The nuts and bolts of the "forgotten" Baltimore transportation priority letter

Being the new Director of Transportation in Baltimore can't be much fun. Michelle Pourciau, who for a short time headed DC's DOT as an interim Director and then went into private consulting, was plunged head on into the Potomac Street protected bike lane controversy, had to oversee the shut-down of Baltimore's new bike-share program before the system even reached its first birthday, and is now facing a barrage of criticism for having failed to write the annual transportation priority letter.

Pugh announces Pourciau as DOT Director in June 2017

Meanwhile numerous other transportation issues remain unresolved on the docket, chiefly the absence of the Baltimore Red Line, the Baltimore Circulator which needs a financially sustainable re-set, various expensive studies regarding possible reconfigurations of one way streets on which previous DOT directors never acted and a belligerent young Councilman who wants to see action on his Complete Streets bill and stormed dissatisfied out of a recent meeting with the new director.

Forgetting to write this year's version of the annual letter to the State outlining the City's transportation priorities is "inexusable" in the words of State Senator Bill Ferguson and "has consequences". Ferguson knows that the letter is part of Maryland law, but he also knows that the transportation reality frequently unfolds in a manner that is quite different from the due process as it is spelled out in COMAR (Marylands law). Exhibit #1 for that truth is the cancellation of the Baltimore Red Line by the current Governor which had been in all plans, letters and documents for over a decade.

Nevertheless, the embarrassment of the forgotten letter (it has been submitted by now) sheds a light on the convoluted and byzantine process in which transportation dollars are allocated in Maryland. The process plays out between local jurisdictions, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (ours is the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, BMC) and the State. Maryland is one of the few states in the nation where all transportation funds are consolidated in the State's "Transportation Trust Fund". Thus the State holds the keys to the money vault and playing well in the system is a precondition for transportation success.

The use of this integrated trust fund approach allows Maryland tremendous flexibility to meet varying transportation service and infrastructure needs.(MDOT)

The process of budgeting for transportation involves an alphabet soup of acronyms. The local letters are supposed to inform the State's Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP), which together with the regional Transportation Improvement Plan TIP results in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The draft CTP is compiled in September, the final CTP goes to the General Assembly in January.

Chapter 725, Acts of 2010 requires additional clarity and standards to define how the Department of Transportation evaluates and selects proposed major capital projects for inclusion in the Construction Program of the CTP. (MDOT)

It is so easy to write such a letter that all but three Maryland jurisdictions managed to write it in time, a sample letter is even posted online. The funding request letter is part of a legislated annual routine in which local cities, towns and counties vie for the precious State transportation dollars via the letters and the famous "road trips".  (Baltimore City's face to face meeting will take place this Friday at City Hall).

MDOT is requesting that counties submit their priority letters on or around the first of April each year.  Priority letters should be endorsed by the Commissioners/Council (and/or County Executive as appropriate), as well as a majority of the local legislative delegation. Priority letters should detail how each priority project supports the goals of the Maryland Transportation Plan (MTP) , including the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act goals, and are consistent with the County’s land use plan goals. 

The letters provide more sophisticated jurisdictions (such as Montgomery County) the opportunity of describing their entire set of multi-modal transportation priorities and pressing for grants and discretionary federal funds. Baltimore's 2017 priority letter  has now been produced and can can be found here. There was no City letter in 2016. The last Rawlings Blake letter of was written in the September 2015 and defiantly included the Red Line as the #1 priority and also new MARC stations and investments on the existing ones with highway priorities listed last.

Comparing the 2015 letter with the current one, quickly stitched together in response to the SUN article about the missing letter, the 2017 letter comes out as much less concise and all over the map. It starts with Port Covington without even asking for the specific light rail link that project wants to see funded. It then skips to "wayfinding" and back to the Hanover Street bridge, paving on bus routes, signal infrastructure, the Circulator and mentioning bicycles last, asking for $500,000.  The letter certainly doesn't articulate a transportation vision or a clear set of priorities. The new DOT director missed a chance to set her mark.

As a former State Senator the Mayor understands well that actual expenditures from the State's Transportation Trust Fund are often made through good relationships, ad- hoc decisions and behind closed doors. They often supersede public vision or long range investment plans. However, having become the victim of random and dictatorial decision making, Baltimore's public policy shouldn't  support the replacement of a transparent transportation planning process with a chummy relationship to the Secretary or Governor, no matter how helpful those relations may be.

Jed Weeks, policy director of the non-profit Bikemore, wrote about the letter affair on Facebook:

Prior letters have asked for prioritization of federally funded transit projects, including TIGER grants, the Green Line, and the Red Line. The letter might be a political technicality, but the fact they couldn't even regurgitate existing project priorities onto letterhead is a clear sign of indifference and lack of vision.

Importantly, the annual priority letter provides an important opportunity to rally all relevant forces, including the public, behind a consensus on transportation goals. The MDOT website explains:

Priority letters should be coordinated amongst all local jurisdictions with planning, public works and economic staff. Priority letters should be endorsed by the Commissioners/Council (and/or County Executive as appropriate), as well as a majority of the local legislative delegation.

Baltimore City plays a special role in the State because it is the only jurisdiction in which all State Highways are owned and maintained locally, with the State paying for upkeep through a special formula. Of course, it still is also the largest city and an economic powerhouse.

Ms. Pourciau says that she is working  on a vision and a inventory of existing assets, both laudable goals, except that one would expect a transportation leader to come into the office with a clear understanding of priorities and ideas. The Director's page on the City DOT website doesn't use that space to outline anything aspirational:

The Department of Transportation works hard to improve the quality of life for both residents and visitors of our great city.  Our primary goal is to have the city’s transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair by striving to provide a transportation network that ensures the mobility of people and enhances economic prosperity. (Director's page)

The Mayor is said to have given her new appointment a wide berth. That may change now after the embarrassing failure to write the letter. The mayor spoke Tuesday on WYPR's Midday in a very informed and convincing manner about her views and leadership. She brought in Bloomberg Philanthropy to give her access to best practices of city governance all across America; during her transition she had invited Janette Sadik Khan to speak about her bold decisions as transportation commissioner in New York. These are promising steps. However actual steps in transportation during her time are far from those aspirations. The Mayor needs to see that transportation isn't just a specialty she can simply delegate to an expert. Transportation holds the key to the future of the City in so many interconnected fields that bold leadership beyond a "good state of repair" is needed.

The Baltimore region Opportunity Collaborative published in 2015 a report that outlined the importance of transportation for equity, job access and economic development. When over 250 cities and regions competed for Amazon's headquarters it became blatantly obvious how central transportation is for being competitive. Everybody knows that Baltimore doesn't fare well in that category. It is high time to fix that.

Complete Streets, active transportation, many modes of mobility, autonomous vehicles, demand-based transit, robust fixed-transit, restrictive demand based parking pricing and policies are the elements that will determine a successful transportation future. Every single decision made today must be oriented on these elements and have equity as a metric for progress, every day and without fail. There is no time to move sideways, backwards or not at all.

Hopefully the failure of writing this transportation priority letter becomes the moment when urgency arrives at BC-DOT.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
updated for language: An earlier version erroneously named the Policy Director of Bikemore

Baltimore fails to submit letter asking for state transportation funding