With traffic changes to York Road and the Towson roundabout complete, the next step in the plan to make downtown Towson more pedestrian-friendly is to convert Chesapeake and Pennsylvania avenues into two-way streets.
According to professional planners Richard Hall and Stuart Sirota, the conversions of the streets will slow vehicular traffic, promote pedestrian traffic and support local businesses.
But while Hall and Sirota are eager to start the next phase of the two-year-old Walkable Towson Plan, Baltimore County officials say there is no consensus on when - or even if - the changes will occur. And at least one store owner says the plan could harm his business.
"Everyone is keenly aware that this is the next step, but when it will start? There's no schedule," said county Public Works spokesman David Fidler. "The talk hasn't really begun."
Converting the avenues to two-way streets will be a "thornier and considerably more expensive" task than the York Road and roundabout changes, Fidler said, and the question of who will pay the approximately $1 million bill is "up in the air."
The State Highway Administration dished out more than $50,000 to help implement the significantly less-costly changes to the state-controlled York Road and Towson roundabout, but it will probably be more frugal when it comes to Chesapeake and Pennsylvania avenues, which are county roads, Fidler said.
"The conversion of one-way to two-way [streets] has been deferred, pending analysis of what we've implemented so far," said Jay Doyle, community revitalization specialist for the Baltimore County Office of Community Conservation. "We want to see how traffic behaves once the school session starts back up."
And after that, there needs to be more discussion of the reasons for two-way traffic, officials said.
"What I really need to find out is what benefit do we really gain by making them two-way," said Councilman Vincent J. Gardina. "How does that improve the walkability?"
For local business owner Doug Marcus, the deliberate approach to the street conversion project is good news.
According to Marcus, owner of the Towson Wines and Spirits on Pennsylvania Avenue, the change would make it difficult to safely unload trucks at the front of his store. Because the store's back entrance is at the bottom of a steep incline, it isn't conducive to heavy deliveries. Marcus fears that county officials will either ban unloading on a two-way street or simply leave it to him to deal with the dangers of getting beer out of trucks that load from the sides.
