Environmental groups and smart growth advocates Monday applauded Maryland's use of almost $225 million in federal stimulus funds, saying the state's decision to concentrate spending on highway maintenance projects is a wise use of resources and an effective way to create jobs.
Maryland was one of 10 states and the District of Columbia that elected to spend 100 percent of the money they put toward road projects on preserving existing infrastructure rather than adding new capacity, according to a report issued by Smart Growth America.
"Maryland did great. They were one of the best states in the country," said Will Schroeer, policy director of the national advocacy group. The group found that nationally, states have been spending roughly two-thirds of their stimulus funds on system maintenance - an amount they decried as a "lost opportunity" to do more.
Conservative critics saw the issue differently.
"If you're not going to use the funds to increase capacity or immediately decrease congestion, to me it's a waste of money," said Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute.
Local supporters of Smart Growth America held a news conference in West Baltimore Monday to praise Maryland's accomplishments and to gently chide it over a few "quibbles."
Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1,000 Friends of Maryland, praised the O'Malley administration's focus on fixing existing highways and bridges.
"We should be doing that first before building new capacity," she said. "It just is more job intensive. It has more people at work."
Shortly after President Obama won passage of his landmark economic stimulus bill in February, Maryland became the first state to break ground on a project financed by the bill - a road maintenance job in Montgomery County.
Schroeer said such projects generally take less time to get going than new road construction or widening projects.
"In the current economic situation, the faster job is the better job," he said.
Schroeer said he knows of several large construction projects in other states where money has not yet begun to flow and could be tied up for some time. He added that road construction projects could devote a large percentage of funds to purposes such as land acquisition, which would not create as many jobs as a maintenance project.
Such a focus is also consistent with Smart Growth America's objective of targeting development around existing infrastructure.
Erin Henson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Transportation, said the state is pleased to receive recognition for its efforts. She said Gov. Martin O'Malley wanted the state to focus on smaller projects to get work under way quickly in all parts of Maryland. Some 19 projects worth $43 million are under way and the state has given contractors the green light to begin work on another 62 jobs worth $155 million, Henson said.
"Distributing it to smaller projects allowed the benefit of stimulus dollars to be felt by workers and families in every region of the state," she said.
Schmidt-Perkins said the only "quibble" was that the state could have spent more of its discretionary money on mass transit. But Henson noted that Maryland is spending $135 million on transit projects from a separate pool of stimulus money.
But Summers, whose libertarian-leaning policy institute is skeptical about the stimulus program to begin with, said investments in mass transit ignore the fact that most Marylanders use roads to get where they need to go. "The road infrastructure hasn't kept up," he said.
