Friday
May062011
Work Continues for Southeast Walkability
Friday, May 6, 2011 at 03:30PM 
Light changes green for Wolfe St traffic, pedestrian signal stays red to cross Eastern.
What's the one thing about Baltimore that makes it's such an interesting place to live? Well, for me, it's the fact that there is the opportunity to make a difference.
In my last few posts I've talked about the Southeast Walkability Initiative which was started in response to changes the city had made to pedestrian walk signaling around my neighborhood.
It's a subject that I very much care about and you'll see I've spent quite a bit of time and energy on - even giving up a little bit of my sanity in the hopes of making progress.
Dan Rodricks on his show last Friday referred to the initiative as "amusing" and brought on by "mommies with babies, blackberries and strollers". To say the least I was a little peeved. Actually I was pretty much outraged. Obviously Rodricks did not take the time to inform himself on the situation and why the changes sparked such discontent. The issue is about the appropriateness of push buttons to activate a walk signal in a neighborhood (that is also a central business district) with high pedestrian traffic. This “fix” or “restoration” to infrastructure is in fact a regression in our cities’ walkability and empowers the culture of automobiles over people that is already prevalent in Baltimore. The resulting confusion that is caused by removing automatic walk signals and the VERY real compromises to safety should not to be trivialized. I along with my neighbors would glady take the time to go down to the WYPR studios and have an intelligent conversation about moving Baltimore's walkability forward -not backward.
Last Friday Jamie Kendrick (DOT Deputy Director) sent an email addressing the concerns raised at the Thursday meeting and has agreed to implement some but not all of the recommendations made by the community. Unfortunately, the DOT has yet to agree to restore automatic walk signals at every cycle, a main focus of this initiative. The Baltimore Sun blog Getting There incorrectly reported on May 3rd that automatic walk signals had been restored.
In a recent meeting of the Fells Point Residence Association members voted to fully support the initiative of restoring automatic walk signals at every cycle and the removal of all push buttons.
Councilman Kraft has been out of town this week, but we look forward pursuing the issue of automatic walk signals at every cycle and the removal of the push buttons from our neighborhood when he returns.
Reader Comments (6)
I find it particularly upsetting that Rodericks seems to insinuate "mommies with babies, blackberries, and strollers" don't warrant being taken seriously.
I think his goal was to paint us as rich housewives with nothing better to do...
I nearly choked laughing at that.
LOL
Rodricks comments are extremely offensive! This is not a trivial issue and such comments seem to poke fun or minimize the concerns of residents in this area. While I do not leave in the area directly affected, I do run through Fells Point quite often and have noticed a change/problem with the walkability or in my case the runability in the area. One of the reasons I live in the city and suffer through the ridiculous property taxes is for the walkability!! I just hope that through the actions of the "mommies with blackberries and strollers" we can change things!
I couldn't agree with Elizabeth more. He got it completely wrong in characterizing this as a problem only of moms--both men and neighbors without children care about this issue and are involved in this effort. But so what if it was just moms with babies--is that automatically a reason to dismiss the concerns as petty and irrelevant? The whole thing came off as blatant, unabashed sexism. I hope WYPR took him to task for it. Educated urban moms are no doubt a big supporting demographic for the station, and I'll bet some of them will think twice when asked to send in their checks this fall.