Once a gritty neighborhood on Southeast Baltimore's industrial waterfront, Canton has transformed itself into a model of urban chic where million-dollar townhouses overlook the harbor and destination night spots surround O'Donnell Square.
But many residents of the resurgent community worry that the city's preferred route for an east-west transit line would cut off Canton from the water, drag down property values and compound the area's already serious traffic and parking problems. They're organizing to oppose the plan known as Alternative 4-C - which has powerful support and could well be chosen when the Maryland Transit Administration decides this summer.
That route calls for construction of a light rail line between Woodlawn in the west and Bayview in the east. The line would run in a tunnel under downtown and Fells Point. But it would rise from the depths on Aliceanna Street and run on the surface along Boston Street - the broad avenue that separates the luxury waterfront development to the south from the trendy night spots and the Safeway and Starbucks on the north.
The Canton Community Association took a formal position in December opposing Alternative 4-C, the proposal that has won the backing of the Dixon administration, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith and the Greater Baltimore Committee, among others.
Darryl J. Jurkiewicz, president of the community group and a lifelong Canton resident, said running above-ground trains on Boston Street doesn't make sense. "We all agree we need more and better mass transit, but if you're not going to do it right, it shouldn't be done."
Ben Rosenberg, a lawyer who lives along the Canton waterfront, is convinced that Alternative 4-C would "debase" if not "destroy" his neighborhood.
"I have yet to find somebody [in Canton] who says they're in favor of this thing," he said. "The feeling in Canton is whatever you do, do it underground. ... If that breaks the bank, wait till the bank fills up."
The problem is that, for now at least, an alternative that includes a tunnel under Boston Street probably would break the bank. MTA officials say all that tunneling would put the Red Line project far outside the cost-benefit formulas rigorously applied by the federal government.
In their opposition to surface light rail, the mostly white, relatively wealthy residents of Canton share a common cause with the predominantly African-American, much less affluent residents of the Edmondson Avenue corridor in West Baltimore.
