In 2015, Governor Hogan’s pivotal decision to cancel the Red Line sparked the creation of The Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, a community-led organization that champions equitable transportation in Baltimore. Before BTEC’s advocacy, Maryland was not required to seek input from local municipalities for transportation policy; however, after thirteen years of advocacy and stewardship, The Equity In Transportation Bill was passed. At this session, Samuel Jordan, the Co-Founder & President of Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition based in Baltimore, Maryland, will help us understand the history of the red line, the importance of equity analysis for transit systems, and the continuation of the work with the Maryland Rail Investment Act of 2023.
Come for the community, stay for the conversation, and leave with a deeper civic connection to Charm City.
Samuel Jordan – Keynote Speaker
Samuel Jordan President – Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition (BTEC)
Mr. Jordan founded the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition (BTEC) in 2016 to complete the Baltimore Red Line light rail project and recover its transformative economic benefits for the Baltimore metropolitan region and the African American, Hispanic, low-income, and transit-dependent communities adversely affected by the cancellation of the project in 2015. He has conducted community livability, issue organizing, and skills training programs in Baltimore and Washington, DC over the last fifteen years.
As an advisor to the Washington, DC Department of Transportation, Mr. Jordan was honored by the National Capital Chapter of the American Planning Association in 2013 for his community livability tool, “Community Livability Outreach Advisors.” A signatory of the Baltimore Red Line Community Compact while founder and Executive Director of the Ward 7 Development Advisory Council, Mr. Jordan served as an outreach and planning volunteer on the Red Line light rail project from 2007 until its cancellation in 2015. Under his leadership, the newly formed BTEC filed the first of two Title VI administrative complaints against Governor Larry Hogan and the state of Maryland for the cancellation of the Red Line light rail project for his “aggressive, punitive, re-enforcement of the status quo” when the status quo for people of color and households of modest means is always punitive.
More recently, Mr. Jordan has been a “Community Resource” in the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). In this capacity, he represents BTEC, transit advocates and their communities, in shaping TCI’s “cap-and-invest” mechanism in addressing transportation’s role in disproportionately pollution-burdened “frontline” communities across the state. Currently, BTEC is leading an effort in Baltimore to take the initial steps to a regional transportation authority by amendment to the Baltimore city charter. BTEC’s ballot access campaign is an attempt to supplant structural racism in public transportation with structural change.
The Red Line project means 10,000 jobs, dramatically reduced commute times, improved transit equity, and $3.0 – $6.5 billion in transit-oriented development (TOD). Its benefits are not limited to people of color but will transform the economy and lift the quality of life for all residents of the region.
Mr. Jordan is co-author with Dr. Megan Latshaw of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health of the study released in 2021, “Transit Equity and Environmental Health in Baltimore City.” The study is Baltimore’s first transit equity analysis. It also identifies communities most in need of investments to reduce pollution and to address adverse health impacts of pollution.
Maya Write – Artistic Feature
Maya is a poet out of Pittsburgh who has recently relocated to Baltimore to expand her professional and artist career. She has over 120,000 subscribers on YouTube and continues to grow her fanbase on other social media platforms. Maya began slamming the summer of 2020, and in April of 2021 became one of the top five womxn poets in the world. In January of 2022 Maya earned a spot on the most awarded slam team in the world (Slammageddon). She along with teammates won the title of 2022 Southern Fried Slam Champions. Maya is the current individual Southern Fried poetry slam champion making her the number one ranked slam poet in the nation. When she isn’t slamming she has had the pleasure of leading poetry workshops for colleges on “the art of a good flip”. Maya recently released her first poetry book The Street Lights Are On: Poems for my friends called home and is preparing for her second book release for her full length poetry book titled Let’s Just Make it Through the Month.
Scott Patterson – Musical Guest
Scott Patterson is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Afro House, a Baltimore-based organization committed to creating disruptive music culture. This work is done through live performances, such as the Afro House Concert Series, theatrical productions featuring Afro House’s Astronaut Symphony, film and collaborations with other organizations and artists. Since 2012 Patterson has toured with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. He is contributing composer of the Bessie Award winning Mr. TOL E. RAncE and Brown’s critically acclaimed work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play and ink. His compositions for these have been performed for audiences at numerous venues, such as, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Belfast Festival at Queen’s, White Bird, The Joyce Theater, and Debartolo Performing Arts Center. 2019 marks a significant shift for Patterson. He began to turn his epic Afrofuturistic sci-fi opera-ballet into a film. He became a Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellow in 2020 and was selected to participate in the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund’s 2020 and 2022 screenplay lab for Cloud Nebula. Under Patterson’s direction, Cloud Nebula, the theatrical work was performed in both traditional and non-traditional venues, including festivals, such as Artscape and Brilliant Baltimore, The Peale and The Walters Art Museum, the Afro House Concert Series and WTMD as a live radio broadcast. In 2021, Patterson worked with Baltimore-based director, Marissa Dahl, on Kojo Astronaut, a filmed performance featuring songs from his catalog. In May 2021 a portion of the film appeared on PBS’s Great Performances: The Arts Interrupted. The entire film will appear on the streaming service, kweliTV, in 2022. Patterson is a recipient of the 2020 Regional Independent Artist Award for Performing Arts from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is a 2019 Baker Artist Award, Mary Sawyers Imboden Awardee, and is a recipient of a Creative Baltimore Fund Grant and Artist/District Grant. Learn more about Scott Patterson at www.afrohouse.org