Ehrlich didn't criticize O'Malley's fare freeze but said there is a trade-off between stable fares and service quality.
"Once in office we will have to look for the right balance between improving transit services and maintaining transit fares," he said. The former governor rejected a proposal by some General Assembly Republicans to adopt a cost-recovery formula that could force a roughly 50 percent increase in fares.
During his four-year term, Ehrlich put the weight of his office solidly behind highways. His No. 1 priority, which he successfully steered to federal approval after a half-century of starts and stops, was the $2.5 billion Intercounty Connector, a toll highway that will run from Gaithersburg to Laurel.
O'Malley has continued work on the ICC and the other mega-project launched under Ehrlich — the $994 million widening of I-95 between Baltimore and White Marsh — but scaled the latter project back and delayed completion to shift Maryland Transportation Authority funds into the maintenance of existing facilities.
Ehrlich called the changes to the project — eliminating interchanges to Route 43 and the Beltway — "a real shame."
The Republican has also faulted O'Malley for diverting the highway user funds, which the state usually provides to local governments each year for road projects, in order to help close budget shortfalls in fiscal 2010 and 2011
As a former mayor who depended on such funds, O'Malley said, he "hated" to make that cut.
"I went to it reluctantly and went to it only as the other options were exhausted," he said. "I hope it can be one of the first things we can restore as revenues can come back."
But the governor refused to commit a specific amount to local aid, saying he doesn't have a "crystal ball" on revenue collections.
Ehrlich has promised to restore one-quarter of that money in his first year in office — suggesting he would use $80 million O'Malley wants to direct toward engineering on the Red and Purple lines.
The rivals have also clashed over the future of the state's MARC commuter train system. After a Penn Line train was stranded on the tracks outside Washington for two hours in the stifling heat in June, Ehrlich attacked O'Malley's stewardship of MARC, again suggesting that Red and Purple line money could be redirected into improvements.
O'Malley countered that a deficit in MARC investments during Ehrlich's administration had hurt the system. The governor said his administration had doubled capital spending on MARC — investing in 13 new railcars and 26 new locomotives — even at a time when the transportation budget was under stress. In fact, Maryland Transportation Department figures show an increase from $102 million in Ehrlich's last budget to $195 million in 2010.
"The Hell Train incident allowed Bob Ehrlich to discover the MARC train," O'Malley said.
Ehrlich responded that his administration was quicker to react to MARC problems and "did not experience the horrific occurrences of the O'Malley administration."
Even more than MARC, it is the Red Line and Purple Line that divide the two candidates. Ehrlich contends that Maryland can't afford to build two new light rail lines; O'Malley says the state can't afford not to.
O'Malley chose light rail as the preferred mode on the two lines in 2009 after a long period of public hearings and consensus-building. The current plans for both lines have drawn the support of a strong majority of local elected officials; hearings showed little demand for bus rapid transit — a system that would separate the vehicles from other traffic for significant stretches of their route.
The governor remains vague on the question of how Maryland would pay its presumed 50 percent cost of building any new transit line the federal government might approve — noting that the Congress could alter that formula when it takes up a new transportation spending bill. He mentioned the possibility of a public-private partnership, though there isn't much precedent for such deals in the heavily subsidized world of mass transit.
Nevertheless, he expresses confidence that a way can be found.
"We have completed important transportation projects before in our past, and we are still a great state and can still do these things," he said.
Ehrlich said O'Malley's mode selection process was "biased in favor of high-cost, neighborhood-killing light rail." In the case of the Red Line, he said, the O'Malley plan is a "boondoggle driven by a handful of developers" that would actually harm east-west mobility. Ehrlich said he would "restart the process" and work toward a consensus among the "realistic alternatives."
One issue on which the two candidates' public statements are not far apart is the gasoline tax. Despite continued pressure from the GBC, the Board of Trade and some General Assembly Democrats, neither says he is prepared to raise the 23.5-cent-a-gallon levy, which has remained unchanged since the early 1990s.
