I don't know why the Maryland Transit Administration bowed to the Improvement Association, but it goes without saying that in addition to being totally racist, it is totally wasteful. You have the track, you have the people (many of whom are commuters), what a missed opportunity it is to not have the stops. (In this sense, it's sort of the inverse of elevated expressways like Brooklyn's Gowanus Expressway, which, when it was built, went through poorer neighborhoods that couldn't access it because there were no exit ramps between Manhattan and Brooklyn's wealthier southern suburbs.)
This sounds like ancient history but it is not: a similar battle is being fought today by Canton, who is fighting Baltimore's new Red Line, presumably for many of the same reasons Ruxton fought the original line when it was being planned in the late 1980s. The argument against light rail in Canton is arguably more nuanced (most opponents claim only to be opposed to a "surface" Red Line), and the racial implications less clear-cut (many residents in the mostly African-American neighborhood of Edmondson Village also oppose a surface Red Line), but parallels can certainly be drawn.
Not entirely fair your accusations of racism. While it is likely that it exists in Ruxton (where doesn't it?) there was a more proximate cause for the resistance. I've never seen a stop that doesn't come with all-night stadium lighting and acres of paved parking. It's all well and good to make accusations of racism; however what's really at issue here is the further degradation of the environment, all in service of the insatiable need of capital to pulse its consumers quickly to market and then, on weekends, to these obscene temples of sports that we have funded.
ReplyDeleteYes. Environmental concerns are the true reason we opted to favor thousands of automobile commuters over one rail line.
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