Baltimoreans file Civil Rights Complaint against Amtrak, urging Biden Admin to investigate!

On April 30, 2024, a group of Reservoir Hill residents, represented by New York University School of Law’s Civil Rights and Racial Justice Clinic, submitted a civil rights complaint to the U.S. Department of Transportation, alleging that Amtrak’s proposed Frederick Douglass Tunnel Program would have a disparate impact on their majority-Black community in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the spring of 2017, Amtrak selected a new route as part of a renovation project for its aging Baltimore & Potomac (B&P) tunnel. Reservoir Hill residents say the project’s new route will be the next in a long line of transportation infrastructure decisions that have negatively and disproportionately impacted Baltimore’s Black residents. This history includes the construction of U.S. Highway 40, also known as the “Highway to Nowhere,” and the cancellation of the Red Line, as well as the expansion of three roads that separate Reservoir Hill from more affluent parts of the city.

The complaint argues that Amtrak’s demonstrated need for the project does not justify the discriminatory effects on Black residents, especially since Amtrak could have achieved the goals of the project using less discriminatory alternatives. Despite accepting federal funds for the program from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) pioneered and signed by President Biden, Amtrak never seriously considered any route that would have avoided disproportionate effects on Black and low-income communities. As a result, Amtrak will demolish and acquire hundreds of homes and businesses in majority-Black neighborhoods to construct both the tunnel and a corresponding emergency ventilation facility located directly across the street from an elementary school. Residents have expressed concern with the facility’s function and design–which does not match their neighborhood’s historic architecture–as well as the possibility that the facility may accommodate freight traffic. Such traffic has the potential to expose community members, including children at the nearby elementary school, to harmful emissions.

"Reservoir Hill already has some of the highest pediatric asthma hospitalizations and air quality in the state of Maryland and is concentrated by race and poverty due to past (racist) transportation sins," explains Carson Ward, Chairperson of Reservoir Hill Association’s B&P Tunnel Working Group. "Now, in the year of the 60ᵗʰ anniversary of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, here we are fighting the same structural racism, proven to unjustly decimate Black communities, which we are supposed to be protected from in this day in age. President Biden promised he would put environmental justice at the center of what he does. This is the exact opposite of that promise.”

Reservoir Hill residents also say that Amtrak’s engagement with their community over the nearly 10-year duration of the project so far has been woefully inadequate. "Reservoir Hill didn't have a seat at the table and Black residents were only invited to the table after all the plates were cleared," says Keondra Prier, President of the Reservoir Hill Association. "We have written letters, made presentations, and raised our voices to anyone who would hear and in return Amtrak representatives have rolled their eyes at our legitimate concerns, ignored our requests to participate, and taken months to answer our most basic questions. The thing is, community engagement isn't a nice-to-have, especially considering we're in a historic Black community. It's actually a legal obligation."

The complaint was filed on behalf of the Reservoir Hill Association, a nonprofit community organization comprised of people who reside and work in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. In the complaint, residents call on the U.S. Department of Transportation to open an investigation into Amtrak’s conduct pertaining to the Frederick Douglass Tunnel Program. Specifically, they request that Amtrak halt construction related to the Program and engage in constructive dialogue with those adversely affected by the project.