Can Maryland’s General Assembly fully fund MTA maintenance this session?

The Maryland General Assembly kicked off its 2021 lawmaking session on January 13. Between now and April 12, lawmakers will be racing to get bills passed during a time of unprecedented challenge for the state during the pandemic. But despite those challenges, transportation works on a long-term cycle, and lawmakers focused on transportation can’t lose sight of longer-term projects and funding challenges facing the state’s transportation systems.

Filed legislation deals with transportation issues across the state, including Maryland Transit Administration funding, projects in the region, and statewide data. Here are the areas transit watchers will want to keep an eye on:

Funding for MTA maintenance

Transit advocates say the most important bill coming up in the legislature this year is the Transit Safety and Investment Act. Sponsored by Del. Brooke Lierman and Sen. Cory McCray, the bill would require the state to allocate enough funds to the Maryland Transit Administration to cover long-deferred repair and maintenance issues. A similar bill passed in the state House last year but ran out of time in the Senate.

“The state must maintain its assets and keep up its promise of providing reliable and safe transit to our essential workers and any Marylander who wants it or needs it,” Lierman said in a press release.

“It’s clear from peoples’ experience and riders’ experiences, and data on breakdowns that the MTA experiences that the MTA system has been underinvested for years and is suffering for that,” said Eric Norton, policy director for the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, which is pushing the bill.

MTA, which is separate from WMATA, serves more than 300,000 daily riders in Baltimore and across Central Maryland on buses, the MARC train, Light Rail, and the Baltimore Metro.

The transit agency finished an inventory of its capital needs in 2019, finding billions of dollars in deferred maintenance. The report found that over the next 10 years, in order to maintain a state of good repair, the agency needs hundreds of millions of dollars more than what the Maryland Department of Transportation gives it each year. Even more is needed to meet projected growth in demand. The Transit Safety and Investment Act would force the state to inject more funds into MTA by setting minimum appropriations requirements.

The bill has support from leaders in Baltimore City as well as Baltimore, Anne Arundel, and Howard counties.

Other issues to watch

State legislators have introduced a wide variety of transportation-related bills so far on initiatives including:

The Southern Maryland Rapid Transit Project, a proposed light rail first imagined decades ago that would connect WMATA’s southern edge with Charles County, is getting another shot in the General Assembly this year. After a bill stalled in committee last year, Del. Debra M. Davis reintroduced legislation that would require an environmental review, a key step toward securing federal funding.

The Beltway and I-270 widening project could be put under new constraints if a bill by Del. Marc Korman moves forward. The “Maryland Department of Transportation Promises Act” would require that at least 10% of toll revenue remaining after construction costs be set aside for transit projects. It would also require the public-private partnership to incorporate a “community benefit agreement.”

Statewide vehicle crash data on injuries and fatalities is currently patchy at best. A bill introduced by Del. Robbyn Lewis would create a workgroup to find ways to standardize and improve that data, including by disaggregating the data by race and ethnicity.

Also don’t miss:

• An effort to replace trees removed during Purple Line construction;
• A bill that would require the state to study a commuter bus line along I-270;
• Bills giving Baltimore City more resources and enforcement authority for dedicated bus lanes and Complete Streets initiatives;
• And a bill that would require MTA to purchase only zero-emissions buses starting in 2023 and implement a plan to transition toward a zero-emissions fleet.