Maryland Congressional Delegation Members Urge Administration to Fund Baltimore City Efforts Towards Reconnecting Communities Divided by Highway to Nowhere | U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

October 21, 2022

Baltimore submits federal grant software for program created by the lawmakers inside the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act

In the present day, U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin and Congressmen Kweisi Mfume, Steny H. Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes, Anthony G. Brown, Jamie B. Raskin, and David Trone (all D-Md.) despatched a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in help of Baltimore Metropolis’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) program grant software to fund the planning of the redevelopment of the Freeway to Nowhere in West Baltimore, a freeway undertaking that displaced a whole bunch of residents on the time of its development greater than 50 years in the past and has divided and broken these communities in numerous methods ever since.

The Reconnecting Communities Pilot grant program was modeled off of a pilot program authored by Senator Van Hollen and launched by each Senators Van Hollen and Cardin within the Senate and led by Congressmen Brown, Mfume, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes, and Trone within the Home. Following their introduction of the payments, the lawmakers efficiently fought to incorporate their laws within the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act. The brand new federal grant program is devoted to reconnecting communities remoted and excluded from financial alternative by previous infrastructure choices. The Freeway to Nowhere is in Maryland’s seventh Congressional District.

Of their letter, the lawmakers outlined how this Seventies-era federal infrastructure undertaking tore on the material of Black communities in West Baltimore, writing, “Backed by Federal-Assist Freeway funding, development on the Freeway to Nowhere resulted within the destruction of 971 properties and 62 companies. Roughly 1,500 Black residents had been displaced, hurting and dividing the communities of a number of West Baltimore neighborhoods within the course of and serving as a stark instance of the lengthy historical past of inequity within the siting of infrastructure. Fifty years later, the Freeway to Nowhere stays a bodily and symbolic barrier to progress.”

The lawmakers defined that the Freeway to Nowhere was the impetus behind their work to create the Reconnecting Communities Program, stating, “To create alternative and construct stronger cities, we launched the Reconnecting Communities Act to proper this mistaken and take away dangerous infrastructure that separates our communities. The laws we launched fashioned the idea of a provision included within the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act (i.e., the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation) to determine a grant program for this goal. In different phrases, the injustice of the Freeway to Nowhere in West Baltimore is the genesis of the brand new Reconnecting Communities grant program.”

“We sought to empower and reconnect communities to at least one one other with our laws. We search to attach those self same communities to financial alternatives, extra tutorial potentialities, arts and leisure, wholesome meals choices, secure and alluring open-space choices, and a lot extra by way of the RCP Program,” they continued.

“It’s our sturdy perception that BCDOT’s software meets the objectives and targets of the RCP Program. Eradicating the Freeway to Nowhere and giving again almost 600 acres to West Baltimore Communities with full streets and community-oriented improvement will reconnect communities which have been divided for over half a century. We urge you to present the BCDOT’s software full and truthful consideration,” the lawmakers concluded.

Full textual content of the letter will be seen right here and beneath.

Pricey Secretary Buttigieg:

Thanks for the management and imaginative and prescient you carry to transportation points in America. Your dedication to addressing previous transportation challenges whereas concurrently establishing the muse for a extra accountable transportation future is really appreciated. Please proceed to view us as companions on this effort.

We’re happy to help Baltimore Metropolis Division of Transportation (BCDOT)’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) discretionary grant software. BCDOT seeks to jumpstart Baltimore’s efforts to redevelop the “Freeway to Nowhere,” a 1.39-mile-long vacated freeway hall in between the West Baltimore MARC Station and North Greene Road. 

Constructed within the early Seventies, the Freeway to Nowhere is a reminder of racially insensitive twentieth century transportation choices. This phase of Route 40, previously generally known as I-170, stems from previous efforts to attach Interstate 70 with Downtown Baltimore. Group activism stopped the plan from additional damaging the Metropolis’s city material, however the West Baltimore part of the defunct I-170 was left stranded inside Baltimore Metropolis, hurting surrounding neighborhoods with out including worth to the area’s transportation system.

Backed by Federal-Assist Freeway funding, development on the Freeway to Nowhere resulted within the destruction of 971 properties and 62 companies. Roughly 1,500 Black residents had been displaced, hurting and dividing the communities of a number of West Baltimore neighborhoods within the course of and serving as a stark instance of the lengthy historical past of inequity within the siting of infrastructure. Fifty years later, the Freeway to Nowhere stays a bodily and symbolic barrier to progress. BCDOT is working to restore the hurt performed by city freeway development, and the RCP grant program will play a crucial function in Baltimore Metropolis’s efforts to dismantle this barrier and revitalize these neighborhoods.

To create alternative and construct stronger cities, we launched the Reconnecting Communities Act to proper this mistaken and take away dangerous infrastructure that separates our communities. The laws we launched fashioned the idea of a provision included within the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act (i.e., the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation) to determine a grant program for this goal. In different phrases, the injustice of the Freeway to Nowhere in West Baltimore is the genesis of the brand new Reconnecting Communities grant program.

We imagine transportation ought to be a supply of progress and mobility, not division and exclusion. We additionally imagine it’s by no means too late to undo the wrongs of the previous if there’s a clear and renewed imaginative and prescient for the longer term.

We sought to empower and reconnect communities to at least one one other with our laws. We search to attach those self same communities to financial alternatives, extra tutorial potentialities, arts and leisure, wholesome meals choices, secure and alluring open-space choices, and a lot extra by way of the RCP Program.

It’s our sturdy perception that BCDOT’s software meets the objectives and targets of the RCP Program. Eradicating the Freeway to Nowhere and giving again almost 600 acres to West Baltimore Communities with full streets and community-oriented improvement will reconnect communities which have been divided for over half a century. We urge you to present the BCDOT’s software full and truthful consideration. Your time and a focus are appreciated.

Sincerely,