Baltimore still needs to catch on, especially the quasi-public Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC). A few years ago this organization set out to remedy with astounding single-minded zeal what it had identified as Baltimore’s biggest woe: The “parking gap”. Since then parking spaces have been sprouting far more frequently than coffee shops, tens of thousands of them.  One of the latest examples is a 700-car garage occupying Pier Six, right on Baltimore’s famous Inner Harbor waterfront. Many City officials have privately acknowledged that this garage is both a planning folly and a real estate bungle.

 But if you thought that after one garage with a water view, another terminating the view of one of Baltimore’s great boulevards (the Little Italy garage at the corner of Pratt and President Streets), and one cheek to jowl with the Baroque revival style City Hall, we would have learned that parking garages kill historic buildings and deaden urban space, think again. Along comes what might just be the greatest garage debacle of all: A full block garage at the southern downtown gateway of Charles and Light Streets.

Why is a garage in this location so bad?

• It ruins the Charles Street gateway: Everybody wants to get the millions of tourists that cling to the water’s edge at the Inner Harbor to visit downtown and spread their dollars around to businesses a bit removed from Harbor Place. The premier northward coordinate to do so is Charles Street, our premier downtown street. To place an enormous parking garage at this all-important gateway to downtown will be like symbolically turning the City’s back to visitors, aggressively discouraging pedestrians who might make the brave attempt to walk up Charles Street from the water’s edge.
•  It tears down old buildings: People who see downtown Baltimore often observe that much of our architecture is beautiful. One could argue about the historic value of the buildings that have to come down for the garage but they certainly are part of a sliver of old Baltimore sitting quaintly in front of the towers of urban renewal . An above-ground garage is certainly no better alternative, no matter how artfully the façade is done. Crossing driveways and listening to the cars mounting the ramps has never been an attraction for pedestrians!
• It sits in the middle of already existing parking garages; in fact, all of Lombard Street appears to be garage and service gates.
• It’s a garage in full view. “Good” structured parking is underground like at the Gallery building or wrapped like the new garage on Caroline Street which is faced with townhouses.
• Transportation Policy: Visitors who swoon over our architecture often observe that there are no people in the streets and few stores to buy something. People don’t walk in the streets because for too long the priority has been the car. Every new garage cements this misguided policy further and will make it harder to walk because more cars will be drawn to downtown, clog the streets and pollute the air.  

12,000 parking spaces within three blocks of the Inner Harbor are enough, especially if they were to be managed through a smart parking system that guides drivers to available spaces. It is time for Baltimore to say good-bye to this massive use of public funds for garages and fund better transit instead. The most visited parts of our City (aside from the Inner Harbor) are those where the car friendly plans were defeated (as in Fells Point) and the historic buildings remained. Some of the most visited cities in America (New York, San Francisco, Boston) are those that have lively streets, are easy to walk, and have good transit. 

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