Neighborhood Voices from the Red Line Route:

NANCY BRAYMER

Gov. Martin O’Malley may have settled on a plan for the construction of a Red Line mass transit line through Baltimore, but Nancy Braymer doesn’t want anyone to think that Alternative 4C is a done deal.

“We are trying to let people know this is not over,’’ says the retired federal worker, a Canton resident since 1987. “We’re going to scrutinize every aspect of their application. It’s going to be gone over with a fine tooth comb.”

Braymer is one of the Canton residents who oppose the Red Line proposal as recommended because it will require tearing up Boston Street to create a portal for a street-level rail line. “It’s a pit in the middle of the street,’’ she says flatly, and that makes it incompatible with the residential character of the neighborhood and the pedestrian and automobile traffic in the area.

Braymer found the public process to be a “sham.”

Questions about the plan, potential ridership and alternative routes went largely unanswered at public meetings that she attended, she said.

And when the business-community-backed Central Maryland Transportation Alliance led a postcard and marketing campaign to show “community” support for the Red Line, Braymer says she was outraged. It sparked a counter-offensive from residents who printed up postcards with the message: “No Surface Redline on Boston Street – I really do live and work in Canton.”

(The postcard flap was highlighted in  Baltimore Red Line Underground, the website of the East-West Coalition Against Red Line Alternative 4C. )

What worries Braymer is that people in the community who aren’t paying attention will just accept that a decision has been made and Alternative 4C is the way to go. But she says state and local officials are just beginning the federal approval process. There are environmental concerns, cost considerations and economic development queries.

“Canton is a historic district. It’s on a flood plain. This is not over by any stretch of the imagination,” Braymer says confidently.

What makes her so sure? Braymer lives in Canton Square, a development of townhouses built on a plot of land that would have been a part of an extended I-83 had community residents not successfully defeated that transportation project back in the 1970s.

–by ANN LOLORDO
Ann LoLordo is a longtime writer and editor for The Baltimore Sun.

Red Line Stories Recently Brewed:
Today:
“Foes say Baltimore transit line would be unsafe, lack connectivity”

Previously:
“Red Line would be nice, but it’s not for ‘us’”
“Surface Red Line would squeeze out cars – and that’s good!”
previously:
“Transit Line Could Uplift a Struggling Baltimore Community”

“Transit Line a Burden, not a boon, for thriving, car-centric Canton”

“Time for Some Myth-busting on Baltimore’s Red Line, Says a Believer”

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