Last Updated on September 16, 2023
Charlestown resident William Miller will review Stop the Road by E. Evans Paull [Newark, OH: Boyle & Dalton, 2022] on Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.
This is a detailed account of more than forty years of battling where roads should be built, or not built, in the City of Baltimore. For better or worse, these conflicts over roads were a major factor in creating the city as we know it today. It is a lesson in history that relates to the role of highway design and construction in forcing tens of thousands of people to relocate in many American cities.
The story begins in 1943 with an ambitious proposal by Robert Moses to make Baltimore into the focal point of freeways linking north-south roads with east-west
roads, at the cost of destroying the character of the city and many of its neighborhoods. From that point forward, plan after plan is advanced, amended and blocked. The book details this process chronologically and then presents chapters relating to the dynamics of each of the major conflicts.
For those readers who have wondered why I-70 ends at the Baltimore Beltway and doesn’t connect to an isolated stretch of superhighway in West Baltimore, or why there are fragments of incomplete off ramps along I-95 on the way to downtown, this book provides the answer. It also details how Barbara Mikulski advanced from a social worker and community activist to become a powerful United States Senator. She was one of the outspoken road warriors, examples of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Whether native or new to Baltimore, you will be intrigued by this ambitious chronicle.
Author E. Evans Paull is a retired city planner, who has been nationally awarded for his work on urban redevelopment issues.
Resident William Miller earned the MPA from American University and has directed organizations involved with urban planning and development in Baltimore and other cities.