The Towanda LaneScape project connects Towanda residents with a community green space and the Cold Spring Station Metro Subway via pedestrian-safety-enhancing and beautifying public art. Graham Projects and the Towanda Neighborhood Association (TNA) co-created the project with inspiration and installation help from local legacy residents. The Grantley Avenue leg of the project runs from Reisterstown Road to East Wabash Avenue and consists of painting a curving “Purple Path”, planters and murals emphasizing how residents safely share the street among cars, pedestrians, and people on bicycle and scooters.
Neighbors collected used tires during Towanda clean ups that TNA and Graham Projects up-cycled into the artwork. Local artist Maurice Bradford provided ideas for highlighting healing plants in the artwork. The Vulcan Materials Company wooden fence features painted tire planters and four abstract murals highlighting local medicinal plants that grow wild in the neighborhood; including Wineberry, Queen Anne’s Lace, Mullein, and Burdock. At E Wabash Avenue a painted set of Jersey barriers and recycled tire planters protect the residential street from adjacent industrial truck traffic while allowing people on foot, wheelchair and bicycle to continue to access the local transit hub. Local seniors, parents, and children painted the pavement art and planted the planters.
A future phase of the LaneScape project will convert an unused parking lane on East Wabash Avenue into a flex-post protected shared-use pedestrian path with a pavement mural at Cold Spring Lane leading into the curvilinear “Purple Path”. The project will complement a transit oriented, affordable housing development planned for the northeast corner of East Wabash Avenue and Cold Spring Lane.
This project was funded by the Towanda Neighborhood Association with a grant from the State of Maryland Pimlico Racetrack “One Mile Radius Funds”, administered by Healthy Neighborhoods.
Production team: Graham Coreil-Allen, Melvin Jadulang, Zoe Roane-Hopkins, Stephanie Baker, Q Batts, JaVon Townsend, Joi Dabney, and the resident volunteers of Towanda. Planter fabrication by LANNINGSMITH. Jersey barrier upgrades by Vulcan Materials Company. Purple path line striping by Equus Striping. Plants and soil donated by Farmer Chippy of the Plantation Park Heights urban farm.