Canton Responds to Fake Grassroots Movement, Overwhelmingly Rejects Redline Alternative 4C.
More than 1500 signed cards tell Governor O’Malley what real residents want.
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