State Transportation

State transportation officials, who are lobbying for higher gasoline taxes by pleading poverty, have still managed to find $64,979 to hire a former Baltimore highways official who ran one of the governor's political action committees.Frank Babusci, 42, who recently won a disability pension from the city, said yesterday he begins work Monday at Department of Transportation headquarters at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport as a contract employee "with a vast [array] of duties."Stephen G. Zentz, deputy secretary of transportation, said Mr. Babusci's new job will combine responsibility for some future programs, including a consumer quality-control effort, with a vacant post within the division of operating services.

After 35 years in state and local government, Beverley Swaim-Staley announced in April that she would step down as Maryland's secretary of transportation, effective July 1. Appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley in September 2009, Swaim-Staley was the first woman to head MDOT, which has a $3.8 billion budget and more than 9,000 employees. She previously served as deputy transportation secretary, perhaps most memorably in 2001, when she supervised Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

State Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan criticized Baltimore's economic development efforts yesterday, saying that the city has failed to capitalize on opportunities to revitalize the neighborhood around Penn Station. His remarks -- which some interpreted as a slap at Mayor Martin O'Malley by a high-ranking Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. administration official -- came at a regional transportation summit. Flanagan warned that the city would have to do a better job to compete for scarce federal transit dollars.

One can scarcely blame Gov. Martin O'Malley for wanting to do something about jobs. Maryland's unemployment rate, while still well below the national average, is high and showing little sign of improvement despite the boost from the federal military base realignment program that has sent thousands of defense-related jobs to the state in recent years. Given that Mr. O'Malley supports President Barack Obama's jobs bill and, as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, also harbors his own aspiration for the national political stage, his announcement Wednesday that he will offer his own jobs bill at a special session next month comes as no surprise.

Wish list in hand, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. asked state transportation officials yesterday for millions of dollars to pay for improvements to roads, bridges and train stations, but a tough economy means he will not get everything he wants. In a meeting in Towson, Smith told John D. Porcari, Maryland's secretary of transportation, that with an expected influx of residents under the military's Base Realignment and Closure process, "it is imperative that we have the appropriate infrastructure to accommodate the new residents and jobs that we anticipate adding to this area."

Stressing the need to find money to fix Maryland's ailing highways, state Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan outlined Friday the roadway projects in Harford County that will remain stalled until the state can find additional funding sources. Among the projects for which construction money has not been earmarked is the often-discussed Perryman access road from Route 159 to U.S. 40 and reconstructing the Interstate 95 and Route 24 interchange. The meeting in Bel Air was the transportation secretary's 10th stop on a tour across Maryland to address the state's transportation needs as officials outlined unfunded projects until 2010 that total $10.5 billion.

Marsha J. Kaiser, a high-ranking state Transportation Department manager who was criticized in an audit for overseeing projects given to her husband's company, has resigned from her state position, officials announced yesterday. State Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan gave no reason for Kaiser's departure after seven years as director of planning and capital programs. "The impact Marsha has had on transportation in Maryland can be felt in every corner of the state. Marsha is a leader and a problem-solver," Flanagan said in a statement.

Life is hard for Anne Arundel residents who live in Baltimore-Washington International Airport's "noise zone." The Maryland Aviation Administration only made it harder by spending three years trying to deny them their right to complain.This week, at long last, a state transportation review board began considering the BWI neighbors' appeal of the 1988 noise control plan, which included some major, unpopular changes. The zone -- the area where noise from jets may exceed 65 decibels -- was enlarged from 8,600 to 12,000 acres.

ANNAPOLIS -- Ready or not, bigger trucks may be rumbling into Maryland.This week the House of Delegates is expected to approve legislation allowing trucks to haul 53-foot semitrailers, 5 feet longer than currently permitted. Such trailers are, for means of comparison, about the same length as 3 1/3 Honda Accords parked end to end.The trucking bill has been a perennial issue in Annapolis. Opponents have questioned whether the long trailers are safe or as maneuverable as their 48-foot counterparts, making wider turns, jumping curbs and potentially causing more accidents.

