Can Baltimore’s Complete Streets Manual change how Charm City uses its roads?

A lot of different developments have changed how Baltimore uses its streets over the past few years: the cancellation of the Red Line, the MTA (Maryland Transit Administration)’s “BaltimoreLink” redesign of the area’s main bus systems, the drafting of new regional transit plans, even the closing of some streets to car traffic as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But thanks to a new design manual inspired by legislation almost three years in the making, the biggest changes set to come to Baltimore’s streets in the near future might have less to do with any specific plans for the vehicles on those streets than with the streets themselves.

What’s inside the manual?

The Baltimore Complete Streets Manual will contain guidelines on bike lanes, sidewalks, bus lanes, and general street types: all familiar features both to the people who use Baltimore’s streets and to the engineers who design and maintain them.

But the manual, originally set to be released at the beginning of April but postponed largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaked in draft form later that month, and now set to be officially released later this year, also includes new guidance on stormwater management, more efficient use of sidewalks and curb space, better accommodating scooters, and finding more ways to ensure every mode can use Baltimore’s streets, not just cars.

When the Complete Streets Manual is finally released later this year, it will be the culmination of over a year of work by the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT), working in conjunction with two engineering consulting firms, the Baltimore County-based Wallace Montgomery and the Silver Spring-based Toole Design Group, as well as several other city-level agencies and BCDOT’s state counterpart, the MTA.

A slow evolution

The legislation which inspired the manual, the Complete Streets Act, took even longer to come to fruition, with almost a year and a half elapsing between the July 2017 City Council meeting where Councilmember Ryan Dorsey introduced the bill and December 2018, when then-Mayor Catherine Pugh finally signed the ordinance into law.

One of the main reasons why both the Complete Streets Act and Manual have both taken so long to be realized, besides high turnover both at City Hall and across Fayette Street at BCDOT’s offices in the Benton Building, is that the mode-comprehensive approach set out in both documents requires a great deal of consultation and collaboration with several other “Cabinet-level” city agencies.

Take for example the issues of sidewalk maintenance and utility repairs. At least as shown in the version leaked in April, the Complete Streets Manual contains a fairly detailed chapter on sidewalks which in turn divides them into individual sections called “subzones” based on proximity to the buildings behind the right-of-way (“frontage”), in the right-of-way (“pedestrian”), and between the right-of-way and the curb (“furnishing”).

The manual also lists the preferred lengths for each sidewalk subzone depending on the type of street. It suggests uses for each subzone: sidewalk cafes, bike parking, etc. in the frontage, as few obstructions as possible in the pedestrian subzone, street trees, lighting, and benches in the furnishing subzone. And it calls for space to be used as efficiently as possible in each subzone, including specifically calling for all new utilities to be “constructed within the furnishing subzone.”

That recommendation, however, requires a great deal of cooperation with the public agency and the energy company responsible for utility installation, maintenance, and repair within Baltimore City, the Department of Public Works (DPW) and Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE).

Indeed, one of the things Dorsey has said he hopes to see more of under Complete Streets is DOT working with DPW and BGE to coordinate street and sidewalk upgrades with already scheduled resurfacing and utility work instead of making an upgrade only to see it undone the next time repair work needs to be done.

Consequently, DPW has four different employees listed as part of the working groups who’ve helped shape the contents of the Complete Streets Manual, more than any other non-DOT Baltimore City agency except its Department of Planning and its Parking Authority.

The same goes for the manual’s section on curb space management, which notes the growing competition for curb space between cars (parked or otherwise), trucks, taxis, ride-hailing vehicles, bicycles, buses, pedestrians, food trucks, and outdoor dining, and recommends active collaboration by BCDOT with the Baltimore City Department of Planning, MDOT/MTA, and the Baltimore City Fire Department when deciding which one of those uses to prioritize in a given instance.

One of the guiding principles of the Complete Streets Manual is to prioritize people and their safety as they “walk, bicycle and take transit” ahead of cars. So because the manual’s section on signal timing points out how longer traffic signal cycles can disadvantage cyclists and pedestrians and cause roads to function more as barriers between neighborhoods and communities, it recommends shorter signal cycles whenever possible and recommends different lengths for those cycles based on different types of streets.

The manual also breaks down the different types of streets, both by use (commercial, industrial, mixed-use, residential) and by location (downtown but also smaller city centers outside of downtown called “urban villages”.)

“The Complete Streets Manual develops planning, design, and operational guidelines for our transportation network that are tailored to the unique characteristics of each individual street and neighborhood,” BCDOT Director of Communication German Vigil said in a statement when reached for comment.

“The manual establishes a modal hierarchy that places the safety and convenience of people walking above the convenience of driving. Our ultimate goal, especially in times such as this, is that the public realizes the benefit of creating safe and comfortable spaces for walking and socializing, even if it comes with trade-offs related to how driving and parking are prioritized.”

The intersection of complete streets and sustainability

Finally, one of the areas where Complete Streets could have its biggest impact in Baltimore is the environment. Part of that impact could come simply from the policy’s greater emphasis on public transit instead of cars whose emissions contribute to the city’s high asthma rates and growing climate change.

But according to Jennifer Kunze, the Maryland Program Manager for Clean Water Action, a national environmental and health advocacy nonprofit which helped lobby for the Complete Streets Act’s passage, a large part of its environmental importance will come from the measures it calls for to combat stormwater runoff.

In a chapter of its Emerging Trends section specifically devoted to “Sustainable Stormwater Management”, the Complete Streets Manual calls for the use of “stormwater infiltration sites”: rain gardens, planters, and bioswales. “By taking up the places where there are paved surfaces that don’t need to be paved and that actually make our roads less safe by being paved,” Kunze said, “we can turn those into gardens that allow rainwater to slowly soak into the ground. We can also have native plants that encourage pollinating insects and birds to come and that’s better for safety, stormwater control, and just beautifying our neighborhoods.”

Like the Complete Streets Manual itself, the document’s public engagement process has been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made in-person comment sessions impossible for the past three months, and in a May interview, Dorsey expressed his desire for a more organized public outreach strategy for the manual.

Nevertheless, the manual, which Dorsey did release a draft version of back in April, is set to be released to the public in a slightly more edited form later this summer, with a final version coming towards the end of the year. In the meantime, BCDOT is stepping up its public outreach efforts, including a public comment period following the manual’s official release.

“The mandated public comment period will be critical to the way the manual will help educate the residents of Baltimore,” Vigil said, “as it will shape the streets they live on.”

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