Mayor Jack Young announces additional service changes amid coronavirus outbreak

BALTIMORE — On Monday, Baltimore City Mayor Jack Young announced additional services changes to further encourage social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“Several of our agencies have adjusted their service hours and operations as they respond to the spread of COVID-19,” Mayor Young said. “We have taken these measures to protect the health and safety of our City employees and the residents of Baltimore City as we work to continue performing core, essential services.”

Here are the following changes:

Parking Authority of Baltimore The Parking Authority of Baltimore remains closed. However, staff are available to assist the public via email at parkingauthority@bcparking.com or by phone at (443) 573-2800. No employees will be working from the office until the emergency has been lifted.

• Parking meters/parking meter restrictions will not be in effect for this period.
• No payment is required at parking meters.

Baltimore Municipal and Zoning Appeals (BMZA) As of today, BMZA has suspended all operations. No new appeals will be accepted and all hearings in April are hereby suspended until further notice. New appeals and rescheduled hearings will be scheduled and heard on an expedited basis when operations resume.

Mayor’s Office of Employment Development MOED has suspended the operation of its adult and youth service locations due to COVID-19. This impacts a number of the services. Those seeking help with finding employment or other supports are encouraged to visit their website at MOED.baltimorecity.gov for links to resources that are available at this time.

Department of Transportation The Department of Transportation (DOT) will scale back its employee workforce in order to comply with social distancing protocols. On-call crews will be used to perform daily agency operations, which will be significantly reduced. As a result, the following services will be affected:

• The enforcement of Residential Permit Parking, street cleaning parking, 48-hour parking, abandoned vehicles and peak hour parking violations will be suspended. Transportation Enforcement Officers will focus on citing immediate safety and pedestrian issues.
• Vehicle towing operations will be significantly reduced and will focus on immediate safety issues. The city’s impound facilities at Pulaski Highway and Fallsway remain closed to the public.
• DOT Maintenance crews and operations will be scaled back to focus on emergency and critical issues related to the repair of roadways, signs, lighting, etc.
• Traffic calming studies will be postponed.
• Federal contract work will continue to operate throughout the City of Baltimore. This includes bridge, buildings and reconstruction/streetscape projects.
• Paving and sidewalk work (except for federally funded projects) will be postponed.
• Conduit contractors will reduce their work forces and respond only to critical BGE related repairs.
• DOT’s Right-of-Way office remains closed to the public and permit requests should be submitted online.
• Parking meter payments/restrictions will not be enforced for this period.

“Thank you to the leadership and staff at each of these agencies for their continued contributions to making sure city services run as smoothly as possible during this challenging time,” Young said. “I ask that residents support the City’s efforts at containing COVID-19 by continuing to practice social distancing and reaching out to those departments who have suspended in-person service through other avenues available to them.”

“Let me be very clear, the Baltimore Police Department continue to enforce the laws of the city,” said Police Commissioner Michael Harrison.

In response to the Governor’s stay at home order and order for all non essential businesses to close, Harrison says he’s putting more boots on the ground to make sure everyone is following the law.

“We have had a few calls to disperse gatherings of 10 or more...we will continue to do patrols and answering calls to make sure that our social distancing task force will go out and make sure businesses are in compliance and if we find out they are not, we will take the appropriate action.”