Bikes to carry stuff exist and are called bakfiets. You can buy them in the US, they just aren't common, because as long as the infrastructure is so poor practically using one is challenging. NotJustBikes has a video about this.

Bikes are also perfectly fit for towing, though you would probably want an e-bike if you do that regularly. Still, the fed just announced a tax credit for ebikes, so they suddenly just became a lot more practical too.

40% of the city also doesn't drive, because they cannot afford a car and thus do not own one.

Transit is not one size fits all. Its providing as many options as possible to give as many people as possible access. Its multi-modal, and requires enablement of all kinds of different use forms - bikes are generally the optimal vehicle for an able bodied person living in a city, but bike lanes are also for powered chairs and scooters. Getting bikes off sidewalks make them safer for pedestrians and strollers. Reducing car lanes makes the whole outside built environment safer for people in general. Getting higher frequency more reliable busses lets people forsake car ownership and thus reducing crowding in the public space, again. Building an actual metro would make Baltimore a real first class city because it would get you around faster in the city than a car ever could.

Hampden is extremely well suited biking. The problem is cycle infrastructure will have to largely replace either parking or car lanes, for example 32ed and 33rd could have one way bike lanes put in by reducing the size of the travel lanes. The community as a whole would have to get on board with taking full advantage of their mixed use built environment to make quality of life better for everyone living there this way, but all that is really stopping Hampden is willpower and the ability to get the DOT to do anything to enforce the complete streets ordinance.

I don't live in Hampden, I live in Mt. Clare, but I like to be an annoying buzzy bee with my bike lane and pedestrian protection map proposal. Do one for your neighborhood and talk about it more!

looks at all the basements flooded with sewage yea, pretty much

Like the point is current investment is insufficient to maintain these systems. The maintenance backlog is extensive but letting it get this bad to begin with is also expensive, having to put out every systemic proverbial fire costs the city a lot day over day where well maintained there would be a lot less crisis situations happening.

Now how about a conversation about rehabilitating our dilapidated sewer and water infrastructure, preferrably with Annapolis since Bmore city provides it to the county and I think northern AA too?

The dumb school choice system means kids are being taken 3-5 miles across the city to the good schools.

put those rockets to good use, rocket trains

Defund the military and build trains.

Friend got hers filled at Soleil Pharmacy this month.

90% of my water bill is fixed fees, so I am definitely not actively trying to conserve water, my usage doesn't mean anything for my bill.

That being said, fixed fees are a regressive tax. The city needs to abolish them and just raise costs per gallon to offset them.

Its an endless cycle. Transit sucks, only poors take transit, nobody with influence wants to build transit, transit sucks.

It seems really poorly modeled, I think they might have only based it off transit ridership in the zone of influence of the stations. Having termini at 695 / 83 in the north and 95 in the south would have created a major park and ride and opportunity at both ends, honestly in ways that no existing route in Baltimore realizes - the light rail is too slow and the existing subway doesn't have an easily accessible station from 695, you have to go to Old Court which is like 10 minutes of driving just off the beltway alone.

Yea the existing light rail is a testament to that. They talked about building infill stations and look where that went.

That being said, even flawed, its so much better than any alternatives, and if it got approved we could appeal for a Mt Vernon Station still.

How does the heavy rail line not go anywhere? The York road corridor is the highest ridership public transit line in the city that doesn't have rail, its projected to grow 20-40% in the next 20 years, it hits so many major points in the city (Penn Station, Charles Center metro connection, Federal Hill). Its terminus can be used as a park and ride to get cars off 83, and being grade separated heavy rail it can actually get downtown in a reasonable time compared to the existing light rail that gets stuck on Howard St.

The only part of it that doesn't really make sense is Port Covington, but if that gets turned into a park and ride as well for i95... there ya go.

Oh snap, I live literally like 5 doors down from y'all, lemme know if the walking group ever starts up again cuz I'm interested.

Particularly with 12' wide or 30' deep rowhomes. Most lots in the city are 60-80' deep, but a lot of them are mostly grass behind a one and a half story 19th century townhouse. Those kinda houses only have like 600-800 sq ft, but the lot itself can fit ~2.2k sq ft with a 3 story build that is 50' deep and has a partially finished basement.

The average sale price of a house with modern amenities on my street is like 200-225k but there are still vacants. I think the problem is those are 2 story and the ones that sell are 3, so I guess adding a third floor is cost prohibitive?

So I have BCBS Illinois and in their general regulations they have this statement: https://i.imgur.com/6ftpHcP.png

I'm seeing a doc at JH next month so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. They are in network with BCBS Illinois so they should be bound to this provider contract stating no facility fees.

Wait, so if you see a JH doctor at the hospital its $50 more than if you see a JH doctor at any of the satellite offices?

Since the $15 minimum wage campaign started back in 2012 we have seen a total of 30% inflation. So $1 then is $1.30 now. Or $15 then is $20 now.

This should be a fight for a $20 minimum wage indexed to inflation, not $15.

So besides the controversy, why are we doing speed bumps rather than continuous sidewalks? They accomplish the same result, just one also is safer for pedestrians where pedestrians are.

The "free market" is not going to house the homeless.

You can do something. Petition your state reps to make left land camping a misdemeanor.

Of course, then getting cops to actually ticket people for it would be another battle.

We want a lot of things, like regular recycling pickup

If you want something else to research look into how many dead towns there are throughout the Rustbelt now. They look exactly like the black butterfly of Baltimore and have similar rates of drug use and crime, just they are smaller and more dispersed so its not as concentrated a problem. Those places had the exact same pattern of white flight as resource extraction and factory labor dried up and left, the difference is they were isolated enough to just be abandoned and forgotten for the most part.

The people that lived there had kids that took opportunity to leave like my grandma did, and nobody else wanted to go there as opportunity dried up, so they turned into ruins too. Like they often still have a few people living there, just like the butterfly, but thats because the erosion of a place with capital flight is slow and drawn out.

Its why the opioid epidemic got so bad for white people. It basically took these dying rural areas and towns and beat them to death bluntly with overdosing. Entire states like Kentucky are scarred by it.