Maryland's transportation only gets a D

Whatever Baltimore's transportation woes, with Maryland's highways and transit being almost entirely controlled by the State, Baltimore area problems are reflective of Maryland's transportation woes in general and a result of the State's current priorities.

CMTA Executive Director Brian O'Malley at Friday's
press conference at the Impact Hub on North Avenue (Photo: Philipsen)

Friday morning the Central Baltimore Transportation Alliance (CMTA), a regional transportation advocacy group released its second transportation report card,  the final grade is a dismal D.

"Did your kid ever come home with a D on the report card? What did you do?" asked Brian O'Malley executive director of CMTA. "Is just not a good grade".

The overall grade is the same as in 2015 when the first report card was issued. Two of the twelve indicators actually slipped in spite of the LINK bus overhaul that took place since then: Job access went from D to F in spite of all of MTA's efforts to the contrary and so did air pollution. The report card doesn't include any improved indicator. A possible candidate, transit reliability wasn't graded at all due to incomplete data, due to the system overhaul for buses and a still ongoing assessment of its impacts.

Interestingly, Baltimore area transportation just isn't good, regardless whether transit or car access is measured. Only 30% of jobs can be accessed within 20 minutes whereas San Diego is referenced  to have 37% and San Antonio with 45% access rates. This is surprising since those areas are so much less dense and distances to get to any place are larger there than in Baltimore. A metric where the Governor's preferred auto transportation network achieves a higher grade than transit is "State of Good Repair".  State bridges get a B-, but the State roads themselves receive only the same C-  as transit's state of repair. Again, that is surprising, since roadways around the region seem generally in pretty good condition compared to what one finds in other states and compared to the well worn tracks of local rail transit.

New rider oriented evaluation of transit launched by CMTA

The metric where the Baltimore region fares the worst is % of employed people with travel time over 45 minutes. Per the report this portion of commutes is 23% of Baltimore's employed population, indicating poor transit speed and high level of congestion on the roads.

Once again the regions with long commute distances (Orlando, San Diego, Seattle) are all indicated as being well below Baltimore's 23% share, i.e. more people can get to their jobs faster. They also all have healthier air than Baltimore, another metric where Baltimore received an F.

The report card is based on three goals (access, connection, environment) with four indicators each. O'Malley emphasized that the indicators were measured on a curve, i.e. compared to other cities and regions and not against and ideal or absolute mark, and that all data come from independent sources. While one can probably quibble with the one or the other aspect of the methodology, the report card confirms what pretty much anybody knows, the regional transportation system performs rather poorly and begins to become an albatross around the neck of economic competitiveness and certainly on any attempt of creating greater equity.

Poor grades across the board: CMTA report card

The reasons why Baltimore area transportation continues to score below peer cities could be found during an instructive two-hour grilling of MDOT Secretary Pete Rahn at the Montgomery County council on Thursday.

Rahn had been asked to appear before the council to respond  to questions the council has about the Governor's intention of building new toll lanes on Washington area highways including the  Beltway. Those toll lanes are frequently referred to as Lexus Lanes because drivers don't qualify for their use through high occupancy but through payment.

Transportation advocate Ben Ross who wrote on this blog earlier this week on the same topic was at the hearing and filed this report:


Hogan Lexus Lane Promises Collapse Under Questioning 
Ben Ross, chair of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition and author of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism.  

Two of Governor Hogan's key promises about his Lexus lane plan -- that taxpayers won't get stuck with the bill, and that the new lanes will fit into existing rights of way -- were retracted by Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn yesterday. 

Rahn also offered a rationale for the Lexus lanes that is sure to raise eyebrows in Baltimore. Over 90% of Maryland's traffic congestion, he told the Montgomery County Council, is in the Baltimore and DC regions. Why, then, did Hogan cancel the Red Line and transfer money to rural areas?

Under council questioning, Rahn admitted that the state will have to pay "gap funding" to some of the private companies that the state picks to build new toll lanes. He expressed the "hope" that bidders would pay premiums for the rights to other, presumably more profitable, highway sections and that the premiums will be big enough to make up for the gap funding.
Another answer pointed to the reality that taxpayers will get stuck with a big piece of the bill. Councilmember Tom Hucker asked about the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition's calculation that the governor's plan requires a $41 toll from Frederick to Shady Grove. The toll will be much lower, Rahn said, because drivers won't pay that much.

But no one has questioned MTOC's finding that $41 is the toll needed to pay for construction. That means that the operator of the I-270 lanes will need lots of the state's "gap funding." On the Beltway, where double-decking is expected, construction will be more expensive than on I-270. Unless the Beltway toll is even higher than the $41 Rahn admits drivers won't pay, the operator of those lanes will have to get taxpayer dollars too. The majority of drivers will be stuck in traffic on the free lanes as cars whiz by on Lexus lanes they paid for but can't afford to use. 

Meanwhile, earlier promises that construction won't need to take land from nearby neighborhoods turned into a mere "desire." Asked what will happen if the bidders don't satisfy that desire, Rahn wouldn't answer. The question, he said, is hypothetical.
Other questions from the council uncovered additional gaps in the state's plan.

Why not run more MARC trains to Frederick instead of widening I-270? Rahn said that rail is too expensive. This is simply wrong. The state's cost estimate for the northern segment of I-270 alone is triple the estimate for a third track on the MARC line.

Where does the $9 billion cost estimate come from? Rahn said it's based on an average cost of $100 per mile for urban interstates. But the Intercounty Connector, built on empty land, cost $136 million per mile. It will cost far more to build Lexus lanes in the middle of busy highways, let alone a double-decked Beltway and a new American Legion Bridge.

What will happen to roads that cross the Beltway? Rahn admitted Lexus lanes will put more cars on roads like US29 and Georgia Avenue, which are already jammed. He will ask private bidders to tell the state what the impacts will be.
What's the schedule? This question uncovered a new issue. Rahn said that environmental impact statements won't be finished until after the winning bidders are selected, because the state won't know what the project is until then. But it's not clear whether this will be legal, since the whole purpose of an EIS is to inform the decision.

It's more and more apparent that the Lexus lanes are, at best, an empty promise that will vanish after election day. At worst, they are a boondoggle that will burden Marylanders for years to come.

The poor Baltimore area transportation report card combined with the current State's auto-boondoggles such as  additional lanes or another Bay crossing allow little hope that the State's transportation woes will be alleviated soon in any meaningful way. More roadways, Hyperloop tunnels and Maglev spurts won't do anything to make daily commutes to work for average residents any better. They are at best empty promises reaching far into a future in which the Governor can't be held responsible.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA