Baltimore council committee presses DOT on community engagement, interim safety fixes and interagency coordination

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation (BCDOT) presented a draft community engagement strategic plan to the City Council Land Use and Transportation Committee on topics including equity, outreach methods, metrics and a pilot project on Orleans Street, and committee members pressed the department for clearer timelines and better interagency coordination.

The presentation, led by Transportation Director Veronica Macbeth of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation, said the plan is “rooted in equity, accessibility, and community empowerment” and is intended to follow the city’s Complete Streets guidance and the mayor’s transparency goals. Macbeth described a project life cycle that includes early engagement, design alternatives, and ongoing feedback loops, and she named the Orleans Street rehabilitation (TR24301, from North Wolfe Street to North Elwood Street) as a pilot where DOT will use a Streets of Baltimore web page and listening sessions to gather public input.

Why it matters: Council members said residents frequently face long waits for safety treatments and repeated street openings after repaving when utilities or other agencies dig up recently paved areas. Committee members pressed DOT for ways to deliver interim safety measures while long-term projects move through planning, engineering and funding steps that can take years.

BCDOT overview and pilot project

Director Veronica Macbeth told the committee the strategic plan formalizes guiding principles (equity, transparency, accessibility, accountability and collaboration), lists outreach methods (public meetings, surveys, pop-ups), and proposes performance indicators for both quantitative (participant counts, comment tallies) and qualitative (participant satisfaction, trust) measures. Macbeth said the Orleans Street rehabilitation — roadway reconstruction with streetscape elements, signal and ADA upgrades — is currently in the planning phase and will use targeted outreach and multiple public touchpoints as the design advances.

Committee members asked whether the stated engagement schedule contributes to long project timelines for safety-critical corridors. Councilman Zach Blanchard (Eleventh District) noted earlier collision analyses for parts of Orleans Street and asked whether the 2029 construction estimate he had seen reflects funding timelines or an unusually long public-engagement process. Macbeth and DOT staff answered that community engagement is important but that funding and project delivery timelines are often the principal cause of long waits; they also said DOT would look for interim treatments where possible.

Traffic calming, 311 process and timelines

Clea Baumhofer, chief of traffic engineering, described how traffic-calming requests are handled and why timelines vary by treatment. “For example, something like speed humps … we do a postcard process,” Baumhofer said, describing a neighborhood notification and majority-response step and fire-department review before installation. She and Macbeth said many requests submitted through 311 ask specifically for speed humps — DOT reported about 78% of incoming traffic-calming submissions include a request for speed humps — but staff determine the appropriate treatment after field review and analysis.

Baumhofer said more complex treatments (lane narrowing, one-way patterns, road diets) require more design detail, outreach and review of truck and bus routes, and can take several months from initial walk-through to final design; larger engineering efforts can extend over multiple years. Council members urged DOT to provide clearer, public-facing timelines for different project types and to keep interim engagement touchpoints so communities do not lose interest over long delivery cycles.

Interagency coordination and right-of-way work

Multiple council members described repeated instances where recently paved streets were reopened soon after resurfacing because utility or public-works work had not been coordinated, and they asked how DOT is reducing those conflicts. Macbeth acknowledged persistent “silo” problems among BCDOT, the Department of Public Works (DPW) and utilities such as BGE and said DOT is working with DPW and other stakeholders to compare project lists and identify overlaps earlier in planning.

The committee was given names at DOT’s right-of-way office to contact for enforcement and inspection of street-cut and right-of-way conditions (Adam Cloud, Stanley Jacobs and Marvin Dowell, according to staff at the hearing). Macbeth asked residents to report unnotified or unsafe right-of-way work through 311 or their council office so DOT can follow up.

Communications, liaisons and accessibility

Council members also pressed DOT on how public information from the mayor’s Public Information Office (PIO) and DOT’s liaisons reaches residents who do not use social media. DOT staff said PIO and liaisons coordinate weekly and that press releases and project notices are sent to community-association mailing lists; staff acknowledged gaps and said they are exploring sustainable ways to reach seniors and residents without regular social-media access and to empower liaisons with consistent, timely work notifications.

Metrics, emergency exceptions and documentation

DOT’s plan includes performance tracking such as participant demographics, comment counts and evidence of changes made to project designs because of community input. Staff also described an emergency-exception flow — confirm urgency, notify administration and council members, provide public notice across channels and canvass affected areas — so the department can act quickly when needed while still informing residents.

Committee requests and next steps

Committee members asked DOT to produce several follow-ups: an updated Complete Streets project-matrix that incorporates community-engagement steps and (where feasible) timelines for the eight project categories listed in the presentation; a timeline for the Orleans Street (TR24301) project; and sample recent consultant contracts used for engineering support. At the hearing DOT said it would aim to provide an updated matrix in roughly 2.5 weeks and to supply contract examples within about two weeks; council staff and DOT agreed to circulate a written summary of the committee’s requests.

There were no formal votes at the hearing. The committee scheduled a next DOT oversight hearing on street lighting for April 17 and set a preparatory meeting with DOT and BGE later in the month.

Ending: The committee recessed at the close of the hearing after committee members and DOT staff agreed to the requested documents and follow-up timeline.