Baltimore: The Third Rail

March 21, 2016 10:14 AM

"Three weeks later, his administration released a revealing map showing how the money for road upgrades would be allocated around the state. Not only did the governor’s map show no money for Baltimore City. It did not show the city at all. By some Freudian slip, the city of 620,000 people had mistakenly been swallowed up by the Chesapeake Bay. Disappeared."
posted by josher71 (33 comments total)

The roads in my town in Maryland are in the worst shape I've seen them in 12 years here, absolutely terrible. Governor Hogan's administration is not doing a good job of caring for state roads in urban/suburban areas.
posted by wintermind at 10:19 AM on March 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

Shortly after taking office, Larry Hogan was diagnosed with late-stage lymphoma. Amazingly, he seems to have kept the disease in check, and has gone as far to say that he's "beaten" it entirely.

Having looked death in the eye, Hogan had no epiphany, no reevaluation of his life's work, no sudden change of heart about the downtrodden and neglected corners of the state that he was chosen to govern.

He looked death in the eye, turned around, and decided that he wanted to use his new lease on life to watch the world burn.

what a monster.
posted by schmod at 10:44 AM on March 21, 2016 [30 favorites]

It didn’t help that Brown himself, from the Washington suburbs, showed relatively little interest in Baltimore and was not exactly rallying voters with his lackluster campaign.

Understatement of the decade.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:58 AM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Global Warming strikes again.
posted by sammyo at 10:58 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fuck Larry Hogan, and fuck Anne Arundel County.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:00 AM on March 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

To construct this elevated roadway required knocking down much of Harlem Park — one of the near west neighborhoods that had long been a stronghold of middle-class African-American community. If you went by in 1969, you’d have seen the painted interior doors from the demolished homes — blue, pink, red — standing forlorn guard in a circle around the gray rubble.

So much minority striving has been literally bulldozed in North America. Not "literally" as in "metaphorically", but with actual bulldozers.
posted by clawsoon at 11:18 AM on March 21, 2016 [47 favorites]

Yup, often so they could build giant freeways to let white folk drive into the city to work and back to their crackerbox suburban house at night.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:24 AM on March 21, 2016 [7 favorites]

Yeah, I live in an inner-city neighborhood that had three major areas totally demolished in the sixties and seventies to run highways to the suburbs and to build stadiums that suburbanites could drive to. Then they bitch that they have to pay for parking in the city when they get there.
posted by octothorpe at 11:30 AM on March 21, 2016 [14 favorites]

I work in Baltimore and live in DC, so I think a lot about transit but I don't really understand what has gone wrong in Baltimore to make it the locus of so much that is wrong with the country. Some colleagues have suggested that the state-level governance is to blame, but I've never traced down that lead.

In that respect, I have to admit that this piece was revelatory. Thanks for it.
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:41 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

would have been nice to see the map in question...
posted by rebent at 11:54 AM on March 21, 2016

The map is here.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 11:58 AM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

In this case, Baltimore is serving as an example of how transit is treated in most cities across the country. Even as ridership increases thanks to (formerly) high gas prices, the increasing cost of car ownership, and the millenial urge to just not have to deal with that shit, serious investment just isn't happening in most places.

Denver is often held up as an example of transit done right, but its real significance is how it is a nearly lone exception. As with so many other things, Republican politicians support increasing bus service so that they can point to it and say "see, we heard you!" without actually doing anything significant. Never mind that investments in fixed service like rail almost always lead to redevelopment near stations, even in places like Dallas. Buses don't revitalize communities precisely because they can be rerouted at any time since there is no real investment in actual infrastructure, only in the vehicles themselves.
posted by wierdo at 12:27 PM on March 21, 2016 [19 favorites]

Having looked death in the eye, Hogan had no epiphany, no reevaluation of his life's work, no sudden change of heart about the downtrodden and neglected corners of the state that he was chosen to govern.

Hogan is the slovenly bastard child of Chris Christie and a shoggoth - there will be no moment of enlightenment, no late life recognition that he's pissed away his existence as a corporate stooge. Maryland deserves much better.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:28 PM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have to tread carefully here as I work on these issues in Annapolis, often opposing this governor's priorities. But I did wonder if Hogan had a moment of introspection when, after Christie endorsed Trump, he was asked by a reporter if he could have changed Christie's mind. Apparently Christie called him several times the morning before he endorsed Trump, but Hogan never got back to him. I took the reporter's description to mean that Hogan was speechless over the missed opportunity, but perhaps not.
posted by postel's law at 12:41 PM on March 21, 2016

This shit never ends. It's like watching nontechnical grownups trying to play a Civilization video game. If everything started working right, I'd start periodically saying "Computer, end simulation" out loud just in case.

