Walkway

The city of Havre de Grace will hold a ribbon-cutting festival from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday to officially open the latest stretch of The Promenade, a waterfront walkway at the city's southern edge.This weekend's festival will feature five bluegrass bands, the 389th Army Band from Aberdeen Proving Ground and the Havre de Grace High School Marching Band playing at various points along The Promenade.The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum and the Susquehanna Lockhouse Museum will set up outdoor exhibits.

CA needs to think through the proposed elevated tree canopy walk for the Inner Arbor Plan. The reality is that during construction the contractor will clear cut trees for a 25- to 50-foot right-of-way along the walkway route for construction vehicle access and delivery of materials and for underground utilities (electric power, fire plugs water line, sewer line). Then a 25-foot-wide permanent paved or gravel emergency and maintenance access road will need to be built along the cleared right-of-way.

The Pier B pedestrian walkway at Baltimore-Washington International Airport will close Friday to prepare for its demolition and the construction of a sky bridge from the roof of the garage to the terminal building. The current walkway is expected to be demolished by early next month. Enclosed, heated and air-conditioned sky bridges with moving walkways are part of the airport's $1.8 billion expansion program. They will provide access to every pier, and passengers will no longer need to cross the airport's roadway to reach the terminal.

Decades ago, developer James W. Rouse looked at a rundown industrial waterfront in downtown Baltimore and saw the makings of an attraction called Harborplace at the Inner Harbor. Now a former Rouse employee looks at an expanse of woods in downtown Columbia and sees the possibility of an "Inner Arbor. " That's the name Michael McCall has given his proposal to turn 34 acres of woods surrounding Merriweather Post Pavilion into a place meant to celebrate both the arts and nature, a combination performing arts center, sculpture garden and elevated arboreal walkway.

Dear Mr. Azrael: I have an issue with ground erosion beneath the walkway of my townhouse, and it is severe. I purchased a townhouse in November 1998, and the ground beneath the walkway has eroded severely and is threatening to collapse the concrete above. There are two cracks along the width of two of the steps, which I believe is from lack of support beneath them.[The builder] claims to have filled this in once, as is clearly stated as their only responsibility in various documents, but I question whether the work was ever done or done properly at least.

The city's approval yesterday of $5 million in bonds for the HarborView waterfront townhouse development project near Federal Hill will allow the company to start building next month a public harbor front walkway and 88 homes, officials said. "This will transform this section of the waterfront into a very classic-looking, urban community," said Frank Wise, a vice president of the HarborView Properties Development Corp. after a unanimous vote by the city's Board of Estimates. The board, which is in charge of overseeing almost all city expenditures, approved the creation of the city's first Tax Increment Financing Bonds, which will borrow money against future real estate taxes that will be generated by construction.

Aiming to revive a failed bid to build Baltimore's biggest hotel on a parking lot across from Harborplace, the Westin chain teamed yesterday with the neighboring Renaissance in an agreement that would link the two hotels by enclosed walkway and jointly market them.At the same time, Schulweis Realty Inc., the Westin project developer that controls the former News American site on Pratt Street, told city officials that it could open its 44-story hotel faster than competitors, with millions less in public money and no need for a voter referendum.

With no building left to fight over, the city of Annapolis and the owner of 184-186 Main St., which was destroyed in a spectacular fire nearly a year ago, are fighting over the alley next to the property.With the holiday shopping season approaching, the city has asked Ronald B. Hollander to reopen Tate Alley, connecting Main Street to State Circle, a walkway he has blocked with fences to enclose the remains of his building. But Hollander said opening the alley would give vandals more access to the rubble-filled lot and could open him to more liability, even if he puts up a fence along the walkway, as the city has asked.

State officials want to protect the Baltimore World Trade Center's waterfront side from attack by building a permanent brick walkway out over the Inner Harbor to form a buffer extending 100 feet from the pentagonal tower. The plan is preliminary, but its cost is estimated at $1.2 million, said Judi Scioli, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Port Administration, which owns the 30-story building. She said construction could start in six to 12 months. The V-shaped footpath would relieve the four gray Army barges that have guarded the 423-foot-tall building from waterborne attack since shortly after Sept.

Just when it seems the particulars for a footbridge over the Amtrak line near Chase have been worked out, opposition from new arrivals threatens the project.Back in July, community associations in Harewood Park, Twin River and Oliver Beach -- concerned for the safety of children who cross the tracks daily -- recommended building a 50-foot concrete walkway enclosed in wire mesh. They pushed local, state and federal officials for a $1 million footbridge.But the officials got bogged down in wrangling over who would maintain the bridge.

