Parking Garage

The new John Hopkins Hospital opens this weekend and that means there is a new emergency room for adults and children. Beginning Sunday at 7 a.m., the public, police, ambulance crews and others will need to go to 1800 Orleans Street. The current entrances on East Monument Street will close. The new entrances are next to the front entrance to the new hospital. Patients also are being moved this weekend from the old hospital buildings. A parking garage is directly across the street from the entrance for non-emergency visitors.

A "high-security" event celebrating the opening of new facilities at Johns Hopkins Hospital will close part of Orleans Street to traffic on April 11 and 12, according to hospital officials. The opening of the hospital's new Sheikh Zayed Tower and The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center will also impact parking accessibility at the Orleans Garage, officials said. On both days, the westbound lane of Orleans Street in front of the hospital buildings will be closed between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., officials said.

The Social Security Administration office at 110 West Road in Towson will officially relocate to the fourth floor of 28 Allegheny Ave., next week. The final day the office will be open on West Road is Friday, March 2. The new office will be open for business Tuesday, March 6. Office hours at the new location will remain weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free parking is available to Social Security office visitors on the fifth floor of the parking garage on Washington Avenue.

Editor: I find it very disturbing that the Town of Bel Air is paying nearly $1.3 million to create 33-metered parking spaces [Bel Air Building Passing into History, The Aegis Jan. 11, 2012]. That is the cost for purchasing and subsequently demolishing the old BB&T Building that abuts the Harford County Sheriff's Office in Bel Air. In total, this amounts to just under $38,900 per parking spot. How many years does the lot have to be in use to even break even? Will the meters be in use 24/7 or will this result in free nighttime parking for those establishments adjacent to the property?

At the January meeting of the Roland Park Civic League, residential parking permits were on the agenda. West University Parkway homeowners near The Carlyle are having trouble finding spaces to park. Residents on the southbound side of University Parkway, near Keswick Road, are too. While The Carlyle has a parking garage, it is not free. Some renters choose on-street parking instead. On a street where parking is tight, the lane (as alleys are called in Roland Park) is narrow and garages are few, parking becomes problematic.

The finally finished parking garage by the Roland Park post office has been bustling with cars all holiday season. The renovations brought no improvement in the careful navigation required there. It is still tight, with caution required not to broadside another car when making a turn or to sideswipe a cement pillar when parking.   When the renovations were complete, new lights created a brighter and safer space than it had been previously.  Now only a few lights work. During the longest and darkest days of the years, most of the parking garage is pitch black after 4:30 p.m. and on rainy days.

The problem: A traffic signal near the Owings Mills Metro stopped cars at a road closed for construction. The back story: Through many years of serving the greater Baltimore region, Watchdog has developed a strong appreciation for properly calibrated — and located — traffic control devices. That's why Susan T. Brooks' email about a traffic signal that was stopping vehicles at a road closed for construction caught Watchdog's attention. Brooks regularly takes the subway to her job at the VA Medical Center in downtown Baltimore.

The Frederick County Sheriff's Office confirmed that the man shot last week during an apparent robbery in a downtown parking garage owned by the University of Maryland, Baltimore had been stabbed in March during a home invasion there. The victim was identified through that home invasion as Amir Abbas Doulatshahi, 45, of Middletown. Capt. Tim Clarke, the special operations commander for the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said investigators have turned over their files from that case to Baltimore police, but would not comment on whether they believe the cases are related.

A man was shot several times in the back just before 6 p.m. on a lower level of an underground parking garage in the heart of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and UM Medical Center campus, police said. The victim, who appeared to be in his mid-40s, is in critical but stable condition at a local hospital, said Detective Kevin Brown, a police spokesman. After the shooting, the assailant fled, he said. No description of the shooter was available last evening. Officers were still conducting an investigation of the scene an hour after the shooting, Brown said, and surveillance footage will be reviewed.

Is Main Street property in Bel Air worth more than $2 million an acre? Based on what the Bel Air town commissioners are willing to pay for .44 of an acre that served as the Branch Bank and Trust building and its parking lot, a little more than $2 million an acre is as good a number as any. The town is poised to spend $1,032,400 for the land, apparently regarding the building as worthy only of being torn down to make way for more parking, at...