God I love this town.
posted by sidereal at 12:54 PM on March 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm an infrequent visitor to Baltimore (I live in Gorgeous Prince George's County) so I really appreciate how this article helped me understand what the heck is going on with the weird light rail-Metro disconnect in the city. It's infuriating to think about the amount of needless suffering the transit mess there causes to so many people. I spent a lot of my younger years as a non-driver, so I know much better than many of my peers what it's like to be dependent on mass transit. I understand why, for example, the Amazon workers would take the MTA bus over the shuttle at the end of the day because it's slower, but there's no BS to deal with. That's a big deal after you've worked all day and stood out in the snow waiting for your bus.
posted by wintermind at 1:18 PM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

And just to be clear, Baltimore is an independent city, so it operates in the same way that a county would. To make it more confusing, there's also a Baltimore County that is separate from the City of Baltimore.

Hogan won the election, but lost the two most populous counties (Montgomery and Prince Georges) and Baltimore City (#4). He won Baltimore County (#3) and got landslides in every other county. He didn't need the city to get elected, and won't need them to get re-elected, so I predict he'll continue to beat up on the city in the press and on social media and it'll continue to play well in the hinterlands.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 1:20 PM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

And just to be clear, Baltimore is an independent city, so it operates in the same way that a county would. To make it more confusing, there's also a Baltimore County that is separate from the City of Baltimore.

Also, notably, Baltimore County is far wealthier, whiter, gets more support from the state, and has no obligation to support its poorer neighbor with which it shares a name.

A 1948 amendment to the state's constitution has more or less guaranteed that the two will remain separate permanently. The disparity between the city and its suburbs has been a flashpoint since the Civil Rights era.
posted by schmod at 1:26 PM on March 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think Hogan represents the end of the pre-Trump GOP. A wealthy suck who has used a faux populist message to excite the resentment of Baltimore County voters and the relatively poor Marylanders in the west and east of the state. At some point these people are going to realize that dog whistle campaigns against an impoverished city (on one hand) and attacks on other urbanized progressives (in Montgomery and PG county) doesn't do a thing for their diminishing standard of living and quality of life.

At that point perhaps they'll follow some churn candidate like Trump but one day they may understand that having fewer opportunities for your children (and yourself) makes you a more likely coalition partner to other underserved people than tying your future to the financial elite.
posted by Charles_Swan at 1:38 PM on March 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

having fewer opportunities for your children (and yourself) makes you a more likely coalition partner to other underserved people than tying your future to the financial elite.

ahem. DNC? anyone? anyone? nice message here, yo.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2016

Buses don't revitalize communities precisely because they can be rerouted at any time since there is no real investment in actual infrastructure

Tried to flag this as fantastic, but mobile device is a bit laggy now so not sure what flag it got.
posted by one weird trick at 2:06 PM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

A 1948 amendment to the state's constitution has more or less guaranteed that the two will remain separate permanently. The disparity between the city and its suburbs has been a flashpoint since the Civil Rights era.

I thought you were talking about St. Louis, and, hey - it turns out you were...
posted by Rat Spatula at 2:09 PM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is amazing, thank you for posting it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:33 PM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought you were talking about St. Louis

Another similarity between Maryland and Missouri is that Gov Hogan, as one of his first acts, hired Missouri's former Dept of Transportation Director, "Highwayman Pete" Rahn, as Secretary of Transportation.

With Rahn coming on, you could see the handwriting on the wall--make up various excuses to divert all possible money to highways and eliminate every other form of transportation to the degree possible.

Frankly I'm surprised even the Purple Line is going forward under Rahn's leadership. Probably they judged that eliminating one of the two proposed large transit projects and spending the $$$ on highways instead was as far as they could go politically.

I recently ran into someone who had dealings with Rahn in New Mexico, where he was DOT Director before he came to Missouri, and she was just filled with venom towards him. If what you want is highways, highways, and even more highways, then Mr. Rahn is your guy.

If you want, say, a balanced transportation system that meets the needs of all citizens, you'd best be looking elsewhere.

FYI Rahn is the slimy looking guy with Hogan in the photo in the Baltimore Sun article linked upthread.
posted by flug at 11:47 PM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oops, and I guess I spoke too soon when I said the Hogan/Rahn are supporting the Purple Line. Basically they slashed the state’s investment in the Purple Line from $700 to $168 million, diverted all the rest to highway funding, and expect the two affected counties to make up the difference.

In short, they did the minimum needed to say they support it and to appease the business community which is (unsurprisingly) saying the line is essential for economic growth and health of the communities it serves.

At the same time, they have done the maximum possible to ensure that despite this apparent "support," the Purple Line project will eventually fail, because they have, on purpose, set it up to fail.

Nice work for a Highwayman, if you can get it . . .
posted by flug at 11:59 PM on March 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Purple Line, man, I want to see it happen, but we've got to get rid of Hogan first.
posted by wintermind at 3:51 AM on March 22, 2016

postel's law: "Apparently Christie called him several times the morning before he endorsed Trump, but Hogan never got back to him."