As traffic whizzed by on West Street, Nancy Patterson and her service dog, Mahler, rolled smoothly past homes and car dealerships until a utility pole jutted from the center of the brand-new sidewalk. Patterson negotiated her wheelchair around the pole, wincing as she got close to the road, and kept rolling, too excited to pay the obstacle much mind. "I haven't been able to walk on West Street, ever, before today," Patterson said. "It's a huge freedom for people with disabilities.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration agreed to pay $400,000 Wednesday toward building a brick walkway in Canton, a project intended to close a gap in the promenade along Baltimore's harbor. The walkway in front of The Moorings, a neighborhood of million-dollar townhouses off Boston Street, has been a source of contention between the city and the site's developer. The developer built a floating walkway instead of the brick sidewalk the city is constructing along the rest of the waterfront.

Motorists saw the man jump off the pedestrian bridge, but not the driver of a passing tractor trailer on which the victim landed. By the time police caught up with the truck and its gruesome cargo, the unsuspecting driver had traveled 11 miles down I-95 from Maryland into Virginia. There, in the southbound lanes of the highway near Exit 166 in Woodbridge, police retrieved the body of a 38-year-old Gaithersburg man who authorities said had jumped off an elevated walkway on the Maryland side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge near Washington.

The problem: A West Baltimore sidewalk damaged after a tree was toppled by Hurricane Irene has not been repaired. The backstory: Irene wreaked plenty of havoc across the Baltimore area, taking down tree limbs and utility poles. One street tree that fell in the 4700 block of Dartford Ave., in the Tremont neighborhood, managed to cause thousands of dollars worth of damage to Paul Bourne's car. Once city crews removed the log about four days later, he was able to get his vehicle repaired.

The problem: A pedestrian bridge connecting two Inner Harbor piers was closed for months. The back story: Vicky Schetelich regularly walks around the harbor from her home at Spinnaker Bay on President Street, and her husband uses the paths to commute to his downtown job. "He walks to the Bank of America center without even crossing a street, really," she said. But since the fall, the two have been thwarted by the boarded-up pedestrian bridge connecting Piers 4 and 5, which walkers and runners would normally use to cross from behind the Power Plant to the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse and the Pier 5 Hotel.

A long-impassable section of the brick promenade that rings the Inner Harbor could soon be repaired if a settlement deal among Baltimore officials, a team of Harbor East developers and a design firm is approved by the city's spending board. The section of promenade, which spans the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Thames St., was built by the city with a state highway grant in 2004. It partially collapsed about three years ago, after "undetected soft soils" settled, shifting the bricks.

The Baltimore Orioles, upset that construction of a city-owned hotel blocks a gateway to the stadium at Camden Yards, agreed yesterday to a city plan for a walkway skirting the development site, making it easier for fans to get to home games. The agreement was announced moments before a scheduled hearing in Circuit Court and prompted the Orioles to drop a lawsuit that the team filed against the city this week. A 25-foot-wide walkway will be built along Howard Street on the west end of the future site of the 752-room, city-financed Hilton Hotel going up in a parking lot next to the Convention Center.

On an alley named Sweet Air Street in Hampden, a neighborhood is bitterly divided over paving a walkway that a 54-year-old disabled woman says she needs to allow her easier access in and out of her house.Donna Mullinix lives on Social Security disability, retired from her job as a city clerk. Doctors have told her it is only a matter of time before the nerve damage she suffered to her spine in a fall 12 years ago affects her legs."I will eventually be in a wheelchair," she said yesterday.

The cigarette butt-smell issue on the beach is an issue ("A beach without the butts," Editorial, Aug. 16). But not the worst or the biggest. It's a nuisance. Worse is getting to the beach, where at the end of every street sits the walkway and public toilet of ever dog in a 3 block area. Unfortunately there just isn't a lot of grassland around, and these public spaces have become public restrooms. People (not all) allow their animals to wet in the middle of the trail, forcing children and others to walk through it. Most owners will pick up feces, but nothing is done about the other liquid stuff.

This month, tens of thousands of Baltimore citizens and visitors helped celebrate the 30th anniversary of Harborplace. Our world-famous waterfront has become a source of pride for residents and a recreational asset that connects people with our industrial heritage, our rich array of city neighborhoods, and of course with the water itself. Baltimore benefits from the harbor's ability to draw regional, national and international tourists, supporting one of the largest sectors of the city's economy.