At the pinnacle of the Free State's "getting there" effort is the Maryland Department of Transportation, which now answers to Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari, an appointee of Gov. Martin O'Malley.
The department oversees six entities known to Maryland government wonks as "modal agencies." Besides the aforementioned MTA and the authority whose acronym we shall now forget, they are the State Highway Administration (SHA), the Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA), the Maryland Port Administration (MPA) and the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).
(That's a lot of alphabet soup for one sitting.)
The modal agencies are run by administrators who are generally professionals savvy enough to align their philosophies with the governor. Every now and then a governor decides to entrust one of these agencies to a political hack. Doing so tends to come back and bite the governor.
Of those agencies, two get to operate police forces - each with real officers with real badges and guns. The Maryland Transit Administration Police watch over that agency's mass transit facilities. The Maryland Transportation Authority Police have enforcement powers at toll facilities while also serving as the police force for the state's marine terminals and airports. They also patrol stretches of Interstate 95, all of interstates 195 and 395, and Broening Highway.
Now, as far as potholes are concerned, don't give Sparks a hard time over those craters on I-83. They're the responsibility of the State Highway Administration - along with most of the numbered highways in the state. The exceptions: Baltimore, where the city maintains numbered state highways and the Jones Falls Expressway; on Maryland 295 south of Route 175 (Baltimore-Washington Parkway), the National Park Service reigns.
If you bust an axle on the Bay Bridge or other toll facilities, on I-95 anywhere between Caton Avenue and the Delaware state line, or on the approach to the city on I-395, the transportation authority is where you go to raise hell. In the counties, roads without numbers are a local responsibility.
I hope that's cleared things up a bit, but the place Sparks really needs to raise her concerns is in Annapolis. After all, if the Maryland General Assembly weren't creating multiple agencies with the same initials, much of this confusion could be avoided.
Since the transit-providing MTA is such a recognized brand, it would make sense to find a completely new name for the authority. Maybe we could make it the Maryland Entity for Revenue Extraction. Then we can laugh off their charges as MERE tolls.