I'm no fan of Christie, but I would think if a governor called me, I'd make some effort to get back pretty quick.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:16 AM on March 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Couple of comments deleted. Comments about "thugs" in Baltimore City end up sounding pretty distasteful given the context here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:21 AM on March 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

That was actually a pretty good piece of journalism. I bookmarked the site.
posted by Abinadab at 8:57 AM on March 22, 2016

This was such an infuriating read. In the lead up to the 2014 election, all I heard from my middle-class friends were how they liked Hogan's plan to curb Maryland's high income and property taxes. My pleas that those taxes are what makes Montgomery County's streets so well maintained and would help the Purple Line get built fell on deaf ears. I had no ideas about Hogan's resentment towards Baltimore, because no major local papers really reported on it. From what I remember it was all taxes vs the Purple Line, and the car-dependent middle-class here, no one cares what happens with the Purple Line (except for snotty neighborhoods that didn't want the line to ruin their quite suburban life or their precious running trail), so lower taxes won out.

The revelations from this article makes me want to burn down Annapolis.
posted by numaner at 7:11 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

Everything to do with transit makes me want to burn down capitols. The three counties of South Florida were very close to finally getting commuter rail downtown with a minimum of state funding by taking up the Florida East Coast railway on their very generous offer to allow them to colocate a station with their new passenger terminal. Unfortunately, it required legislation to pass in Tallahassee, which did not. So, if it ever happens, it will cost at least an extra quarter billion dollars to build a damn station, so it will probably never happen.

Over and over the people here have proven their willingness to be taxed to pay for better transit and over and over, the money ends up being frittered away due to political bullshit.
posted by wierdo at 10:54 AM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know. I live in Montgomery county and while we very recently acquired a car, we still get around mostly by public transit. However, I grew up in the rural Midwest, which the rest of Maryland outside of DC and Baltimore really reminds me of, so I can kind of understand where those people are coming from.

To preface this, I'm not trying to ignore how tough it is in cities, or make anyone angry.

I haven't spent a lot of time in Baltimore, and I know there are a lot of problems with the roads and transit around where I live, but there are some pretty awful roads in the rural parts of Maryland and small towns. And the frustration and anger from people living there when they hear about big projects focused on cities and urban areas when their roads are badly worn out and damaged is something that reminds me of where I grew up. People can be poor in rural areas too. It's a different sort of poor, and more spread out, but it can be just as brutally hard as being poor in an urban area. If you're poor and live in an area with no public transit and everything (doctor, school, job, grocery, etc.) is a minimum of a 20-30 minute drive away the state of your roads is a big deal. Rural poverty tends to be less visible, but it's worth remembering they exist.

In terms of Hogan, as I said, I haven't been in the area that long, and being an urban/suburban resident is new to me, but I thought it was a good sign that despite his base being more rural/small town he's still going forward with the Purple Line and the a bunch of the tax cuts are focused on low income earners and the elderly. I don't really see him as being part of the standard "tax cuts for the wealth, no infrastructure funding" types.

The tough part with Maryland (and the state where I grew up) is that the urban areas and the rest of the state have very different needs, both of which are important, and unfortunately neither side can have everything it wants (or even needs) so it's hard to balance those. I'm hoping Hogan will at least try to balance them.

In an ideal world, I'd love more transit for Baltimore and Montgomery county (not everyone here in Montgomery county is wealthy like the ones causing problems for the Purple Line, some of us live on the other side of the 'great country club divide' and would love to have more transit options to get to our jobs), more support for MARC, more support for urban revitalization and more support services that helps people in struggling neighborhoods would be great. And it would be even better if the same time there was support for replacing aging infrastructure in the rural parts of Maryland, more programs for small town schools and support programs for health care in small communities or revitalization projects for struggling towns.
posted by scififan at 6:31 AM on March 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

In terms of Hogan, as I said, I haven't been in the area that long, and being an urban/suburban resident is new to me, but I thought it was a good sign that despite his base being more rural/small town he's still going forward with the Purple Line and the a bunch of the tax cuts are focused on low income earners and the elderly. I don't really see him as being part of the standard "tax cuts for the wealth, no infrastructure funding" types.

That was basically his campaign, tax cuts for low and middle-class earners. But comparing my paycheck to the O'Malley years, I don't notice much of a difference (~$20-30 per paycheck, which I feel should go more towards a bigger cut for the very bottom, I wouldn't mind). When you get middle-class salary, several percentage points of lower tax won't affect your lifestyle much. It means more coffees during the week for me, but that's it. For the very poor, that $20 could be dinner for half the week. For the very rich, the same percentage would result in much more money saved.

As for going forward with the Purple Line, as flug stated above, he's basically doing the minimum required for it. The plans have already gone ahead, with areas cleared and prepared for rail installation, he would be ruined if he backed out.
posted by numaner at 7:25 AM on March 25, 2016 [1 favorite]