The idea of mass transit hasn't exactly been popular in Carroll County, where leaders traditionally have viewed big, costly public transportation systems as big-city concerns.
But that might be changing. Carroll leaders are backing future regional transit projects in exchange for help with a more pressing highway dilemma just across the border in Howard County. Carroll officials want to double the width of Route 32 running north from Interstate 70 in Howard to Sykesville to boost a developing business park on the grounds of the former Springfield Hospital Center near the county line.
As part of a regional transportation strategy, Howard agreed to advance that $96 million project completion date from 2030 to 2015, and Carroll officials will limit a future widening of Liberty Road west of Eldersburg and divert the money to mass transit.
No one should expect to see commuter trains zipping around Carroll anytime soon. But County Commissioner Dean L. Minnich said residents' outlook on mass transit is changing.
"Thirty years ago, you would get lynched right outside the building [for mentioning mass transit]," said Minnich, one of Carroll's three county commissioners.
A growing population that has spawned road congestion and strained budgets is part of the catalyst, Minnich said. With the business park in Sykesville expected to provide revenue and jobs that will keep more residents closer to home, bringing it about by cooperating in regional transportation matters makes sense.
"There is an antipathy in Carroll County toward mass transit," Minnich said. "[But] there's going to come a day when there are better ways to move people. ... We have to be supportive of any efforts to improve public transportation in the state of Maryland."
The discussions have arisen amid work on a long-term plan by the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, made up of the area's top elected officials - including Minnich - and the secretaries of three state government departments. The board's job is to develop a plan for long-range transportation projects involving federal funds.
In the $8.7 billion long-range plan for transportation expansion, each of the six Baltimore metropolitan-area jurisdictions agreed to give up one highway project to put another $250 million into mass transit. The move came after criticism from environmentalists that an early draft of the plan contained too little support for mass transit.
