Prioritizing more efficient public transportation seems like a good thing.

Making better public transport makes less cars on the road which makes less traffic congestion. Expanding roads never eases traffic, like ever. Ask Houston.

Baltimore buses are straight trash. Their app that tells you where the bus is doesn't work, the buses are filthy, and the drivers are rude. Maybe we should prioritize making our current system functional before we start expanding it.

This is also one of the options being considered for York Road from Ridgely down into the city.

Car centric cities are dying cities.

Make it functional by expediting rides/improving transit time. People will ride if it’s a faster option.

Well Charles Street itself is one of the worse roads in the city. I've been in 3rd world countries that have roads in better repair than Charles Street. It's embarrassing, tbh.

I’d rather they put a rail line down York/Greenmount, but BRT would definitely help the people along the corridor.

In theory sure. In practice public transport ridership has to actually increase substantially for this to happen, otherwise this just makes it worse for everyone traveling by car. And I’m not sure what the rationale for ridership increasing is—will the buses run a much faster or more frequent schedule than they did before? I think many are skeptical of Baltimore’s investments in public transport (especially the metro and light rail) as they have been so badly planned and executed upon (they don’t connect, etc.) and haven’t actually resulted in their projected usage.

Agreed. There are growing pains while we build it out and cars are still the primary method of commute, but we have to bite the bullet eventually

Absurd that cars are allowed on Charles and St Paul at all through most of the city tbh, they should have just one lane for buses then wider sidewalks with space for restaurants and bars to expand into the street and bike lanes

On Charles St? It’s one of the main arteries of the city. Would be like putting a bus lane on 83. Traffic issues won’t be solved until there is a decent Subway in town. Bus lanes are a joke.

Public transport can't have more ridership until it is made more functional. Yes we need more frequent buses, more train lines, hell even more bicycle options. When cities prioritize walking it creates more economic activity which then helps fund the public transport. Also I ride the metro everyday to work and you can catch the metro and lightrail at Lexington Market. Though I would like more trains that move through the city than the half finished attempts that are the lightrail and metro. Would've been nice if Hogan didn't literally break federal law and steal the money from the red line.

In short, if you build it, they will come.

Charles St a one-lane road with a dedicated Public Transit lane sounds like an improvement to me.

Building subways is very costly. (Bus lanes with clean buses running on electric power) that are reliable and go where people want to h could improve transit very quickly.

Serious question: Why do you think Charles needs to be multi-lane?

What happens when a bus breaks down?

What part of Charles St has a bus lane now? Is that downtown near the harbor? Aren't the roads already 4 lanes wide down there?

What happens to what?

Yes because there is famously only a single bus in all of Baltimore City. A few years ago I was riding a bus and it broke down. We were sat for maybe 10 minutes and boom another bus came and we got on it.

lmk if you find out so i can buy them a beer

Except you were probably not on a one lane street when it happened

I imagine there's significant overlap between the folks who think this is a good idea, and those who want to completely dismantle I-83.

Uhhhh….Cathedral/Maryland (right next to Charles) already has a two-lane separate bike lane at least all the way from Pratt to at least Homewood. Other bike lanes take it up from those termini.

And just to be clear, there’s already a lot of bars and restaurants that are empty on Charles Street. I don’t see a need for added restaurant/bar capacity anywhere on the Charles corridor.

I really don’t see the value add at all.

So? I've been on one-way streets with buses and cars breaking down before, you can just go to the next street over. In any case, there would be space for 2 bus lanes (one in each direction), wider sidewalks, and bike lanes, because there wouldn't be taxpayer-funded parking spaces everywhere