It just so happened that Rosenberg raised his concern as I was about to have a meeting March 27 with Frank J. Murphy, the city Transportation Department's acting deputy director for operations.
Murphy said the city does not typically change a light every time a bulb burns out on the JFX because it involves lane closings and traffic disruptions. Instead, his agency waits until it has a certain level of burnouts and then fixes them in a batch - usually on a weekend to cut down on backups. He added that about a week before Rosenberg weighed in, officials decided things were at a point where a round of light-changings was needed.
It didn't take too long to get results. Rosenberg e-mailed again last Monday to say he had checked the JFX lights the night before.
"Lo and behold, many of the burnt-out lights were working," he wrote.
A few weeks back, this column reported on the plight of a MARC train rider who was left freezing on the West Baltimore station platform waiting for a train that was delayed for about an hour. She and her fellow riders were cut off from information from the Maryland Transit Administration because the public-address system at the station had been out of commission for months. At the time, the MTA said it intended to replace MARC's aging squawk boxes using funds from the Obama administration's stimulus funds.
Now, it appears, the money is coming through. The state Board of Public Works approved a $6 million contract last week for replacement of "obsolete and unreliable" public-address systems at West Baltimore, Halethorpe and other MARC stations. Construction is expected to begin late this month.
Blog on
This column takes to the blogosphere on Tuesday with the launch of Getting There: The Blog at baltimoresun.com. Hope to see you there. I'll still be here as well.
no reimer
Susan Reimer's column does not appear today.
