Dear Constituent,

Long before becoming a member of Congress, I spent a lot of time in the west Baltimore communities surrounding the Highway to Nowhere – a man-made monstrosity that divides residents who call Harlem Park, Poppleton, and other neighborhoods home.

The Highway is a sore reminder of past efforts to connect Baltimore's Central Business District with surrounding interstates. However, those highway connections were never completed due to grassroots, community opposition and a lack of federal funding. Still, partial construction of the Highway resulted in the demolition of 971 homes and 62 businesses with approximately 1,500 residents that were displaced. Roughly 50 years later, the road remains a safety hazard as well as a physical and symbolic barrier to community progress in large swaths of west Baltimore that were once connected.

Today, I am proud to announce a $2 million federal planning grant for Baltimore City as a first step towards addressing the Highway to Nowhere. This federal investment comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Program, an initiative crafted in legislation led by myself and my congressional colleagues in the United States House and Senate from Maryland. Our initial letter of support to the agency in October of 2022, after the legislation was enacted into law, underscored how strongly we felt and feel about this blight on neighborhoods in west Baltimore.   

Again, this is a first step in the process toward renewal of the land and reunification of the neighborhoods. I look forward to the community engagement required by the law and the planning grant. I also look forward to working with the City and State on this matter as we continue our shared efforts to right this wrong. 

Yours in service,

Kweisi Mfume
Member of Congress