The creation of a bike lane along 28th Street from Sission Street to Maryland Avenue, completed late last year, sparked ire across Baltimore.
The new lane was part of a so-called “road diet” to reduce the speed of cars and included reducing the major east-west artery from two lanes to one. The project received significant pushback from motorists and even some residents of the community, although it was supported by the neighborhood association.
The project was part of an ongoing effort to add more bike lanes across Baltimore, an effort that is drawing both support and vocal opposition. Baltimore’s next mayor will be tasked with balancing competing interests as the city continues to expand cycling infrastructure.
In 2017, the Baltimore Department of Transportation announced plans to add 77 miles of new bikes lanes across the city in an addendum to its 2015 Bike Master Plan. Along the way community groups, advocates and residents have contested where and how these lanes be added. Only 17.5 miles of bike lanes have been completed since 2017, according to an August report from the Baltimore Banner.
Proponents and opponents of the expanded bike lanes remain at loggerheads as the transportation department explores options for other projects. Bright red lawn signs with “NO BIKE LANES” mark houses along Gwynns Falls Parkway, for example.
Candidates in this year’s upcoming mayoral election are eyeing ways to address the issue and ease future tensions among residents, motorists, and advocates. The primary is May 14, with incumbent Mayor Brandon Scott seeking reelection against a field that includes former Mayor Sheila Dixon and several others.
The mayor’s office told the Baltimore Banner last year that “Mayor Scott has always been supportive of a comprehensive, all-of-the-above approach to Baltimore City’s transportation infrastructure, including ensuring access to safe bike lanes.”
“Yes, we want to make sure that we are providing opportunities for folks that want to bike. Yes, we want to continue to make sure we’re prioritizing people who want to drive,” Scott told Baltimore Fishbowl. “But we also have to acknowledge that folks that are pedestrians also have rights when it comes to roads and infrastructure and they often get forgotten.”
Scott said that part of the Department of Transporation’s overall efforts with Complete Streets is to provide safe corridors for all types of travelers on the city’s roads, that the city is ADA compliant, and that cars slow down for the safety of all who use the streets.
“We can’t allow this to be boggled down to a conversation about bikes versus cars. It’s about all of us and putting forth the best infrastructure that will allow the city to thrive and grow,” he said.
Dixon considers herself a strong suporter of bicycle infrastructure, but said the pushback in some neighborhoods shows more input is needed.
“Biking for exercise and transportation is something that I’ve always been passionate about,” she said. “I used to be called the biking mayor. But also is Baltimore a biking city where we’re putting so many of the bike lanes currently?”
Dixon pointed to her administration’s efforts between 2007 and 2010 to include bike lane infrastructure along streets set for resurfacing, but “but we would also go to the community before we put the bike lane.”
Residents along Fulton Avenue, she said, did not want a bike lane installed when that street was set for resurfacing, and her administration listened.
“Baltimore still is a car city until we can improve upon public transportation, getting to point A to point B at a more reasonable time…. We need to improve upon all of that,” she said. “I get it about connecting the various parks and trails in order for people to use biking as a mode of transportation. I just don’t know that we’re there.”
Democrat Wendy Bozel, who is also running for mayor, agreed on the need for better transportation options in the city.
“We do need to have better transportation here in Baltimore City…other than just cars and buses,” Bozel said. “Bike lanes are a good alternative. I just feel like we need to make sure we get community input before the bike lanes are implemented, and I think some of that has been missing.
Bozel, formerly a president of the Upper Fells Point Improvement Association, said more community outreach is needed before decisions about where to add bike lanes are made.
“No one ever came to us [at UFPIA] to talk to us about the bike lanes in our area and… [to ask] our opinion on it,” she said. “Just to explain it, because sometimes some of the controversy comes about because we don’t understand the implications.”
Bozel also said she believes the city should explore other alternatives to bike lanes, pointing to some cities with entire streets closed to cars in favor of only bikes and buses. San Francisco, for example, is transforming its Market Street into a multimodal thoroughfare, prirotizing pedestrians, bikers and buses, and restricting access by car.
For businessman Bob Wallace, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2020 as a Democrat, it’s a matter of addressing the different needs of different communities across the city. Wallace said he would plan to organize the city into “villages”
“My idea under Mayor Wallace is to structure the city into what I call villages. Villages that would share a common characteristic, common objectives and a common purpose, so that I can fine tune the delivery of city resources to the people,” he said.
Wallace aknowledged not everyone will agree, but he plans to create a system where residents can come together and their voices be heard. “People feel they have not been listened to. They feel that these bike lanes have been thrust upon them, and they resent it,” he said.
It’s not a matter of yes or no to more bike lanes, he said, but more engagement about where the go and how they’d be used.
“I believe in having a multimodal approach to transportation in the city. I am an engineer, and I work in energy areas so I’m very much into carbon reduction and using renewable energy sources to fuel our economy,” he said. “I believe that the community in which these bike lanes exist should have a say into whether we do it or not, or to what degree it has to be done.”
As for the projects already underway, they’d be halted, Wallace said.
“What I would do as mayor is put a pause on these things, engage the community, and hear them,” he said. All people want to do is be heard. If you can hear them and empathize and sympathize with them, then even if you come to an ultimate decision, that was not what they wanted, they can at least buy into it, because they were heard. And I think what happens a lot in Baltimore City that people are not being heard.”
Baltimore Fishbowl’s 2024 mayoral candidates issues coverage is including active candidates, defined as those with an active campaign website and who are receiving contributions into their campaign accounts. Scott, Dixon, Wallace, Bozel and Thiru Vignarajah meet those criteria.
Vignarajah did not respond to multiple attempts to comment.
“We promise 77 miles bike lanes in 2017, and we’ve only gotten 17 so far. That’s a big problem. We can’t even connect the neighborhood’s that want bike lanes, and instead you’re focusing on picking fights in communities that don’t,” Vignarajah told Fox45.
Note: This story has been updated from an earlier version to reflect comments from Mayor Brandon Scott.
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Bob Wallace ran as an Independent in 2020. Not a Democrat. He quickly realized that without the ‘D’. your campaign is dead. We are doomed to be a one party town and, as a result, we can be ignored.