Transportation Projects

Baltimore officials seek transportation project funds A panel of Baltimore officials told Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari yesterday that the city needs $3 billion over the next decade to catch up with deferred transportation projects, including road resurfacing and bridge rehabilitation. City officials said 17 bridges in the city are eligible for complete replacement and that 118 should be rehabilitated, but they said the city does not have the money to complete those and other projects.

A new report by an anti-sprawl group warns that building the Intercounty Connector highway in the Washington suburbs could prevent Maryland from tackling traffic congestion elsewhere, while diverting growth from Baltimore and the District of Columbia to the suburbs along the road. The report, commissioned by 1000 Friends of Maryland, cautions that the ICC's $2.4 billion price tag could jeopardize the state's ability to pay for other highway and transit projects, especially those planned to handle thousands of new jobs and households coming to the Baltimore area in the next several years with military base realignment.

Maryland will need to spend billions of dollars on work force training, education and transportation projects to prepare for an influx of more than 15,000 defense-related workers and their families, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown said yesterday. "There's considerable work to be done in Maryland," said Brown, who unveiled the final report of a committee formed by Gov. Martin O'Malley to ready the state for the thousands who will relocate here with their families as part of the Defense Department's extensive restructuring of its domestic military bases.

In another burst of good economic news for Maryland, officials said yesterday the state closed out the fiscal year in June with an unexpectedly high budget surplus of more than $319 million.Coming on top of estimates in March that state revenues were $274 million higher than expected -- money that was appropriated in the state budget for the current year -- the new figures mean the state collected $593 million more than anticipated during the 12 months that ended June 30.The figures prompted renewed discussion of tax cuts yesterday and might hamper an expected move in the next legislative session to increase the gasoline tax to pay for road and other transportation projects.

MARYLAND'S transportation agency is now flush with cash from the gasoline tax and eager to expand its construction projects. But over the next two decades, that bountiful situation is expected to change dramatically: There's a $27 billion shortfall in money to pay for all of this state's transportation needs.That's a staggering gap, one that should alarm Gov. Parris N. Glendening and General Assembly leaders. Yet Mr. Glendening's only response to date has been to pledge an extra $200 million to help build a new Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac River.

HERE'S WHAT ALL who will live and drive in metropolitan Baltimore in the next 20 years should understand about Outlook 2020, the "21st century" regional transportation plan just approved by the Maryland Department of Transportation.Its first "guiding principle" is sound -- "linking transportation to managing growth."But it doesn't.It proposes to spend $2.8 billion on new and expanded roads, including hundreds of millions on projects that would guarantee more sprawling development, costing the region environmentally, fiscally and socially.

A $320 million budget surplus presents Gov. Parris Glendening with a splendid opportunity to address a number of priorities without breaking into a political sweat.At the top of this list ought to be Maryland's enormous funding gap in transportation. Mr. Glendening has avoided this issue like the plague. Now he can propose a nearly pain-free solution.Maryland's roads and bridges, its port and airport, and its mass transit systems could be in a pickle without a hefty inflow of new capital pretty soon.

Although Maryland is awash in cash for other new programs, its special fund for transportation projects is running out of money.Over the next several years, the funding available to build or expand state roads and transit systems is expected to drop sharply while traffic congestion continues to increase.Unless something is done, the state will not be able to start more than 100 planned highway projects, such as widening the Baltimore Beltway in two locations and widening Route 32 in western Howard County.

Meeting with state transportation officials yesterday, Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger sought support for several road projects, including the continued widening of the Beltway, extending White Marsh Boulevard and reconfiguring Paper Mill Road in Hunt Valley.Dozens of other county transportation projects -- totaling almost $210 million over the next five years -- also were discussed as part of a proposal that the Maryland Department of Transportation will present to the 1998 General Assembly for funding.

YOUR EDITORIAL concerning the state's capital program for transportation projects ("State's transportation hush money,'' Feb. 5) pointed out that the plan will provide significant improvements throughout Maryland. I would like to clarify several aspects.The $5.4 billion, six-year capital program implements Gov. Parris Glendening's vision for transportation in relation to broader state goals, specifically: preserving our excellent infrastructure; supporting economic development; revitalizing our existing /^ communities; and being stewards of our environment.

