Proposals to upgrade Boston Street from Fells Point to Canton, including one to widen the bumpy four-lane thoroughfare to six lanes, have sparked conflict among Southeast Baltimore community groups.
Fells Point residents and business owners worry that traffic from a widened Boston Street will bottleneck at the entrance to their historic neighborhood.
A Canton watchdog group worries that a wider street may be a waste of money when mass transit alternatives have not been explored.
And newcomers to the Canton area, who purchased expensive waterfront homes, believe widening Boston Street, from Chester to Conkling streets, is long overdue.
Officials at the Interstate Division for Baltimore City asked for comments at a recent public hearing on the five proposals for the one-mile stretch of Boston Street that runs along the waterfront. Any road building would be financed by the Federal Highway Administration.
Officials are considering the proposals because studies show the volume of traffic on Boston Street is expected to double by 2015 because of residential development along the Canton waterfront.
The five proposals and their costs are:
* Doing nothing at no cost.
* Rebuilding the road at its current width, $8.6 million.
* Rebuilding the road at its current width and enhancing intersections of other east-west streets, $8.8 million. The proposal does not name the streets.
* Rebuilding and widening the road to include four lanes of traffic, a center turn lane and two permanent parking lanes, $14.7 million
* Rebuilding and widening the road to include six lanes of traffic, $14.6 million.
Officials will decide which proposal to recommend to the Federal Highway Administration by the end of the year, said Faysal Thameen, chief of the interstate division.
No residents or businesses would be displaced under any of the proposals because the city owns most of the land needed for widening the road, officials said.
In an interview last week, Dr. Selvin Passen, president of the Anchorage Tower Condominium Association, who moved to the waterfront high-rise five years ago, said condominium owners look forward to a wider, rebuilt Boston Street, though six lanes may be unnecessary.
"A lot of us bought there with the basic idea that they were going to put a boulevard in," he said. "They enticed a lot of us from Baltimore County. We've been down there for five years, and nothing's gotten done.
