BALTIMORE — Route 40 in West Baltimore is known as the "Highway to Nowhere." It was unfinished long ago, and it displaced over a thousand people.
There are plans to do away with it - but before anything official goes into effect, the Baltimore City Dept. of Transportation (DOT) had a listening session to hear concerns from the folks who live there.
SEE MORE: Righting an old wrong: Baltimore's Highway to Nowhere
"I’m a survivor of the family to nowhere," Minister Glenn Smith told WMAR-2 News. "My family was displaced back in 1969."
Smith and dozens more attend a meeting Wednesday night to share their feelings about the highway, the impact it's had, and what should come next.
As the DOT points out - it’s an incomplete highway that uprooted over a dozen blocks of mostly Black middle-class homes and businesses roughly 50 years ago.
It displaced 1,500 people - never meeting its goal of connecting I-70 with I-83 and I-95.
"We were part of a community, a thriving community," Smith added. "West Baltimore was a close knit community."
In 2021, federal lawmakers announced a plan to revitalize it, and other highways like it, across the country.
In October, the city applied for a grant worth over $2 million to study what to do next.
RELATED: Baltimore leaders apply for federal funding to demolish "Highway to Nowhere"
"I really wanted to have a takeaway that they were really going to listen to the voice of the community," said Sonia Eaddy, who lives near the "Highway to Nowhere."
Eaddy wants to see a tangible improvement, to right the half-century-old wrong.
"We’re still living the effects from that displacement," Eaddy added. "So I would like to see them put money back into the community, that’s going to be for the legacy renters and homeowners and business owners."
