Cyclists Impatient for City to Complete Jones Falls Trail
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(*#)%"-,' ! )&'!! )!#"% $(' &)) ! +$ baltimoresun.com Informing more than 1million Maryland readers weekly in print and online THURSDAY Price$2. Our 178th year,No. 253 September 10,2015 HeTHE FREDDarIE GRAingsY CASE to resume City braces for a tense day as judge hears Today’s hearing arguments on change-of-venue motions WHAT IS THE ISSUE BEFORE JUDGE BARRY WILLIAMS? By Yvonne Wenger rounding the case merit a change in venue He will consider whether six police and Kevin Rector for the trials of six police officers charged in officers charged in Freddie Gray’s The Baltimore Sun Gray’s arrest and death. arrest and death can receive fair trials The hearing also comes one day after in the city, given the intense media As attorneys argue in court today Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s admin- coverage and the impact on potential whether to move the Freddie Gray case out istration approved an extraordinary $6.4 jurors. The defense has filed a motion of Baltimore, the tensions driving the million civil settlement with Gray’s family. to move the trials out of Baltimore. discussion will be on full display outside, Legal experts said the settlement could Prosecutors want the trials to be held where protesters calling for justice and bolster defense arguments to move the trial in the city. KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN police plan to gather. out of Baltimore, while the city’s police Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says that Circuit Judge Barry Williams will con- union said it means the officers can’t get a UPDATES ONLINE police officers in the Western District will sider whether the unrest triggered by fair trial in Baltimore. For updates from the hearing, go to get body cameras for a two-month pilot Gray’s death, the nightly curfew that “My concern is that she has implicated baltimoresun.com program “as soon as possible.” followed and the intense publicity sur- See HEARING, page 15 CyCylburn-tlburn-to-Mounto-Mount WaWashingtshingtonon Hospitals exextetensionnsion mormoree thanthan aa yeyearar ofofff want to create 1,000 jobs Proposed rate increase would yield entry-level positions and training By Meredith Cohn The Baltimore Sun Baltimore-area hospital systems want to hire 1,000 entry-level workers and are seeking a small rate increase from the state to pay for the program. KIM HAIRSTON/BALTIMORE SUN The program, proposed by such systems Christoph Lepper, 36, of Mount Washington pedals to work on a section of the Jones Falls Trail that passes near Television Hill. as Johns Hopkins Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical System and MedStar Health, is a response to the frustration in poor Baltimore neighborhoods demon- Cyclists impatient for city to strated by April’s unrest. “We are collectively the largest private- sector employer and we thought we could really make a push to stand up a meaningful number of jobs,” said Ronald R. Peterson, complete Jones Falls Trail president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, ahead of a presentation Wednesday for state regulators. “The pri- By Yvonne Wenger Construction of the $7.5 million exten- mary purpose is to give people with The Baltimore Sun sion — once promised to have begun in relatively low educational attainment an Video online September 2014 — won’t start until some- entry-level job, and then give people the On weekday mornings, Christoph Lep- time in 2016, city parks officials now say. chance to move up over time if they so per spends 40 minutes bicycling from his To see video of the Jones Falls Trail, They blame the holdup on obtaining desire.” home in Mount Washington to his job on go to baltimoresun.com easements and other necessary approvals The jobs could range from cleaning the Johns Hopkins University campus. His for the complicated design and engineer- floors and transporting patients to helping commute is one part peaceful experience, ing plan. Complex negotiations with four people with health insurance. one part tense looking over his shoulder he could spend more time commuting on major property owners must be com- The proposed program drew praise for for speeding cars. the wooded pathway rather than the busy, pleted. including training so those without diplo- Lepper’s been anxiously awaiting Balti- potentially dangerous streets that lead to it. “Often with these programs, you don’t mas or a work history, or with a criminal more’s long-delayed plan to extend the “Get it done,” says Lepper, a 36-year-old understand all of the idiosyncrasies until record, might escape poverty through work, Jones Falls Trail northward by another research scientist. “The delay is really you get into it,” said Paul Taylor, chief of but the program likely faces opposition three miles to Mount Washington. Then hurting