Red Line redemption: What Governor Moore’s announcement means for Baltimore

Governor Wes Moore’s announcement on June 15 that the Red Line would be returning to Baltimore was a cathartic moment for local politicians, community leaders, and transit activists. Many of them have spent years championing the project and grieved in 2015 when former Republican Governor Larry Hogan unceremoniously canceled the east-west transit line.

Governor Moore’s hour-long press conference, however, was somewhat short on details. Which mode would a new Red Line take? Will it include tunnels when entering Baltimore City and passing through Downtown and Harbor East? How much will the project cost? How much of the original plans are still usable, when exactly construction will start, and how long it will take?

Yet a closer look at what has been revealed so far offers some important clues that reinforce how monumental the Red Line’s return is to the future of Baltimore transit.

Red Line alignment

The first of those details is a big one: the alignment of the Red Line itself. There are still a couple kinks to work out, especially how to proceed through certain parts of East Baltimore, but the path Moore, the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), and the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) unveiled last week is the same as the original alignment which would’ve run from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the western Baltimore County suburb of Woodlawn to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and its eponymous East Baltimore neighborhood.

Heavy rail seems increasingly unlikely

In terms of heavy rail, MTA Administrator Holly Arnold told Maryland Matters that the mode “did not compare well” in terms of cost when the agency included it in a 2022 feasibility study which presaged last week’s announcement.

That likely rules out any heavy rail version of the Red Line, including the “Smart Rail” scheme pushed in recent months by the Edmondson Community Organization and HUB West Baltimore. That scheme would break up the Red Line’s construction into multiple phases, starting with the use of an existing tunnel from the MTA’s Metro SubwayLink system to link West Baltimore with the subway stop at Lexington Market. Like the streetcar/light rail hybrid plan proposed by a group called the “Right Rail Coalition” during the original planning for the Red Line, Smart Rail is largely predicated on avoiding the construction of a tunnel through parts of Downtown and the waterfront neighborhoods of Fells Point and Canton.

Bus Rapid Transit: A definite maybe

BRT, or bus rapid transit, apparently fared at least slightly better than heavy rail in those evaluations and would probably have the advantage of being easiest to construct. But as advocates have pointed out, the more the MTA’s new plan diverges from the original idea, the more complicated its path forward becomes.

Finding funds and navigating environmental review

The biggest next steps for the Red Line are (1) applying for entry next year into the federal Capital Investment Grants Program and (2) updating the project’s 2012 environmental impact statement (EIS) which was approved by the federal government in 2013. Winning a capital grant would unlock essential federal financial assistance, assistance that is essential to advancing and implementing the Red Line but an updated EIS would still be necessary to make the project eligible for that type of funding.

The MTA’s odds of receiving federal funding and approval for the reincarnated Red Line are fairly high, especially since Maryland’s US Senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, have worked to secure budget language allowing previously canceled transit projects prioritization in the queue for federal transit funding. Advocates also expect an updated EIS to contain relatively few changes, and take into account increased development in the East Baltimore neighborhoods of Highlandtown and Greektown and the nearby Canton Crossing shopping center.

But according to Brian O’Malley, executive director of the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, it’s important EIS updates not be bogged down by reimagining the entirety of the project. The Red Line has been studied for years and already went through a successful federal review process.

“We should be working from the project that was designed, vetted, run through community input and environmental review, and all the federal review,” said O’Malley.“If somebody wants to make the case that this should be heavy rail or BRT, work through that process, make your case. Same with the alignment changes: the burden of proof is on you to show why this is worth the extra time and cost that this might bring.”

O’Malley did voice some skepticism about the possibility of removing the Harbor East tunnel from the Red Line plans given the delays and crashes that have at times affected the MTA’s existing Light Rail downtown.

Even in the best case scenario, both Moore and transit officials doubted that construction on the Red Line would start any earlier than 2026 or more likely 2027. And even once complete, the project is unlikely to be a cure-all for Baltimore’s myriad transit difficulties. To address that dynamic, Moore’s Red Line commitment was accompanied by news that the MTA would launch an “Eastern Baltimore County Access Study.” The study will evaluate alignments for eventually expanding the Red Line eastward from Bayview toward growing job centers in the eastern Baltimore County communities of Essex and Dundalk.

At the same time, the MTA will continue to explore options for improving transit along the part of the East-West corridor north of Patterson Park and westward from Woodlawn into Howard County and its seat, Ellicott City. (The MTA did look at the possibility of extending the Red Line to Ellicott City in their 2022 study and concluded that while the area doesn’t yet have the density or ridership needed for that change, it could use an increase in bus service).

In at least one case, the revival of the Red Line will see one improvement much sooner than 2027: the August 27 launch of a limited-service bus pilot between the North Bend Loop in Catonsville, just southwest of the Baltimore City/County line, and the Essex Park-and-Ride. Essentially a relaunch of the popular QuickBus 40 which ran that same route from 2005 to 2017, the QuickLink 40 will cover most of the same terrain as the Red Line and provide easier connections between the other bus routes running where the Red Line one day will go.

The MTA will hold public comment sessions starting in mid-July and running through mid-August to help determine what Baltimoreans want out of the Red Line now. And if West Baltimore-based Red Line advocate and Lyndhurst Community Association leader Cynthia Shaw’s remarks at the announcement of the Red Line’s return are any indication, many of those Baltimoreans have a fairly simple request: “We worked until it was shovel-ready. We worked until it was fully funded and shovel-ready…please put the shovel in the ground!”