by GERALD NEILY
The City has decided it’s not such a good idea after all to tear up Lombard Street for a makeover, then tear the made-over street up again for Red Line construction two years later. The Brew pointed this out back in March, “Tear it up, Rebuild, Repeat” after city officials trumpeted plans for the $2.6 million project on one of downtown Baltimore’s main thoroughfares.
The Baltimore Sun today reports that the City has now decided to simply lay blacktop over the street, instead of rebuilding it, because of the “uncertainty over future projects along Lombard – including possible construction of the Maryland Transit Administration’s Red Line.”
The prospect of possible Red Line construction in the same place where the city planned to rebuild Lombard was discussed in the Brew on March 31. The Sun reports that city officials now could give “only a vague estimate of when the (resurfacing) work would begin and how long it might take”.
The uncertainty on Lombard Street mirrors the uncertainty of the Red Line itself. The City has come out in favor of the more expensive underground transit plan, but only the alternatives which would place the transit line on surface streets meet the federal cost-effectiveness requirements.
Downtown denizens have been given a foretaste of future disruption from the recent major water main break, which closed Lombard and Gay Streets from the past week until yesterday.
