Downtown Mess

With construction on Pratt and Light Streets, you can imagine the mess that is occurring downtown during the morning and evening rush. Two lanes of Pratt Street are closed between Green and Calvert Street pushing traffic down to just two lanes the entire distance. Northbound on Light Street between Key Highway and the intersection with Calvert and Pratt will have two left lanes closed for the next 90 days! This huge funnel brings traffic almost to a standstill at some times during the day.

Light Street has three of its right lanes closed between Lombard and Pratt which has had the biggest impact on traffic flow. The turn lanes on Lombard are backed up more than usual since there now is barely enough room to turn onto Light. Traffic coming down Light/St. Paul Street is routinely backed up all the way to Saratoga Street on both the upper and lower sections of the road around Preston Gardens.

All of this is worth it right? All the road improvements for the Baltimore Grand Prix will make the drive a lot smoother over the next year, and the economic impact to the city is estimated at $60 million. For drivers whose patience has been tested with the seemingly never ending downtown road construction, the timing could not be any worse. The road reconstruction along Lombard Street that snarled traffic for nearly the last year, has just been finished, and now a whole new set of roads are getting torn up for the next 2 weeks to three months. Thanks?

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