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November 2005
By Cynthia W. Bledsoe
Executive Director, The Greater
Towson Committee
The Greater Towson Committee, Inc. (GTC) has existed for
twenty-five years with the purpose of promoting investment
in Towson through development and revitalization of property
and infrastructure for the benefit of the greater Towson
community. With County Executive Jim Smith's
recent announcement of an upcoming Towson UDAT (Urban Design
Assistance Team), GTC members are obviously interested in
how this process will be shaped, how it will be executed
and how any results of value would be incorporated into Towson's
future.
Therefore, in late October, the GTC welcomed Mary Harvey,
Director of the Office of Community Conservation, to its
Board of Directors meeting where she and her staff presented
an overview of the upcoming Towson UDAT process. We
share the belief of many that in order for this process to
be successful, all facets of the community should be represented. This
offers an opportunity for those vested in Towson who possess
various areas of expertise and passion for our community
to centrally focus on what the future holds for Towson. When
done well, processes like this one provide a unique balancing
of views that are unlikely to emerge on their own or via
other channels.
Board members were especially pleased to hear Ms. Harvey
support our belief that the federally funded traffic study
targeted for Towson, if completed prior to the UDAT, would
provide a most useful tool to those individuals tasked with
developing plans within the team. During the summer
months, the GTC was in contact with Congressman Ben Cardin's
office concerning federal traffic and pedestrian study grant
money that might possibly be coming our way. Since
that time, we have all been made aware that $160,000 has
been earmarked for such a study for Towson. As many
of you know, the GTC's Transportation and Parking Committee
has been conducting its own signage study, now nearing completion,
and plans to provide a final report of its findings. According
to representatives of Congressman Cardin's office, the GTC
study is "...in direct alignment with the purpose of the federal
grant." Timing could not be better to funnel this
most current information into the pipeline.
GTC feels the information gleaned through the federally
funded study would give participants insight into, not only
needs and assessments, but how one idea for improvement could
impact other factors. To proceed through and complete
the UDAT process, only to have ideas that are not feasible
would be a terrible waste of resources and would taint future
processes like these in the minds of the community. Therefore,
we hope others will join us in appealing to government officials
to ramp up this important study as soon as possible and work
toward a completion date which would allow the UDAT team
to use its findings.
Furthermore, we adamantly believe that a study of this importance,
whose results may be critical to future revitalization in Towson,
should be performed by an outside specialist with experience
and knowledge of livable traffic. Many such resources
exist who have performed similar studies in other areas with
great success. The days of managing only auto flow have
ceased. Towson needs the expertise of a professional
who understands the "park once" philosophy and that knows what
elements are necessary to move people, not just cars. These
characteristics are in part what will make for the vibrancy
in Towson for which we all are working.
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