It shouldn’t be so complicated.
An intersection on Light Street in Federal Hill is crying out for a crosswalk, thought members of the Federal Hill Neighborhood Association. Also, bulges could help improve visibility, and a nice mural on a building could beautify the area.
But according to those involved, it would take about a year and a half to put up a handful of plastic bollards, screw a pedestrian sign into the road and paint an intersection.
Many residents have long complained that the city’s transportation department has been slow to respond to requests for crosswalks, speed bumps and other so-called traffic calming measures that could reduce speed limits in residential areas or make streets safer for pedestrians.
This issue was raised during a budget hearing earlier this year. One city councilor raised concerns about the inequities of who gets help and who doesn’t. One critic called the process a “black box.”
Because the agency has limited staff and resources, it leaves it to residents and neighborhood associations to do the legwork when they are unable to do so.
But some, like in Federal Hill, say that even after finding the money needed, the city is slowing down the process rather than speeding it up.
The association initially asked the city’s transport authority to do this, but was told that it was not a priority.
In October 2022, they applied for a Community Safety Works Grant to do the work themselves and received the money in May 2023, according to the neighborhood association. With about $60,000 in their pockets, they were ready to start work.
After submitting a request to the city through the community-run placemaking portal, the neighborhood association learned it could not move forward with the plan unless it updated the city’s curbs to bring them into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The notice and attempt to obtain the necessary permits resulted in significant delays and price increases that the neighborhood association had to pay for, even though the street and sidewalks fell under the city’s right-of-way.
Locchanan Sreeharikesan, vice president of the neighborhood association, said the cost of the project rose from an estimated $60,000 to $110,000 because it required an engineering firm to design new curbs and contractors to do the concrete work.
Sreeharikesan said the association applied for a right-of-way permit in late February this year and did not receive a response from the Department of Transportation until May 6. The right-of-way permit, which is used to close off parts of the road for contractors to work, would cost the neighborhood association an additional $1,400.
“I don’t have a consistent source of income,” said Sreeharikesan. “As a neighborhood association, we have no room to maneuver.”
Baltimore is facing a lawsuit over its lack of ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps. According to a press release from Disability Rights Maryland after the lawsuit was filed in 2021, only 1.3% of the nearly 38,000 curb ramps surveyed in 2019 were ADA compliant.
This year, the cost of adapting sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure to ADA regulations throughout the city was, according to official estimates, estimated at around $657 million. A spokesman for the Department of Transportation declined to answer the question of how much money was spent on the project, citing pending litigation.
Contract work was completed in June 2024, about a year after the grant was awarded. Now, if you walk down Light Street in Federal Hill and stop at the intersections of Light Street, East Henrietta Street and Warren Avenue, you will see new curb ramps, a freshly painted crosswalk and bulges separated by plastic flex posts.
Sreeharikesan said it’s important to support city residents who want to make improvements in their neighborhoods. He was “lucky” that he had writing experience from college that helped him apply for grants and that he had a job that gave him the flexibility to come home at a reasonable hour and work on other projects.
“I enjoy an incredible number of privileges that are not available to everyone,” he said.
He was frustrated with the way the process was going with the city, but also with how difficult the process would or could be for neighborhood associations that do not have the time or resources to deal with city bureaucracy.
“It’s not just about paying for it, it’s about jumping through our loopholes that aren’t really documented anywhere,” he said.
Traffic calming requests are evaluated and prioritized based on an “analysis of traffic conditions, road geometry, accidents and other factors,” according to a Department of Transportation spokesperson. Maintaining sidewalks and complying with ADA regulations is a shared responsibility among multiple agencies, utilities, developers and property owners, she said.
The process by which neighborhoods can request speed bumps or crosswalks is difficult to navigate — a sentiment that 1st District Councilman Zeke Cohen has heard citywide, he said at a Department of Transportation budget hearing on May 31. There is a significant backlog of such requests, which are typically submitted through 311, and it appears that better-connected, more organized neighborhoods are able to process their requests more quickly, he said.
“I think it reflects some of the inequities in how resources are distributed in our city because the systems are incredibly cumbersome and not user-friendly and often result in residents becoming frustrated,” Cohen said. “It just feels like the system is not adequately addressing these concerns, even though they are relatively simple and reasonable.”
At the hearing, Department of Transport chief Corren Johnson said her team had been trying to “work through” the backlog and had changed some internal processes to better align the teams working on them. Her team installed a record number of speed bumps last year, she said, and adjusted the prioritization of traffic calming applications to highlight accident-prone areas.
But the city has not been transparent about how it prioritizes both ADA projects and traffic calming, said Jed Weeks, director of the bicycle organization Bikemore, who said he was aware of requests for speed bumps that have been pending since 2012.
“It’s a kind of black box. “Nobody knows where, why or how things are prioritized,” Weeks said. “There is no analysis of why one project is done before another.”
The city also plans to create an online public portal where residents can submit traffic calming requests and view their status. At the May budget hearing, 3rd District Councilman Ryan Dorsey asked when the portal would go live – the transportation department recently showed him a beta version, he said, with the understanding that city residents would be able to go live and use it before the end of June.
“I was not aware of that timeline,” Johnson replied.
In an emailed statement to The Banner, a Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed the purpose and scope of the portal but declined to provide a timeline for implementation, saying the department is “still in the process of moving forward” with its creation.
