(WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 14, 2025) – Last week, I announced – with U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks – $85 million in federal funding for Baltimore City’s first phase of redevelopment of the Highway to Nowhere in West Baltimore. Constructed in the 1970s, the Highway to Nowhere project destroyed homes and businesses and displaced approximately 1,500 residents, leaving communities divided and damaged.
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The funding comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Program, an initiative Federal Team Maryland successfully fought to include in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The provisions in the law were modeled off of legislation I led in the U.S. House and introduced by Senator Van Hollen and then-Senator Ben Cardin in the Senate. Senator Van Hollen and I drafted the legislation that created this program specifically with the Highway to Nowhere in mind – to reconnect communities isolated and excluded from economic opportunity by past infrastructure decisions.
The funds announced last week will be used to build a cap over one of the blocks of the highway, tear down existing ramps over the highway, and incorporate safety improvements at key locations and intersections to improve mobility and accessibility within the nearby West Baltimore neighborhoods. This investment will reconnect historically disadvantaged communities within West Baltimore and the City’s Central Business District.
Last week’s announcement comes after Senator Van Hollen, former Senator Cardin, and I wrote in September 2024 to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in support of Baltimore City’s grant application for the funding and also follows a $2 million grant that Federal Team Maryland worked to secure for the City in February 2023 to begin planning for the Highway to Nowhere redevelopment.
CLICK HERE to WATCH Rep. Mfume’s remarks announcing a $2 million planning grant to redevelop the Highway to Nowhere in April 2023.
With this federal investment, we are keeping our promise to the city of Baltimore, and the neighborhoods were virtually split in half 50 years ago by the displacement of residents and the disruption of small businesses because of the construction of the terrible Highway to Nowhere.
This $85 million in new federal funding will go a long way toward removing neighborhood barriers to mobility, improving access, and generating economic development. I won’t stop until we create more living community spaces, build more housing, and restore neighborhood parks, as well as a new hope for reconnecting the Harlem Park, Poppleton, and Rosemont communities.