PHILADELPHIA - Pssssst. Wanna buy a bridge? How about one with attractive curves? Or one made of wrought iron with a very interesting past? Or one built when horse-drawn buggies were the primary mode of travel? The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has a list of bridges it wants to sell, usually with nine or 10 on it - and they're priced to move. "Because they are state properties, we can't officially give them away, but, essentially, we are," said Kara Russell, an architectural historian in the state Transportation Department's cultural resources division.

For nearly as long as there has been motorized travel, there have been shutterbugs taking pictures of trains, planes, automobiles and the like. And surely no form of transportation is more romanticized — or attracts a more dedicated fan base — than rail travel. So how is it that twice this year tourists taking pictures of light rail have been detained and hassled by Maryland Transit Administration police for the purported crime of photography? Worse yet, in both instances the victims were repeatedly told that it was illegal to take pictures of light rail trains while standing on public property.

Howard County's most liberal and conservative state legislators agree that gasoline taxes shouldn't go up while prices are so high, but that leaves unanswered questions about how to pay for transportation projects. Gov. Martin O'Malley is trying to revive discussion of the state's depleted transportation fund in anticipation of the issue's coming up in the fall special General Assembly session intended to redraw congressional district lines. If Howard's delegation is any measure, it will be tough to pass anything.

An increase in Maryland's gas tax could be a quick fix for the state's depleted transportation fund, key members of a blue-ribbon financing commission said Friday, while cautioning that the move — a tough sell on its own — would not solve long-term woes. The discussion came during a 90-minute session with Gov. Martin O'Malley's Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding at Slayton House in Wilde Lake. The discussion, before more than 100 people, including a number of local legislators and officials, seemed aimed more at readying the public for decisions that may come next fall or winter.

A new General Assembly analysis of Baltimore's transportation spending has reopened a debate over state aid to the city - and is leading some lawmakers to consider multimillion-dollar cuts. The city receives more state funding than any county, and nowhere is that discrepancy more apparent than in the distribution of gas tax and titling fee revenues. Baltimore is to receive $130 million from that fund in the next fiscal year; the state's 23 counties will split the remaining $10 million.

The escape of a convicted murderer from a Maryland prison serves as a way to highlight the severe waste of both time and money in the judicial branch of government. Why must we move a convict's body to a new place to attend a court hearing? This could be done very inexpensively via Skype or any other teleconference service that allows the accused to have his/her day in court without the enormous expense, time and risks of physically moving a prisoner from place to place. When you multiply this movement to and from court hundreds (or more)

The plethora of pot holes emerging from Maryland roads this winter is not the result of the weight of the recent snow or the damage done by plows. Rather, it is the pernicious freeze-and-thaw cycle fueled by so much standing snow that gradually turns concrete to rubble. What an apt metaphor for how Maryland's elected officials have treated the state's transportation finances. The Transportation Trust Fund is set up to be a consistent and independent source of money for the state's highways, bridges, public transit, ports and airports, shielded from the economic exigencies that so often make demands of the general fund.

ANNAPOLIS -- The on-again-off-again plans to expand the international terminal at Baltimore-Washington International Airport inched forward yesterday as state officials approved a $6.2 million contract for final design of the project.In February, state transportation officials, citing the anticipated loss of a major European carrier at BWI and the slump in the airline industry, had postponed the long-awaited expansion.But yesterday they said that an upswing in BWI passengers this year and the recent alliance between British Airways and USAir, the dominant carrier at BWI, had prompted the decision to move ahead with the $130 million project.

IN THE FEW years since neighborhood buses began running in the Hampden and Mondawmin areas, these so-called shuttle bugs have been hailed as a popular convenience. The frequent low-cost shuttles connect with light rail and subway stops, making better use of these substantial investments and helping the state reach its goal of doubling statewide mass transit ridership from 2000 to 2020. But these days, Maryland is hardly on track toward meeting that ridership goal. And the shuttles? Plans for similar services in South Baltimore, Towson and Fells Point were put on hold last fall, and the state last week said the Hampden and Mondawmin shuttles would run less frequently and their fare would double to $1 a ride.

Could we have a drum roll, please, for the Top 10 stories in Maryland transportation for the 2000-2009 decade? 10. Light rail double-tracking project completed. After Baltimore's light rail system opened early in the 1990s, it soon became clear that the decision to run trains on a single track over long stretches led to constant delays and operational difficulties. Construction of a second track brought rough times for light rail users, but the project was finally completed in early 2006.