Another lost opportunity in parks planning: Joint Management Plan for Cromwell Valley Park; Lock Raven Reservoir; and the Northern Central Trail in Baltimore County

The comment thread on the NPS post ("National Park Service as operator of local parks in DC") a couple back reminded me I meant to write about "Loch Raven Reservoir" because it was written about in a recent Baltimore Sun column, "At Baltimore's Loch Raven Reservoir, a good walk spoiled."  From the article:

It took me 10 days to get a response from DPW about the desire of citizens to see the gates closed. The next paragraph contains most of the official statement I received from DPW’s communications office. (Note: The second quoted sentence was missing a critical verb or two when it arrived by email.) 

“Due to the management goals for the City’s water resource, the [reservoir] areas are not managed as park, recreational areas, but as water resource protection areas. In an effort to protect the water source, monitor, and manage activities around the Loch Raven Reservoir, DPW having the gates open, eliminating parking hazards associated with increased recreational activity and enabling better management of crowds. As the weather becomes outdoor-friendly, many runners, bikers, and walkers will frequent the City’s watershed areas and compete for recreational space. It is the department’s desire to ensure the safety of everyone who visits and enjoys the City’s watershed areas while protecting the City’s water resources for the public and our 1.8 million customers.”

When I worked briefly in Baltimore County in FY2010 to do a bicycle and pedestrian plan for a section of the western county, I was titled "bicycle and pedestrian planner," but it was only for that section of the county.  Nonetheless, it did include a section around Towson (but not Towson), north and east.  

This included the old right of way for the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, which had long since been abandoned, and is used by Baltimore Gas and Electric as an electricity transmission corridor.

To create a county-wide bikeway system that connects to adjacent counties so it can be a regional system, this corridor provides the ability to connect to Harford County, which uses Ma & Pa corridors for trails already.

A new stewardship agreement between the city of Baltimore, MORE (Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts) and the International Mountain Bike Association promises improved mountain bike access to the watershed. Baltimore Sun photo.

There is an installation of "connected parks" here, all owned by different entities.  Cromwell Valley Park is a Baltimore County park.  

Loch Raven Reservoir isn't a park per se, it's part of the regional water system, and owned and operated by the Baltimore City Department of Public Works.  And the NCR Trail is a state park--literally limited to the width of the old railroad ROW--which runs north to York County, Pennsylvania.  

During the planning process, there was a lot of tension around LRR over mountain biking, because it could get dirt into the water ("Loch'd Out: Loch Raven Reservoir MTB Riding," BIKE Magazine, 2017, "Deal will expand mountain biking at Loch Raven Reservoir," Baltimore Sun, 2017) which has been a problem dating to the late 1990s. 

Wrt CVP, Baltimore County long ago ceded "authority" over parks and recreation centers to residents, through organized committees, called "park and/or recreation councils," which raise money to operate the facilities and deliver programming.  

The group at CVP spent a lot of time restoring the creek watershed, removing invasives, etc. and looked upon biking--because of the mountain biking issue at LRR--as a threat to all the work they had done.  Justifiably, they are very proud of their efforts.

In our plan, we wanted to put a trail through CVP, because the grade of the Ma & Pa/BGE transmission corridor is brutal (BGE is a rare utility in the DMV that isn't opposed to co-locating trails in transmission corridors.  I also argue that adding bike trails to transmission corridors can increase facility safety by adding "eyes on the street" to places normally bereft of people and subject to vandalism and even terroristic acts.)

I was invited to speak about our planning process and concepts at a CVP monthly meeting.  It was the second worst public meeting I've ever endured.  Due to my own hubris and their somewhat unjustified fear of regular bicycling.  

I wasn't fully conversant with the issues and history of the CVP committee, and I had smooth sailing through most of the public process in terms of positive civic engagement and a lot of experience with the public element of planning processes.  Turns out I was unprepared.

Anyway, I got my clocked cleaned.  

Eventually I made a rare compromise to the plan--even though it would cripple the concept of a regional bikeway system, at least on the east side of the Baltimore metropolitan area--and took that recommendation out of the plan, because I realized that vociferous opposition by the CVP group could scuttle the whole plan, not just the recommendation for an eastern trail connecting to Harford County.  

