The Maryland Department of Transportation now says it wants to dismantle the stub of Interstate 70 inside the Beltway at Woodlawn.

Bravo! They’ve come around to a conclusion we reached in a May 22, 2009 post proposing a repurposing of this misbegotten highway segment.

Sadly, prescient pressure from The Brew did not hold as much sway on MDOT as eventual pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce polluted runoff from the six-lane expressway.

(The feds seem to have no qualms about the massive surface parking lots for the nearby Social Security Administration, Medicare and Medicaid centers. Still, a good idea is a good idea.)

The state also cites a better alignment for the proposed Red Line, but this is of relatively small benefit, at least physically, where light rail would occupy only about 24 feet of a swath more than 400 feet wide.

What Should Replace the Highway?

The next important question is what should replace the highway. Baltimore County has proposed a “Red Line Trail” for hikers and bikers, starting at the Baltimore City line, that would link to an existing trail through Leakin Park.

Already, $4 million for this has been allocated in the region’s draft long-range transportation plan. Eliminating the highway would allow the trail to be the corridor’s focal point instead of being dominated and squeezed by the highway and the transit right-of-way.

Nature should be the theme. Instead of being the “Red Line Trail,” it should rightfully be part of the Gwynns Falls Greenway system.

Back in 2009, The Brew foresaw this possibility and described the potential downside. What we would be dealing with is a “Leakin Park expansion” into Baltimore County. And this, of course, might not be the best idea from a branding point-of-view.

Leakin Park has a reputation as a dumping ground for city homicide victims. It figures as a setting for dark deeds in the latest Laura Lippman crime novel, “The Most Dangerous Thing.”

Leakin Park will need a major image makeover in order to make a nature trail work.

To start this process, MDOT would be wise to measure the dismantled highway’s worth not in terms of a narrow transit vision but as a potentially awesome natural resource with spillover effects for the surrounding communities.