A federal Government Accountability Office report says Maryland may need an additional $315 million to $470 million to complete transportation projects near three military facilities that will gain thousands of jobs under the Pentagon's base realignment program. The newly released study, which reports to Congress on the impact of the Base Realignment and Closure process on 18 communities nationwide, noted that Maryland has already allocated almost $95 million for intersection improvements near Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Meade and the Bethesda National Naval Center.

Greedy borrowers, lenders not victims The remark by Dan Demeria, the owner of Potomac Heritage Homes, that any one of us could have been caught up in the mortgage crisis reflects the kind of ridiculous rationalization of greed and lack of simple financial common sense that we have seen from an alarming number of mortgage bankers and from greedy, spendthrift borrowers who now, absurdly, call themselves victims ("Short, sharp fall," Feb. 22). Where was their sense of personal responsibility?

It didn't take long for the first wave of the $3.8 billion stimulus money bound for Maryland to get spent. Gov. Martin O'Malley yesterday announced a series of transportation improvements, from new buses to street repair, that should create, or at least retain, thousands of jobs as contractors gear up for a busier spring. As transportation projects go, the list is duller than a block of reinforced concrete. No major new projects, no ambitious expansions and certainly no "Bridges to Nowhere."

Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to unveil a plan today that would quickly spend more than $350 million in federal money on Maryland transportation projects, a day after President Barack Obama signed a huge stimulus bill that will send a flood of money to the states. In an announcement expected this morning, the Democratic governor will ask a state spending panel to approve the overhaul of a Laurel MARC station as a symbolic start to using the $3.8 billion windfall that is part of Maryland's estimated share of $787 billion in federal stimulus funds.

Maryland transportation projects, already scheduled to absorb $1.1 billion in cuts over the next six years, will lose an added $1 billion because of slumping revenues, state officials said yesterday. The Maryland Department of Transportation delivered the bad news in the final version of its 2009-2014 capital spending plan. The cuts are even steeper than those projected in a draft last fall. State officials now predict a $350 million-per-year drop in money going to the Transportation Trust Fund.

Philadelphia - The nation's governors met with President-elect Barack Obama yesterday to help craft an economic stimulus plan that would include money for ready-to-go transportation projects and programs for the poor stretched thin by increased demand. Several dozen governors gathered here for the pre-inaugural summit as the country has officially fallen into recession, and as many state budgets have seen widening deficits brought on by sluggish tax receipts. The conversation also veered from funding for alternative energy and updating the country's power infrastructure to investing in a high-speed rail system and health care technology, participants said.

A major criticism of a government-financed stimulus package that relies on spending huge sums to rebuild the nation's public infrastructure is the lag between the measure's passage and the resulting jobs. Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari has good reason to think that's not much of a problem this time around. That's because he's got a stack of more than $310 million worth of transportation-related projects ready to go. In some cases, there are jobs that might literally be created within hours of the bill's enactment - resurfacing contracts, for instance, that can be immediately expanded to restore miles of aging highway.

The thousands of new employees coming to military-related jobs in Harford County in the next three years will likely grapple with traffic congestion caused by inadequate roads, failing intersections and insufficient mass transit. Maryland's revenue shortfall has delayed several key projects that were designed to relieve commuter traffic to and from Aberdeen Proving Ground, which is expected to grow by about 10,000 jobs within the next three years. BRAC, the nationwide military base expansion set for a 2011 completion at APG, will bring those new employees to the county.

If longer commutes, heavier congestion, increased pollution and greater dependence on oil seem inevitable, there's a good reason: These ills all stem from the misguided way our elected officials fund transportation in America. It's time to establish a 21st-century transportation policy to pay for 21st-century priorities. Every day brings more news about our struggling transportation system: wearisome traffic delays, soaring gasoline prices and shrinking funds for transportation projects.

Marylanders are driving fewer miles and using less gasoline. They're buying fewer SUVs and more small cars. The vehicles they are buying are more fuel-efficient and easier on the environment. Good news? In the long term, certainly, said Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari. But over the next few years, he said, the consumer reaction to high gas prices could bring severe cutbacks in the amount of money available for highway and mass transit projects. "What's good for the country in the long term is very painful for transportation programs in the short term - at both the federal and state level," Porcari said yesterday.