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Transit line a burden, not a boon, for thriving, car-centric Canton

Brew Editors 1 year ago, September 2, 2009 View Comments

Ben Rosenberg, of Baltimore's Canton neighborhood, opposes the surface Red Line.

Moved by the wrongness of the Red Line for Canton, Ben Rosenberg (shown here on Boston St.) has become an activist. (


Neighborhood Voices on the Red Line Route:
BEN ROSENBERG
Baltimore’s Red Line mass transit project has been Ben Rosenberg’s induction into civic engagement — and protest. An attorney, he spent years at a prominent law firm before he and three other guys went out on their own. He’s a litigator, which means he can be tied up for weeks in court; he’s raised three children and has been busy in recent years enjoying his three grandchildren. Five years ago, he and his wife left Ruxton for a town house with a harbor view in Canton.

Until now, he says, “I never had the inclination or time to do something like this.”

The “this” is Rosenberg’s activism against the MTA’s proposal to build a surface rail line through Canton.

“You have a narrow city grid of streets that was never designed for this type of transit and Boston Street, unfortunately, is still a major east west artery on the south side. It’s the only way people, until you get to that O’Donnell Street, get to 95 and if you are taking the Fort McHenry tunnel, it’s the only way (there),’’ he says. “That traffic isn’t going to go away. To put this incredibly huge structure, which is really what the light rail is, in the middle of that is just a prescription for disaster. This plan doesn’t fit the streetscape.”

An anti-Red Line banner in the 2500 block of Boston Street, in Canton. (Photo by Ann LoLordo for Baltimore Brew.)

An anti-Red Line banner in the 2500 block of Boston Street, in Canton. (

Rosenberg, 64, should know – he lives right off Boston Street. Since the spring of 2008, he has been out front and outspoken about the direction of the Red Line. His growing opposition has taken him to community meetings where, he says, MTA officials did little more than give people their 90 seconds to speak. He’s met with local political leaders who pledged their support.

A couple of weeks ago, he was standing on Edmonson Avenue, waving a sign that read: No Surface Light Rail on Edmonson Avenue. (His last memory of that area? As a child, traveling with his mother to get a haircut at the Hess Shoe store in the Edmonson Village Shopping Center.)

After attending a large community meeting at St. Casimir’s Church in April, Rosenberg volunteered with others to help develop a strategy to put a halt to a surface rail project in Canton. The group wanted “to at least get the MTA to come up with some kind of alternative that was less intrusive and more likely to result in a more efficient transportation” system, he says.

The group recognized that economics and federal funding guidelines were driving the scope of the project. But resident requests to develop alternatives never gained any traction with local officials, he says, if they meant slowing down the project.

“4c was the choice of the powers that be,” says Rosenberg. “It was their choice but nobody seemed to be considering what impact this would have on Canton, a dynamic vibrant neighborhood. There’s nothing about this that makes sense except the governor and mayor see this as a billion dollar project and that’s a lot of jobs.”

A week ago, he was among neighborhood residents invited to City Hall to meet with Mayor Sheila Dixon to talk about their concerns over the Red Line. “She gave us an hour and half with no interruptions,’’ which Rosenberg appreciated. He and others at the meeting persuaded city transit officials to prepare for Dixon a graphic of the portal that will be built on Boston Street so she can better visualize its scale and impact.

Nevertheless, he remains opposed to a surface line in Canton.

- by ANN LOLORDO

Ann LoLordo is a longtime reporter and editor for The Baltimore Sun.

Tomorrow, more voices, pro and con, east-side and west side, on the Red Line.

BREWED RECENTLY ON THE RED LINE….
-today-
“Transit Line Could Uplift a Struggling Baltimore Community”
-previously-
“Time for Some Myth-busting on Baltimore’s Red Line, Says a Believer”

“Baltimore’s Red Line? Better for Developers Than Transit Riders.”

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