Because, our City lacks a comprehensive and imaginative transit plan and an effective, defined partnership between the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and the Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT), the resultant piecemeal approach to transit issues has subsequently contributed to patchwork economic development, quality of life frustrations for residents in neighborhoods, and persistently segregated communities. We need to improve Baltimore’s entire mass transit system including rail, buses, water taxi, bikes and pedestrian.
Because, Baltimore’s present transit system hampers our City’s ability to attract and retain families and businesses; makes it difficult for workers to get to and from jobs in a timely manner, discourages people from using transit to get around the City for education, shopping, health care, and recreation; and, makes the Mayor’s stated objective of attracting 10,000 new families to the City hard to achieve at best.
We believe, that while complex, these problems are fixable.
We believe, that the development of a comprehensive, fully-interconnected, efficient and effective mass transit system is essential to the City of Baltimore’s long-term sustainability, prosperity and relevance.
We believe, that what we currently have should be used as the framework in the development of a true multi-modal transit system serving all of Baltimore, and that running what we have optimally and efficiently is the first step towards better transit.
Therefore, We Support: Transit Choices’ effort to work with the City and the State to implement its list of “Quick Hits” (low cost, high visibility and high impact) improvements to our transit system in 2014.
We recognize that some of the “Quick Hits” may take longer to implement than others, but our goal is to develop a checklist by January 2015 which establishes which “Quick Hits” have been implemented, which are in the process of being implemented, which require further study (with a timeline for that study), and which may not be doable and why.
| Sherry Bazinet | Baltimore City Public Schools | Teacher |
| Elizabeth Briscoe | Action In Maturity, Inc. | Executive Director |
| Michael Hankin | Brown Advisory | President and CEO |
| Paulo Harris | Ingoma Foundation | Director |
| Mark Heishman | Veolia Transportation | General Manager, Baltimore |
| Josef Nathanson | Urban Information Associates, Inc. | President |
| Brian O’Malley | Central Maryland Transportation Alliance | President and CEO |
| Dru Schmidt-Perkins | 1000 Friends of Maryland | Executive Director |
| Jasmine Bazinet-Phillips | Colby College | Student |
| Michael Romeo | Veolia Transportation | Operations Manager |
| James Shea | Venable LLP | Chair |
| Greg Smith | Johns Hopkins University | Associate Director |
| Jill Sorensen | BEVI, Inc. | Executive Director |
| Sandy Sparks | Baltimore Streetcar Campaign | Treasurer |