an announcement on Tuesday, August 4^th at the West Baltimore MARC station.

I am sure you are not aware of the extent of the public’s concern.  They have gone door-to-door and collected thousands of signatures from their neighbors opposing the above ground light rail down Boston  Street.  They do, however, support the project underground.  Please look at their website – baltimoreredlineunderground.org.

Bottom line, everyone I represent supports public transportation.  Everyone realizes that this huge project will generate a lot of jobs at a time when many are unemployed.  What I’m saying, on behalf of the public that I represent, is that if you are going to do it, do it right and put it underground through Canton.

Sincerely,

George W. Della

Canton Residents Deliver 1350 signed cards to Governor O'Malley's Office

Press Release [pdf]: The Canton contingent of the West-East Coalition against Red Line Alternative 4C presented Governor O’Malley’s office with 1350 signed cards opposing surface trains through Canton’s residential neighborhoods. Hundreds more have been collected since.

The cards were delivered to Governor O’Malley’s Executive Director for Community Initiatives Izzy Patoka on Friday 7/31 in response to a campaign carried out by a marketing organization posing as a grassroots group in Canton.

The sham group was hired by the Central Maryland Transit Alliance (CMTA), a spin-off from the Greater Baltimore Council, which supports Alternative 4C.

Canton volunteers working part-time collected twice as many postcards as the hired marketers in half the time.

“We wanted the Governor to hear the real opinion of Canton residents on the Red Line, not a marketing campaign paid for by business interests,” said Canton Community Association President Darryl Jurkiewicz. “Canton residents support responsible, effective mass transit, but Alternative 4C isn’t it. Alternative 4C is expensive, slow, and low capacity, without a connection to existing systems.”

The Red Line is a proposed $1.6 billion 14-mile east-west transit line connecting Woodlawn, Edmondson Village, West Baltimore to Canton Crossing and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Campus.

“As planned, Maryland taxpayers may shell out more than a billion dollars for a crippled system. 4C will clog traffic in Canton without giving commuters a viable alternative, and we don’t think this makes sense,” said Mr. Jurkiewicz.

The West-East Coalition against Red Line Alternative 4C is a volunteer organization representing community leaders, neighborhood groups, and citizens from all parts of Baltimore concerned by the negative effects of the Red Line as currently proposed. The Coalition supports mass transit and the Red Line, including several alternatives proposed by MTA project engineers.

Learn more about 4C and it’s detrimental effect at www.baltimoreredlineunderground.org.

Press Inquiries contact baltimoreredlineunderground@gmail.com

Click to read our post: Maryland Governor O’Malley Scammed by Bogus Grassroots Group