Three members of the House of Delegates, two state senators from Howard and another council member came to the hearing to express strong opposition to the proposed service cuts. County Executive Ken Ulman appeared later to reinforce the message.
Ulman and others noted that the county acted quickly six months ago after the summer gas price spike, adding 30 parking places at the crowded Snowden River Parkway park-and-ride lot at Route 175, only to be faced with losing service.
"I thought it was a great example of government doing what it should be doing," Ulman said. "This really struck me very hard."
Del. Frank S. Turner said he would play "bad cop" to Ulman's "good cop," by subtly threatening the MTA and O'Malley.
"Our delegation has a lot of members on appropriation committees and in leadership roles," he said. "There is another way."
Some of the strongest appeals voiced Tuesday came from riders who said they have no options.
Mona G. Tsoukleris of Clarksville, an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, said she has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that prevents her from driving.
"I first reacted to this with shock, then with anger, and then disbelief and fear," she said, her voice quavering. "I'm very emotional about this."
Tsoukleris said she works up to 70 hours a week and has no other way to get to her job.
"I'm looking at forced retirement in January," she said. "I'm begging, let me keep working."
Others said they work at Johns Hopkins Hospital in East Baltimore, the Veterans Administration downtown and other places where parking a car is expensive and difficult.
John Hill said he moved from Columbia to Washington two years ago to care for his elderly father and rides to Columbia daily for work. He said he would have to quit his job if routes are cut as planned on several Washington runs.
Jean Ryan of Silver Spring said she rides to Baltimore's VA hospital. She said she has lived in three other countries that have superb transit systems and hoped things were beginning to change in the United States.
"Don't cut back. Add," she said. "We need to figure out a new way to fund the MTA."
Bev Thomas suggested that Johns Hopkins might help subsidize the bus from Columbia, and others thought that private firms might step in if the state bows out.
