For Amtrak's renovation project for the Baltimore & Potomac (B&P) tunnel, Amtrak is moving a train tunnel from a majority-white neighborhood to majority-Black neighborhoods across West Baltimore. 

As a result, Amtrak will demolish and acquire hundreds of homes and businesses in majority-Black, historic neighborhoods to construct both the tunnel and a corresponding emergency ventilation facility located directly across the street from an elementary school. The school serves a student population that is 90% Black and made up of pre-kindergarteners to fifth graders.

The facility, itself, will exhaust fumes and byproducts like particle pollution out of its tunnels into a zip code with the poorest air quality and highest rates of pediatric asthma hospitalizations in the state. 

Young and susceptible CHILDREN will be in danger of breathing particles associated with cardiovascular diseases like heart disease and respiratory diseases like asthma and lung cancer. 

We’re petitioning for Amtrak to select an alternative location for its ventilation facility, identified as the Intermediate Ventilation Facility. 

Amtrak has already garnered billions in federal grant funding from the Biden Administration, so they can afford to spare the lives of children. 

Don’t let Amtrak: 

• Increase air pollution at and around Dorothy I. Height Elementary School, especially when Amtrak refuses to rule out the possibility of freight train operations.  
• Burden pre-kindergarteners, young students, parents, faculty and residents with increased air and noise pollution, solid waste and rodent activity. 

Alarmingly, many parents were not made aware of Amtrak’s plans. This is a testament to Amtrak’s woefully inadequate engagement in the community, as documented in a civil rights complaint Baltimoreans filed with the representation of New York University School of Law’s Civil Rights and Racial Justice Clinic.

The complaint argues that Amtrak’s demonstrated need for the project does not justify the discriminatory effects on Black residents and children, especially since Amtrak could have achieved the goals of the project using less discriminatory alternatives.

TAKE ACTION

To help the kids and residents: 

• Please sign this petition and share it widely!
• Please copy and paste the petition link and/or description copy and contact the following with this petition’s request:
  • Amtrak at MediaRelationsWIL@Amtrak.com and/or FDTunnel@Amtrak.com
  • Governor Wes Moore here
  • Mayor Brandon Scott here 
  • Representative Kweisi Mfume here
  • Senator Chris Van Hollen here
  • President Joe Biden here

Everyone deserves clean air. It’s a fundamental human right, not a privilege.