BUT, I did come up with a different recommendation, one that I was super proud of, that had a Gordian Knot type of "simplicity" and elegance.  And one that stayed in the plan.

I proposed a next stage of bike and pedestrian planning for that area, the creation of a "joint management plan" between the three "parks," Cromwell Valley Park, Loch Raven Reservoir, and the Northern Central Trail, bringing the County, the City, and the State Parks together for a jointly managed and coordinated access plan for pedestrians and cyclists for the three parks.  (You could even get York County involved, since the NCR trail continues from the state border to Downtown York City.)

It would deal with mountain biking, get the DPW to manage LRR more as a park, and hopefully lay the setting for a reconsideration in the future of an eastern bikeway through Cromwell Valley Park.

Obviously, 13 years later, a joint management plan is nowhere near being created.

Just like my recommendations on Baltimore area transit ("More remonstration about the molasses of change: Transit planning, Baltimore County, Maryland and Towson").

Or that the State of Maryland should require school systems to do "balanced transportation planning" and formally require school transportation planning include bicycle and pedestrian planning, not just school buses.

Etc.

National Park Service as operator of local parks in DC

I know the argument that because the District of Columbia is the National Capital, park and urban design features should be operated by the federal government as an element of beautification.  After all, that's how it's done in Paris ("Why Paris Works," New York Times Magazine, 1992).  And in cities like Brasilia and Canberra, which are dedicated national capitals.

But in the US, antipathy within government (the Republicans don't believe in government being legitimate) about governance and anti-Washington sentiment means that the necessary monies to fund such infrastructure and services is never provided, unlike Paris.

I have made the point for a long time that locally serving parks and features in DC that are run by the National Park Service should revert to DC ("Defining National Park Service installations in DC as locally or nationally serving," 2019, "Yes, the National Park Service shouldn't be paying to maintain major commuter roads and bridges in the DC area," 2019).

Not that DC would adequately maintain them either and this isn't the only area where DC should pick up the costs and programs serving the city that the federal government runs ("3 ways to honor D.C. autonomy and relieve the federal treasury," Washington Post).  

DC like most governments isn't good at providing extranormal services to maintain public places, which is why business improvement districts have been created to provide such care in commercial districts like Downtown.  

WRT local governments not being good at providing extranormal service see "The Life and Death of a Masterpiece:  What went wrong with a 1988 park by the late Dan Kiley, and what can we learn from its imminent demolition?," Landscape Architecture, 2004.  Another example of a park space that was demolished because it exceeded the capacity of the local government is the Long Beach Civic Center in California.  But there are many others.

People stand next to the fountain in Dupont Circle as the water flows Thursday. The National Park Service recently turned the water on in the fountain after repairs were made. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

There is a letter to the editor in the Washington Post, "Dupont fountain is an example of NPS’s failure to plan," in response to an article about the Dupont Circle Fountain, and how part of it has been fixed so water is flowing, but another part needs to be fixed so it will be shut down.  

The author avers this is poor planning, and the first response in the comments makes the point about funding not being being provided, but scraped together in the midst of a shortage and many other priorities.

(Note sometimes it is poor planning, lack of coordination, etc.  E.g., DC paid to repave the street behind our house, while knowing that Pepco was scheduled to tear up for re-laying of transmission lines, but because the money was allocated they went ahead.)

Another comment is about not having the money to repair Memorial Bridge after an errant car took out some balustrades.  But Memorial Bridge probably should primarily be maintained by DC, although the argument can be made it's part of the National Mall, but it connects DC and Virginia, etc.

But then the next comment is yes, you're right, NPS does a terrible job with Lincoln Park... Lincoln Park is a 100% locally serving park, and being responsible for maintaining it means that NPS has less money to deal with the truly "national installations" elsewhere in DC that it is responsible for.

The real question is what should the National Park Service be maintaining in the city and what should be maintained by the city.

Dupont Circle should revert to the city.

On the other hand, NPS doesn't want to give anything up either.  Even though urban park spaces are not its strength, and the organization's focus is on the large national parks, especially those out west.

So DC is between a rock and hard place, destined to have undermaintained and underfunded facilities in perpetuity.