by GERALD NEILY

It’s budget-crunch time, and the city and state are both looking for ways to save money and streamline services. They could both benefit by selling Sheila Dixon’s foray into free mass transit to the agency that is supposed to be running the bus system in the first place, the state-run MTA.

It’s too soon to say whether the city’s Charm City Circulator system is a success or failure. If it fails, it’s $8 million per year down the drain that the city cannot afford. But if it succeeds, the public and business community will clamor for more, which the city can even less afford. Why should it end at Penn Station? Why not run it up to Charles Village? Those folks pay taxes too! Read the rest of this entry »

Google Bike Map route from Poly to Lake Montebello.

by FERN SHEN

Baltimore bicyclists are checking out a new tool this week, Google’s long awaited bike map application, unveiled yesterday in Washington.

The idea: you plug in a starting point and a destination and the software gives you the bike-friendliest route. This feature is in beta mode and Google asks users to report errors or suggest changes.

But for now, right out of the box, how good is it in Baltimore?

Read the rest of this entry »

Basic Oxygen Furnace at Sparrows Point, where a court-ordered recycling unit has been out of service since 2008. (Photo courtesy of Severstal )

by MARK REUTTER

Three facilities hailed as crucial to reducing chemical and metal wastes at the Sparrows Point steel mill remain unfinished, out of service or never started — 13 years after the company signed a consent decree promising to install the equipment.

The failure to get these recycling projects in operation is a case study of the halting progress made by regulators in enforcing the 1997 Sparrows Point consent decree – the biggest in Maryland history – that was supposed to stop decades of pollution at the mill.

“Our hands are tied by a number of factors,” said Barbara Brown, coordinator of compliance for the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). Among those factors? Squishy language in the decree.

Read the rest of this entry »

by FERN SHEN

 Benn Ray, owner of Hampden’s Atomic Books, couldn’t get over the language in the Baltimore Sun’s Friday Wal-Mart story, their first on the fact that a north Baltimore development proposal now includes a Wal-Mart, as well as a Lowe’s.

“A second Walmart store will open in Baltimore by the fall of 2011…” was the lede sentence.

“Why does it say ‘WILL open?’ The whole thing is being couched as a done deal, but they need to get a PUD,” Ray pointed out, correctly noting that, in order to be built, the mixed-use development would need to be green-lighted by the City Council as a  ”planned unit development.”

 “It’s unbelievable,” said Ray. “The government and the media are just accepting this is going to happen.”

Indeed, within hours after the Wal-Mart news broke, Baltimore government, community and media types  were staking out their positions, overtly or implicitly, on this hot button issue.

Read the rest of this entry »

by GERALD NEILY

Oh no! Didn’t anyone tell Rick Walker never to do what Gerry Neily says? When the Brew published my “Five fixes to make the Lowe’s redevelopment work for Remington“ several months ago, the developer must have paid attention, because the newly-revised plan incorporates almost all of the five fixes.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but when the city government finds out, he’s doomed!

The addition of a Wal-Mart may be controversial, but the new design, in my opinion, is now less so. Here’s how I score it on those five fixes: Read the rest of this entry »