Baltimore Plans to Improve West North Avenue

This post has been updated to reflect additional information received by Bikemore after publishing.

Earlier this week, Senator Mikulski’s office announced Baltimore’s receipt of a $10,000,000 TIGER Grant for roadway improvements to North Avenue.

The project application, entitled “North Avenue Rising,” was submitted by the Baltimore City Department of Transportation and Maryland Department of Transportation including the Maryland Transit Administration.

The $10 million in federal funding is being matched by $14.7 million of state funding, $1.6 million in already-committed FHWA funding, and $1 million of Baltimore City funding.

The bulk of the $27.3 million project, $8.9 million, will focus on sidewalk and crosswalk improvements. Investments in transit infrastructure including bus stop shelters, transit signal priority at intersections, investments in the Penn/North Metro Station, and dedicated lanes amount to about $7.5 million. Funding for bicycle infrastructure makes up less than $1 million.

Current Plans Have Flaws

While early in design, the project as currently scoped has major shortcomings. Dedicated bus lanes stop and start through parts of the project, because Baltimore City Department of Transportation does not want to fully prioritize bus service over private automobiles along the corridor. There are bike share stations planned for key intersections, but there are no dedicated bicycle facilities planned for North Avenue in the project. While the dedicated bus lanes will be signed as shared with bikes, other infrastructure is relegated to stretches of parallel facilities that are sometimes several blocks away.

This contradicts the 2015 bicycle master plan, which calls for North Avenue to be a “main route” for bicycles, requiring dedicated, protected bike lanes. It also contradicts a multi-year collaborative community design process undertaken by the Neighborhood Design Center, which culminated in 2015. That plan also calls for protected bicycle facilities along much of West North Avenue.

These improvements alongside dedicated transit lanes would further reduce personal vehicle travel lanes or parking, and Baltimore City Department of Transportation was unwilling at the time of project submission to sacrifice convenience of personal automobile users to accomodate safe, protected lanes for people who bike alongside fully-dedicated transit lanes throughout the corridor.

Through Advocacy, We Can Fix the Flaws

Luckily, it is not too late to improve the North Avenue Rising plan. North Avenue has significant right-of-way, and advocacy for expanded funding of this project and true prioritization of transit and bicycles as required by our complete streets policy, and as outlined in our master plans, could allow for fully-dedicated bus lanes along the corridor adjacent to dedicated bicycle facilities.