Washington Baltimore

Members of the Washington-Baltimore Regional Association received a strong dose of economic castor oil yesterday as they gathered to celebrate in advance the region's consolidation into a single metropolitan area.Economist Charles McMillion,president of the McMillion Business Group, told the gathering in Columbia that the region faces a sharp dichotomy between "incredible opportunity" and "very real structural problems" in the 1990s.Mr. McMillion said the 1980s were just as "fabulous" as they seemed for the Baltimore-Washington economy, but that the past two years have been every bit as bad as they have appeared.

"VEEP," the HBO political satire starring Julia-Louis-Dreyfus, started production Monday on location in the Baltimore area, Gov. Martin O'Malley and the cable channel said. The Maryland Film Office estimates that the first season of the series will result in 2,000 jobs for crew members and actors and $25 million in economic impact for the state. The estimate is based on HBO doing five weeks of prep and eight weeks of filming here on the seven episodes yet to be made for season one. The producers will also be purchasing and renting goods or services from hundreds of Maryland businesses, according to the film office.

Maryland's MARC commuter trains, which have always operated Monday through Friday, will begin offering weekend service between Baltimore and Washington on the Penn Line in coming months. The expansion - put on hold in 2008 when the recession hit - is possible as the result of the new transportation revenue law that raises the state's gas tax, officials said. The governor signed the bill Thursday. The news was welcomed by Baltimore officials, who said it would offer city residents a less expensive means than Amtrak of traveling to Washington for weekend events while also encouraging D.C. residents to travel to Charm City.

The Maryland Transit Administration is making wholesale changes to the schedule for the MARC Penn Line, pinning its hopes of reducing rush-hour crowding and locomotive breakdowns on a plan to run shorter trains at more frequent intervals. The agency said it plans to break its MARC trains into six- and seven-car sets that will carry fewer passengers at once but run more often. With two trains added to both the morning and afternoon peaks, transit officials believe they can add 1,000 seats each rush hour.

While growing up in a well-to-do Richmond, Va., family, Rob Levit never knew quite what to do with the surge of energy he often felt racing through him like a current. He hadn't mastered an instrument or learned to paint. He had no hankering to write. So he did the only thing he could think of. He became the class clown. "I was always getting in trouble," says Levit, 44, an improvisational jazz guitarist with 15 music CDs and an international performing career to his credit.

Unlike many elected officials and transportation planners, Maryland state comptroller Peter Franchot understands the connection between economic growth and mobility. Mr. Franchot proposed suspending the state's gasoline tax on long weekends during the summer to encourage people to travel. The comptroller's proposal came at the same time Gov. Martin O'Malley's Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding considered recommendations to increase transportation funding, including a potential increase in the state gasoline tax. This effort puts the cart before the horse.

State transportation officials hope you'll do a lot of sightseeing this Memorial Day weekend. Just not on the Bay Bridge. Travelers headed to the Eastern Shore for the first time since last summer might be surprised. For one thing, the toll has risen to $4 from $2.50. For another, the westbound span is being painted for the first time since it opened in 1973, and scaffolding is likely to be a distraction — and potential hot spot for fender-benders. "You're sightseeing. They're sightseeing.

Under Armour executive J. Scott Plank has left the Baltimore-based sports apparel company founded by his brother Kevin Plank, the company said Monday. Scott Plank's Sept. 7 retirement was first reported Friday by the Baltimore Business Journal. Plank, who served as Under Armour's executive vice president for business development, is starting War Horse LLC to focus on real estate development and community-based philanthropy, Diane Pelkey, an Under Armour spokeswoman, said in an email.

The prosperity gap between the Baltimore and Washington (( areas widened during the 1980s, even as the two regions blended into one geographically.The Washington area boomed while the Baltimore region plodded, according to newly released 1990 census figures.The population of the Washington area (3.9 million) grew nearly three times as fast as the Baltimore region (2.4 million), only partly because of the addition of Calvert and Frederick counties plus Stafford County, Va., to the official Washington sphere of influence.

Graduate student Nikki Meadows lives in Baltimore and wanted to stay here, but the only place where she could find work in her field was in Washington. Three weeks into the commute, she can't take it any longer. She's subletting her room in a "McMansion of a rowhome" and looking for a place in D.C. A few years ago, she would have been bucking the trend. Now, she's part of one. Though Baltimore and its suburbs still attract more people from Washington than the number of people who migrate to that pricier region, our metro area has been rapidly losing ground since the economy soured.