It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.

An intersection on Light Street in Federal Hill was crying out for a crosswalk, thought members of the Federal Hill Neighborhood Association. It could also use bump-outs to improve visibility and a nice painted mural on a building to beautify the area.

But it would take about a year and a half to get a handful of plastic bollards installed, bolt a pedestrian sign into the road and apply some paint at an intersection, according to the people involved.

Many residents have long complained that the city transportation department is slow to fulfill requests for crosswalks, speed bumps and other so-called traffic-calming measures that could temper speeding cars in neighborhoods or make streets safer for pedestrians.

It’s an issue that arose during a budget hearing earlier this year. A councilman wondered about the inequities of who gets help and who doesn’t. A critic called the process a “black box.”

With its limited personnel and funds, the agency leaves it to residents and neighborhood associations to do the legwork where they can’t.

But some, like in Federal Hill, say that even after they find the money to pay for it, the city does more to slow the process than move it along.

The association initially asked the city transportation department to do it, but were told it wasn’t a priority.

In October 2022 they applied for a Community Safety Works Grant to do it themselves, and got the money in May 2023, according to the neighborhood association. With about $60,000 in hand, they were ready to get to work.

After submitting an application to the city through its community-led placemaking portal, the neighborhood association learned they couldn’t proceed with the plan unless they redid city-owned curbs to make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The notice, along with trying to secure the right permits, led to extensive delays and price increases that the neighborhood association said they were on the hook for despite the road and sidewalks falling under the city’s right of way.

Locchanan Sreeharikesan, vice president of the neighborhood association, said the costs for the project ballooned from an estimated $60,000 to $110,000, because of the need to hire an engineering firm to design new curb cut outs and contractors to do the concrete work.

Sreeharikesan said the association applied for a right of way permit at the end of February this year, and did not hear back from the Department of Transportation until May 6. The right-of-way permit, which is used to block off parts of the street for contractors to work, would cost the neighborhood association another $1,400.

“I don’t have a revenue stream that’s consistent,” said Sreeharikesan. “As a neighborhood association, we have no margin to play with.”

Baltimore is facing a lawsuit over a lack of ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps. Only 1.3% of nearly 38,000 curbs ramps that were surveyed back in 2019 were ADA-compliant, according to a release from Disability Rights Maryland after filing the suit in 2021.

That year, official estimates put the price tag of bringing sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure up to ADA code citywide at about $657 million. A transportation department spokesperson declined to answer a question about how much money has been spent on the effort, citing pending litigation.

The contract work finished in June 2024, about a year after the grant money was awarded. If you walk on Light Street in Federal Hill now, and stop by the intersections of Light Street, East Henrietta Street and Warren Avenue, you’ll see new curb ramps, a newly painted crosswalk and bump-outs sectioned off by plastic flex posts.

Sreeharikesan said it’s important to empower city residents who want to make improvements in their neighborhoods. He was “lucky” to have writing experience from college to help deal with grant applications, and lucky to have a job that affords him some flexibility to get home at a reasonable time and work on other projects.

“I have this incredible amount of privilege that isn’t available to everyone,” he said.

He was frustrated by how the process played out with the city, but also with how difficult the process would or could be for neighborhood associations that don’t have the time or resources to deal with city bureaucracy.

“It’s not just pay for it, it’s jump through our loopholes that are not really documented anywhere,” he said.

Traffic-calming requests are evaluated and prioritized using “an analysis of traffic conditions, roadway geometry, crashes, and other factors,” according to a transportation department spokesperson. Maintenance of sidewalks and ADA compliance are a shared responsibility between multiple agencies, utilities, developers and property owners, she said.

The process for neighborhoods to request speed bumps or crosswalks is difficult to navigate — a sentiment that 1st District Councilman Zeke Cohen has heard citywide, he said at a May 31 transportation department budget hearing. There is an extensive backlog of such applications, which are typically submitted through 311, and it seems that better connected, better organized neighborhoods can get their requests completed quicker, he said.

“I think it replicates some of the inequities of how resources are distributed across our city because the systems are incredibly cumbersome and not user-friendly and often result in residents becoming frustrated,” Cohen said. “It just feels like the system is not handling these concerns appropriately when they are relatively low level, common sense.”

At the hearing, transportation department director Corren Johnson said her team has been trying to “clean up” the backlog and has changed some internal processes to better align the teams working on them. Her team installed a record number of speed humps last year, she said, and has tweaked how it prioritizes traffic-calming requests to emphasize high-crash areas.

But the city hasn’t been transparent in showing its work on how it prioritizes both ADA projects and traffic calming, said Jed Weeks, director of bike advocacy organization Bikemore. He said he knows of speed bump requests that have been pending since 2012.

“It’s sort of a black box. No one knows where, why or how things are being prioritized,” said Weeks. “There’s no analysis that’s been provided … as to why one project happens before another.”

The city also has plans for a public-facing online portal on which residents can submit and see the status of traffic-calming requests. At the May budget hearing, 3rd District Councilman Ryan Dorsey asked when it would go live — the transportation department had recently shown him a beta version, he said, with the understanding city residents could get online and use it before the end of June.

“I wasn’t aware of that timeline,” responded Johnson.

In an emailed statement to The Banner, a spokesperson for the transportation department confirmed the purpose and scope of the portal but declined to provide a timeline for its implementation, saying the department is “still pursuing” its creation.