Fix Blue Stream

Would you want your kids to grow up playing on a street like this? Would you like to drive in and out of this road every day? How about parking on this road, do you trust that all these kids won’t harm your car?

In many new townhome islands in Maryland, there is a lack of parks and a lack of sidewalks forcing kids and adults to spend their time on roads, putting their kid’s lives at risk, putting their property at risk, and prisoning those who can’t drive into their homes. We will analyze one of these townhome islands named Blue Stream in Elkridge 

There are over 300 K-12 kids at Blue Stream and the small park is only designed to handle up to 20 kids

This results in kids constantly playing on the streets especially in the summer months, instead of playing on fields and courts they play between parked cars, they run through Washington Blvd to access other parts of the city, and as a result, they put their lives at risk. Adults are forced to be car-dependent, they have a hard time driving when kids are all over the roads being kids and not being careful, and they risk damage to their cars when kids are playing sports between their cars.

“One day I was driving at Blue Stream, I was about to make a right turn when a kid jumped on the road, I braked and they jumped back on to the sidewalk. Because of the size of the park kids are always playing on the streets and accidents are waiting to happen.” - Tarik Metin(Former Blue Stream Resident)

“I love basketball and I want to play for the NBA one day, but I can’t practice when there are no parks in my neighborhood and I can’t access other parts of the city. My parents can’t take me to a park every day so my dreams are discouraged.” - Murat Canli (Current Blue Stream Resident, 8th Grade) 

"Lennar representatives promised us they would build a swimming pool and a park when they sold me a home in 2016. 4 years later and they have only built more homes and apartments." - Suat Canli (Current Blue Stream Resident)

From these testimonials and incidents, we find that Blue Stream is not safe for children and changes have to be made.

One solution is building a park not just with slides and monkey bars but with courts where kids and adults can play sports like basketball, tennis, badminton, etc. This is already in very popular demand among residents. Blue Steam has the land to build parks but the construction companies are more interested in putting up more town homes and apartments.

Another solution is to build sidewalks and bike lanes. Troy Park is located about 2 miles away from Blue Stream and contains many sports fields. Bellow Springs Elementary and Mayfield Woods Middle School are 3 miles away from Blue Stream and also contain public facilities like sports fields and have their own system of sidewalks embedded in Woodland Village. Blue Stream is 1 mile away from a large shopping center that has its own sidewalk system, but there are no sidewalks connecting Blue Steam to the sidewalk networks around the shopping center or Woodland Village. If there were sidewalks or bike lanes connecting Blue Stream to these existing parks, schools, and shopping centers the residents could access these places without the need for a car.

These projects will surely take time so in the meantime, signs warning drivers of kids on the streets should be put up.