About the Baltimore Red Line
The Baltimore Red Line is a proposed east-west mass transit system. In 2008, project engineers presented the Red Line summary to the City of Baltimore and the residents. It contained numerous alternatives for the Red Line.
Alternative 4C, which the City chose but the MTA has not yet officially recommended, runs a light rail line from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Woodlawn, through Baltimore City to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
The proposed system would use mainly surface track west of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, underground track from MLK to Fells Point, then surface track on Boston Street through Canton.
Alternative 4C runs surface rail down the middle of residential streets, both Boston Street and Edmondson Avenue. That would require widening the streets, narrowing sidewalks, and removing green space. It may take away two lanes of traffic and hundreds of parking spaces from both the East and West Sides. Left turns will not be permitted and many new stoplights will be installed, forcing traffic onto neighborhood streets. Overhead power lines will hang above the trains. It will require a 450-foot tunnel opening (”portal”) in Canton and on Edmondson Avenue.
The estimated cost of 4C is $1.6 billion. Taxes from Baltimore City and Maryland will pay for half of that cost, with the rest coming from Federal sources. It will also pay to rip out $17.2 million in improvements the City make to Boston Street just over 10 years ago.
Mayor Sheila Dixon, against the overwhelming concerns of constituents, has already endorsed Red Line Alternative 4C.
Baltimore Red Line Underground supports sensible mass transit, including alternatives already proposed by the MTA. We support both MTA Alternative 4D and a Tunnel Alignment for Edmondson and Boston Streets, which keep the trains in tunnels under residential neighborhoods. We also support a heavy rail (subway) system which would have much higher carrying capacity and speeds than a light rail system. Additionally, we support an interum increase in busses to determine the real ridership for these planned lines.
For more information about the Baltimore Red Line, including street maps of Alternatives 4C and 4D, see the links on our Documents Page.
Click here for more information on a “Tunnel Alignment for Edmondson and Boston Streets” that we support.