Baltimore residents express concerns over Fredrick Douglass Tunnel project in public meeting

By Alexus Davila

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    BALTIMORE, Maryland (WJZ) — Amtrak wants to build a new tunnel to improve train services. However, some Baltimore residents are worried about how the construction will impact their homes.

Amtrak officials want to go full speed ahead on the construction of the new Frederick Douglass Tunnel.

However, there are some homes in the pathway of construction, and residents are concerned about the project impacting their livelihood.

Amtrak held a meeting Wednesday night to answer some of the public’s concerns in person.

Nicholas Wright said he frequently commutes to Washington, D.C. by taking a train from Penn Station.

With some of his family living on Payson Street, he wanted to know how their properties would be impacted.

Wright said Amtrak officials answered his questions, and he is looking forward to riding a future train that can travel to the nation’s capital in about half an hour with no stops.

“It would be efficient,” Wright said. It’d be great. It would be very convenient.”

Mount Street is one of the neighborhoods that would be impacted by the new tunnel project.

But one resident said he is not happy that the construction will impact his home.

Gary English said he received a letter in February offering him $7,000 to dig the tunnel underneath his property.

But he called up and said he did not like that price.

“How would they like to have a home they go to sleep in and wake up in the morning knowing that there is a tunnel under their house,” he said.

On Wednesday, English said he was now offered $10,000.

But English said if they are going to build on his property, he would rather sell his home to them for the going price of $150,000.

“I may be feeling the vibration of it,” English said. “I might wake up with cracks in my walls, on the curb. Who knows? I haven’t been there. I don’t know until it happens. That’s one of the reasons why I choose not to settle for mere pennies.”

English spoke with the local non-profit, the Community Law Center.

He hopes the non-profit can find a better solution if he does not receive an offer he likes.

There are two more bi-monthly meetings on the calendar set for September 9th and 11th.

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