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maryland

Lot’s Wife Is My Doppelganger

By | Health, The Global Is Local | 5 Comments

My wife often makes fun of me for being fat. She is being ironic, as I struggle to maintain a weight above that of a large watermelon, but she enjoys gently poking fun at me, and prefers to do it in a way that is very hard to take too seriously (I am very sensitive).

This personal anecdote is all a segue to the fact that I weigh a little shy of 140 pounds on average. 137 up to 144 depending on my meals. It’s genetic, my father is also a wiry but very skinny man. Anyway, this isn’t actually a post about obesity or healthy weight. I have lately become obsessed with the signs of Baltimore’s commitment to eliminate snow and ice from the road, and Smithsonian tells me that in the United States, 137 pounds of salt are spread on the road PER PERSON! That’s a me’s worth of salt for every person in the country.

It’s different this year in Maryland, of course, since we’ve been on the receiving end of our pal the Polar Vortex and a higher than average number of winter storms. The State Highway Administration has used around 280,000 tons (576,000,000 pounds) of road salt so far this year (which is about what is budgeted for the entire year, by the way, so drive carefully from now on), or about 100 pounds per person. And February is just beginning.

So a pillar of road salt that weighs as much as I do is an interesting concept, but doesn’t really address the confusion/disgust/horror/amazement that hits me every time I walk past a giant pile of salt that seems to have been dropped off the back of the salting truck in case of a very local, very intense blizzard (like maybe fifteen feet of snow, but in a two foot radius). I wasn’t really sure what I was so disturbed about — the run-off of salt water into the bay, the damage to the ecosystem from excessive salinity, the waste of resources evident in the inconsistent salt-spreading operation, the drain on city coffers for treating waste water, salty tap water. All of these vague and uninformed concerns together make observing these urban salt spills a disconcerting experience for me, and so I needed to learn more.

The short answer is that my reactions may be overblown. No one is going to die from salt exposure anytime soon. On the other hand, salt pollution is actually pretty serious in the broader public health context, if you consider environment, biological diversity, and watershed stability.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota determined that a majority of the salt applied to roads stay in the watershed where it is spread, and removal is difficult at best, in addition to being expensive. Fortunately in Baltimore a great deal of salty runoff goes toward the bay, where the salinity will do less harm than in a fresh water environment. Fish populations and plant life in local streams that experience significant road salt runoff are at risk, however, as some freshwater fish cannot tolerate salinity above 1000 mg/liter, 1/20th that of highway runoff.

Clearly, the Jones Falls and other streams in Baltimore City are no longer supporting thriving fish populations, but the overall goals of city planners claim to take stream and tributary health into consideration in the greening and cleaning goals centered on the inner harbor.

Salt will continue to be used, though, especially in winters like this one, for two compelling reasons:

  1. It’s cheap, around $35 a ton. That’s a lot of Adam salty doppelgangers for about the price of three six packs of Resurrection Ale.
  2. It works really well. At least down to a certain temperature. Salt lowers the freezing point of water, but it doesn’t prevent it from freezing altogether, as many of us have seen firsthand with the recent spell of temperatures in the single digits

Despite these advantages, road salt has some significant hazards to health and safety that should cause highway officials to consider moderation rather than excess. In addition to the dangers to fish and plants mentioned above, excess salt buildup (essentially giant salt-licks) on the side of roads can attract deer, heightening the possibility of vehicle/deer accidents causing injury or death to deer and driver alike.

So if roads must continue to be treated in order for driving to be (relatively) safe in B’more, then perhaps alternatives should be investigated. Polk County Wisconsin uses a mixture of traditional road salt and cheese brine. Other localities have had success with other mixtures of salt and locally available ingredients such as beet juice and sugar cane molasses. Baltimore could take advantage of one of many industry cast-offs that could be re-purposed in the interest of public safety. If no other appropriate source could be found, there is always the water from the bay itself. At least runoff of Chesapeake water sprayed on the roads would not cause a net addition of salt to the harbor.

Choo Choo ChangeEngine?

By | Health, The Global Is Local | 3 Comments

Our ability to get to our places of employment is one of the greatest contributing factors to health and wealth. I and other ChangeEngine bloggers have made this connection a number of times over the past year. Without access to sufficient capital (i.e. wages), your ability to access adequate and sufficient food, shelter, and services is extremely limited. It is no coincidence that high-income neighborhoods have transportation flexibility and even redundancy — train, bus, (perhaps multiple) reliable cars, bikes, and pedestrian options may all be available.

This week, Governor O’Malley and a group of local and state officials including Mayor Rawlings-Blake came together at the the West Baltimore MARC station to announce a number of major investments in transportation projects for the city. The headline item is of course the Red Line, a Light Rail line that will be intended to travel East-West from Woodlawn through to the Hopkins Bayview campus — two major employment hubs, while intersecting with existing rail and bus routes on the way.

Many Baltimoreans already have a sense of eye-rolling weariness about the Red line, and justifiably so. It has been a long time in the planning phase, and is not anticipated to start carrying riders until 2021, far too far into the future for us to think seriously about it on a regular basis, at least until construction begins. However, the frustration citizens currently feel with the protracted planning process is nothing to how they will feel after six or more years of major construction.

I must advocate for patience and acceptance, however. Rail networks are an essential component of modern cities, and without it, Baltimore will lag behind its neighbors. As I have said in previous columns, Baltimore’s anemic public transit system contributes to health and wealth inequalities, and perpetuates deeply entrenched racial divisions throughout the city. An expansion on the scale of the Red Line project has the potential to demolish some of those boundaries, although 2021 is a long time to wait. Construction and transit system jobs will increase, however, and many of those jobs will likely be filled by locals.

