At a July meeting of Baltimore’s planning commission, officials were breezing through a seemingly boring list of approvals when a commissioner raised a question: Why did the cost of a water main replacement project in Upper Fells Point and Canton balloon from $15 million to $25 million?
The answer, according to city staff, was largely due to a policy change made two years earlier by the Department of Transportation that requires entire blocks to be repaved if contractors or city workers dig up more than half of the roadway. That decision is now costing the Department of Public Works, which oversees water main projects, millions of dollars in unplanned expenses — and that might be a fraction of the total financial fallout.
The policy change could raise the cost for future infrastructure projects and did not require City Council approval. The realization left commissioners wondering why there hadn’t been more discussion about the rule change — and whether it was even necessary.
The increased costs for the Upper Fells and Canton project meant shifting funds that had been earmarked for elsewhere in the city.
“We’re pulling money out of the Fullerton water filtration reserve, the Montebello water filtration, and the chlorine handling safety improvement [fund] to pave a road,” planning commission Chairman Sean Davis said. “That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me.”
One of the members of the planning commission, a nine-member panel made up of city officials and residents, said the policy had been scrutinized by the Department of Public Works. Marcia Collins heads the agency’s office of legislative affairs.
“A sister agency made a decision. It’s been discussed — believe me — very thoroughly between the agencies,” Collins told her fellow commissioners. “We’re trying to meet our obligation under that new policy, but it does have dollar implications.”
That policy kicks in when more than half a road is “disturbed with trenching” or if an intersection is trenched diagonally, according to the Department of Transportation. The entire block or intersection must be milled and resurfaced then.
Back at the July meeting of the planning commission, commissioners were wondering whether the Department of Public Works had already started spending money on the water main project in Upper Fells and Canton. Davis called for the planning commission to revisit the issue at the panel’s next meeting.
But earlier this month, the meeting came and went with no discussion about road repaving — and the financial implications for projects like water main replacements.
There are at least 16 water main projects currently underway in Baltimore, according to a Department of Public Works website. The city contracts with private companies to handle these projects. Much of the city’s water system is more than 80 years old and failing, and Baltimore plans to replace or rehabilitate water mains throughout the city.
The Department of Public Works did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story, with a spokesperson saying the agency’s statement was under review — a process that has lasted weeks.
In a statement, the Department of Transportation acknowledged the policy change and the possible budgetary effects to come, but the agency did not elaborate on how much money is at stake.
Additionally, because of an August 2023 directive from Mayor Brandon Scott, city agencies must make sure future projects meet certain Americans with Disabilities Act standards. Part of that 1990 federal law is designed to increase access to public spaces for people with disabilities.
The city is currently locked in a 2021 lawsuit filed by disability rights advocates. That year, officials at the transportation department estimated it would cost a staggering $657 million to make its pedestrian system — sidewalks, crosswalks and footpaths, for example — ADA-compliant.
