Baltimore Pride Parade to close Charles Street, parking Saturday

Baltimore drivers should plan for a shut-down stretch of Charles Street and curbside parking bans across Mount Vernon and Station North as Pride weekend takes over the city’s core. City transportation officials said the biggest impacts will run from early Saturday morning through the evening, with closures, traffic stops and heavy pedestrian activity centered on the Charles Street corridor.

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation said Charles Street will close from North Avenue to 29th Street from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 13. The same advisory covers 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd streets between Maryland Avenue and St. Paul Street, putting a large block of central Baltimore off-limits to normal traffic through much of the day. Parking restrictions will run from midnight to 6 p.m., leaving little room for street parking near Mount Vernon, Station North and the surrounding blocks.

The parade is scheduled to begin at noon at Charles Street and North Avenue and is set to run until 3 p.m. Baltimore Pride says the route will feature floats, marching bands, community groups and special guests. The city warned that temporary traffic stops may be used to protect parade participants and spectators, which means delays could stretch beyond the formal closure blocks as crowds gather along the route.

The weekend’s traffic pressure will not stop at downtown. After the parade, attendees are being directed to Druid Hill Park for the rest of the celebration, shifting a large share of the crowd westward and adding strain around the park’s roads and lots. Baltimore Pride’s schedule also lists the Pride 5K at Druid Hill Park from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, followed by the Pride Block Party from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the Pride Festival on Sunday, June 14, from noon to 8 p.m.

Baltimore Pride says the weekend celebration includes more than 10 events and expects 100,000-plus attendees. The festival programming includes live performances, DJs, wellness programming, vendors, food and community activations. For the city, the event is another reminder of the scale of the roads network it must manage, from 2,000 miles of roads and 7 miles of highways to hundreds of bridges, and for drivers it means the simplest move is to avoid the Charles Street corridor altogether if possible.