What concerns me, of course, is the broader transportation landscape around this massive infrastructure effort. Living in Pittsburgh for the past few years, we lived with an ongoing light rail project the entire time. The North Shore Connector cost half a billion dollars and connects two points that are about a mile apart — although it has to go under the river to get there, which IS pretty cool. The problem there, and potentially here, is that there was not a holistic approach to the project: no similarly herculean effort put toward making it easy to get to the station, no bike-share program implemented simultaneously, and no broad improvement of pedestrian walkways outside the immediate station entrance. Sidewalks a quarter mile away that were previously (virtually) inaccessible to wheelchairs or mobility-limited individuals got no attention, and the city busses or disability-access vans remained an essential tool for all those who used them in the past.

There is still lots of time for Maryland to steer this transportation initiative. The Governor announced $1.5 billion in funding for Baltimore area projects, but the overall Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act allocates $4.4 billion over the next six years. The most expensive parts of these projects involve major construction efforts, but many comparatively inexpensive additions could be made as well, such as pedestrian services, bike-shares, and downtown greening.

Although not the biggest part of the announcement, the first change we will see is weekend MARC train service finally being offered between Baltimore and Washington D.C., beginning in December. Personally, I am very excited about this, as I will be able to get down to the Capital on my day off without needing to know where to park or how to navigate the city.

Weekend MARC service has the (probably unintended) potential to provide access to higher wage jobs for those who work in the service and retail sector. Restaurants, stores, hotels, and hospitals do not maintain the five day work week, and opening up a relatively inexpensive route to D.C. on the weekends means that Baltimore residents have greater choice and earning potential in those sectors. It remains to be seen how popular this option is, of course, but tracking the results over time will be very interesting.

My hope is that the Governor’s announcement will address the needs of the community — improving our ability to get to work, make a decent living, and support our families and communities.

Sunscreen and Spending Power

By | The Good Plan | No Comments

On more than one occasion, I’ve heard visitors remark on Baltimore having a beach-town mentality, perhaps supported by much of the waterfront population wearing flip flops on the promenade and those few precious days when the bay smells like a bay should smell.

The constant presence of the water conjures up that willingness to be carefree, and do whatever we can to seek out the refuge of saltwater and sand. The Department of Transportation predicted over 350,000 vehicles would cross the Bay Bridge between Friday and Monday this Memorial Day Weekend, with an additional half a million using other ways to get into the beach areas of Maryland. The Bay Bridge boasted an 18-mile backup at the beginning of the weekend, and as Baltimoreans descend onto the boardwalks the beach towns stood hopeful and ready for their previously quiet landscape to be transformed by the seasonal crowds, providing economic respite from the quiet winter months.

The economy is possibly the most challenging realm for a beach town. Retail and food service industries are difficult to sustain, as significant fluctuation of population challenges these industries to reach economic stability in the off-season. Decreased visitation influences many beach town businesses to board themselves up for the winter, minimizing operational cost, and marooning wage workers for many months. While Baltimore isn’t quite a beach town, we need to plan for seasonal attraction too. The decline of blue-collar industries has made the low-income population of our city more dependent on tourism and related service industries for employment. If we don’t find ways to make those attractions more sustainable, low-income workers suffer and Baltimore as a whole becomes less vital, and less sustainable.

Beach towns are constantly brainstorming and investing in the ability to become year-round attraction for both businesses and tourists. This investment is increasingly more important as tourist season is dependent on external factors like weather, gas prices, and unemployment. If people don’t have money, fewer can head to the beach in the first place. A common approach to creating year-round attraction is through an office of promotion or events. Rehoboth Beach has supported The Rehoboth Beach Main Street organization as the ringleader for community promotion and year-round event planning. The organization doesn’t just seek to lengthen the season by one or two months on either end, but to plan events in February and March, where non-residents would need to make special trips to the beach for reasons other than sun worship.

By organizing events in the off-season, Rehoboth Main Street hopes to draw residents out of their homes in addition to expanding tourism opportunity. Rehoboth attracts approximately 3.5 million tourists each year, translating to $630 million in annual economic impact. Main Street has helped some of these tourists become residents while sustaining their residential population: from 1996-2008, the town vacancy rate decreased from 10 percent to 3 percent, 95 jobs were gained, 16 new businesses were created, and eight new buildings were constructed. In addition to off-season event revenue, off-season advertising opportunities support operating revenues, as greater visibility commands higher advertising prices from area businesses.

The collective push of local businesses has inspired other towns like Hampton Beach, New Hampshire to strive for widespread support, believing that if all restaurants stay open longer, and services keep themselves fully functioning in the off season, tourists will see the town as a destination for reasons other than the beach. Other towns like Portsmouth, Maine remain sustainable through Citywide incentive projects like the Green Card — offering discounts for nearly 100 local businesses. Petoskey, Michigan capitalizes on its historic architecture and miles of waterfront to retain year-round visitors.

Seasonal planning is extremely important in city sustainability. Maybe the creation of an urban beach in Baltimore wouldn’t be enough to discourage the Memorial Day exodus and spending power into local beach towns, but perhaps thinking creatively, and learning a few lessons from true beach towns would make staying local a bit more palatable, keeping some of that $630 million here, instead of invested elsewhere.

IMAGE CREDIT. Wikimedia Commons

Medicaid Matters

By | Health | No Comments

The fiscal cliff is looming and debates are raging about whether or not to tax the rich, but starting January 2013 individuals and couples with incomes over $200,000 and $250,000 respectively are going to have to pay more in taxes anyway. These new payroll taxes will help pay for the expansion of Medicaid starting in 2014, which is projected to newly insure about 16 million people and is one of the major foundations of the Affordable Care Act. But things aren’t that simple.

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