me.” See TRAIL, page 12 See HOSPITALS, page 15 Democrats increasingly turn their The Households at Levindale. backs on Jefferson and Jackson So homelike, you’dhardly By Pamela Wood “There’s a lot of concern about the The Baltimore Sun antebellum issues of race and slavery,” said know it’sanursing home. Pat Murray,executive director of the Democratic clubs in Maryland are Maryland Democratic Party. “Certainly considering changing the name of annual we’ve heard concerns about the fact that fundraising dinners amid a broader push these two founders of the party had values to disavow the slave-owning legacies of that don’t really align with the modern Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew party’s values of inclusiveness and diver- Jackson. sity.” Democratic organizations across the In recent months, Democrats in Iowa, country have held “Jefferson-Jackson” Georgia, Connecticut and Missouri are dinners for years. But as the nation among those who have dropped the debates its past — and how to honor it — Jefferson-Jackson title from local events. many are moving to erase the names of the Anne Arundel Democrats are expected party’s forefathers from the invitations. See DEMOCRATS, page 11 SUMMARY OF THE NEWS MARYLAND TODAY’S WEATHER BUSINESS TAXES: The head of the Greater RAIN Baltimore Committee urges a drastic reduction in Maryland’s corporate tax rate in a presenta- tion to the Augustine Commission, a 25- 78 60 member group of business and political leaders HIGH LOW See page 3ofthe Health and that has been examining the state’s business climate. NEWS PG 2 Partly sunny Friday SPORTS PG 10 Style section to learnmore. inside bridge sports 9 ● lottery news 6 ● movie directory h&s 4 ● business news 10 ● obituaries news 14 opinion news 16 ● puzzles h&s 7, sports 9 ● tonight on tv h&s 7 ● comics h&s 6 ● classified sports 8 12 THE BALTIMORE SUN|NEWS |THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER 10,2015 FROM PAGE ONE Cyclists seek longer Jones Falls Trail TRAIL, Frompage 1 capital projects for the Recreation and Jones Falls Trail delay Parks Department. “You’re talking about Work to build an extension of the Jones multiple potential variations, multiple land- Falls Trail was supposed to start last year. The trail is part of the East Coast Greenway. owners and a lot of design considerations. If you’ve done it right, it looks a lot easier than it is.” COMPLETED The trail — currently a seven-mile PLANNED network of cleared and paved pathway, with some stretches along roads — begins at the Inner Harbor, runs north through Druid Hill Park to Clipper Mill in Woodberry and Cylburn ROLAND continues north along the Jones Falls Arboretum PARK stream valley. It ends at the Cylburn Arboretum, off Greenspring Avenue near Northern Parkway. Built over the past decade at a cost of at least $8.5 million so far, the trail is used for recreation and exercise 83 by hikers and runners in addition to bicycling commuters like Lepper. Johns Hopkins The next section will extend the trail University from Cylburn to Kelly Avenue near the Maryland Mount Washington light rail stop. The Zoo in project involves building a steel and cable- Baltimore wire bike and pedestrian bridge over Northern Parkway just east of Greenspring Avenue. It also requires building two small Detail wooden truss bridges over wetlands. It is 40 the final extension currently planned, Baltimore though some advocates hope the trail might Harbor connector someday extend farther. to Gwynns Falls Trail City officials say work should be finished SOURCE: ESRI, USGS, OpenStreetMap, City of Baltimore by the fall of 2017. When the extension is BALTIMORE SUN GRAPHIC done, the trail will run 10 miles and connect 20 neighborhoods with the Inner Harbor, $6.6 million, but the cost of the easements, Druid Hill Park, and other attractions. the complexity of the pedestrian bridge and Amy Horst, the head cross country and other items added costs, Taylor said. The track coach at Loyola University Maryland, extension will continue along a portion of said athletes on her team often train on the KENNETH K. LAM/BALTIMORE SUN Rogers Avenue from Northern Parkway and trail — and she’s eager for it to be extended. Jeff La Noue, project and sustainability planner at the University of Baltimore, regularly north to Kelly Avenue. The team prefers the trail to city streets, rides part of the trail from his home to work. Taylor said the city expects to advertise where a 60-minute run can easily turn into for a contractor later this fall. Construction 75 minutes with stops and starts at busy to encourage more biking. said. could begin in the spring, although it could intersections. He’s frustrated that, as it is now, the trail The extension requires four significant take longer to obtain all the necessary state “It allows us to train uninterrupted from doesn’t have a terminus, “just sort of easements and is subject to state review.