The region's transit is in a hole

With a sinkhole shutting down the central section of MTA's  Light Rail Link for weeks, the Streetsblog headline that "Maryland is in a huge transit hole" gains additional meaning. The headline was originally referring to the transit agencies own backlog of deferred maintenance, not that of the City's infrastructure which caused the LRT platform to fall into a sinkhole in front of Camden Station.  Unfortunately the two deficits seem to conspire in dragging transit service in the area down. Buses navigating Baltimore's decrepit streets fall apart sooner and need repair more often, the eternally unreliable City signal system slows buses and light rail down and so does the perpetual digging for water and sewer breaks which requires detours and re-routing of bus lines.

Pratt Street sinkhole swallowing LRT platform (SUN photo)

The sinkhole road closures and ensuing traffic snarls brought MTA service nearly to its knees, far beyond the light rail shut down. Some bus lines such as the Brown dropped below 40% on-time performance according to  MTA's own Performance Dashboard. Buses were stuck in total gridlock over several days until things began to sort themselves out. Downtown light rail was closed for over a month and opened only this week again.

But MTA has its own unfulfilled maintenance, as per their own analysis the needs are huge. Baltimore area residents know: The state of poor repair has sidelined MTA's Metro system which had to be shut down for emergency track repair and also plagues MTA's bus performance due to higher than average numbers of buses being out of service on many days, even though the fleet is not particularly old. DC's nearby WMATA transit system, even more plagued by system malfunction, had prepared a detailed needs analysis which allowed them to squeeze the District and the States of Maryland and Virginia for a record $500 million contribution a year for three years dedicated to fixing the ailing Capital metro system.

Maryland's legislators learned from this and not only stipulated extra funding for MTA's transit system but also the requirement that MTA prepare a similar unassailable needs assessment. That requirement was added to the requirement of the Federal Transit Administration that transit agencies do  better in cataloging  the state of repair of their assets. MTA had never done this before.

Every agency must develop a transit asset management (TAM) plan if it owns, operates, or manages capital assets used to provide public transportation and receives federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53 as a recipient or subrecipient. (FTA)

MTA's first report results came in this July under the title 10 -Year Capital Needs Inventory with stunning numbers that were promptly in all the news:

MTA bus bridge stuck in traffic on Eutaw Street (Photo: Philipsen)

Between 2019 and 2028, MDOT MTA’s total capital needs are expected to reach more than $5.7 billion in year of expenditure dollars, including an inflation rate of three percent. The largest category of total needs over the 10-year period is vehicles (30 percent). Stations comprise the next largest category of total needs (25 percent), followed by systems (19 percent), guideway (14 percent), and facilities investment needs (12 percent).
"State of Good Repair" (SGR) needs for MDOT MTA’s current asset inventory drive 81 percent of total needs. Enhancement needs to meet system performance goals as well as current and future service demand, make up 19 percent of total needs over the 10-year period. [...] Ten-year SGR needs are estimated at $4.6 billion while SGR funding is forecasted at $3.6 billion for the same period, equating to a gap of just over $1 billion to meet SGR needs.

With 10-year total needs reaching $5.7 billion and a total funding forecast of $3.7 billion, an estimated funding gap of just over $2 billion remains to fund all SGR and identified enhancement needs. (MTA 10 year capital needs analysis  2019 - 2028)

Aside from the astonishing shortfall of $2 billion over 10 years (or a $100 million each year) the report includes an number interesting insights that didn't make the headlines:

• MTA's Metro transports only about 9% of its daily riders but with its elevated guideways, tunnels, escalators and everything else a real subway requires, the system represents with 45% the single largest asset in the MTA's inventory.  Nothing comes even close, MARC represents only less than  half of that (21%), light rail 17% and buses, the workhorse of MTA's system with 66% of all riders 15%.

MTA Asset inventory: Most of the money is in the subway

One might conclude from this inverted ratio of  replacement cost to actual ridership benefit that the Governor was right when he called the planned Red Line a "boondoggle" and that rail systems just cost too much money for what they provide.

But one could also come to the opposite conclusion, especially if one compares Baltimore's rail to that of other cities. Then the reasoning would go like this: LRT and Metro both perform far below capacity and provide only a fraction of the benefits the particular modes should provide. (Metro transport as all day fewer rides it could haul in a single hour).  The reason for those shortfalls are specific to MTA, because these rail modes stand alone and are not part of a larger system. In several cities of Baltimore's size rail is  the backbone of local transit service. In those cities buses are an adjunct that rounds the system out instead of being the main provider of transit. That is the situation in DC at WMATA and also in all cities with high transit ridership such as Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia.  By depriving Baltimore's  two local rail lines which represent valuable existing assets on the ground, the connectivity a third line would have brought, MDOT has condemned the assets to orphan status and to being only a shadow of what their actual potential. It isn't part of a capital needs analysis to compare performance of systems with each other or how to determine how much a system performs below its capacity.

• Another interesting insight is where the value in each mode resides. We learn from MTA's analysis that most of the money sits in facilities (28% in the maintenance shops, operation centers and garages) closely followed by the vehicles themselves. (26%). Guideways make up 24%, this item, again being specific to rail since buses run on public surfaces. The smallest values come from stations and systems. 

Where money is needed beyond repair (MTA)

Not noted is staff. In spite of the the saying that the employees are a company's biggest asset, operators, maintenance workers, and dispatchers are not capitalized in an asset analysis focused on capital needs, even though some might argue that MTA's workforce isn't in the best state of good repair either given high rates of absenteeism and frequently reported poor morale.

MTA's report includes a nice graphic which shows that all these components are interdependent. If one fails, the entire system fails.  State of good repair is a low bar as we have seen, it never gets to needs that would lift a system out of its current straight-jacket. While the MTA analysis accounts for "enhancements", i.e. betterments beyond just "good repair", those are quite modest and include legally required things such as accessibility (especially at MARC), station renovations, parking and sidewalks at immediate station areas or stops. More ambitious enhancements are not included, in part because they were already funded and planned during previous administrations. Maybe this explains why MTA's enhancements show 0% enhancement needs for vehicles and only 10% needs for facilities. Light rail's vehicles are currently going through a long planned "midlife overhaul" and MTA has already procured an all new fleet for Metro, even those coaches are still in the process of being manufactured. An also long in the making brandnew Kirk bus division facility is half complete with the other half funded and under construction. All those new items are not anticipated to need big capital or enhancements any time soon. Most glaringly, the total $1.1. billion enhancements over 10 years do not anticipate any system expansion, not even in the form of additional buses for added capacity.

Interdependent but not connected: Modes, vehicles, guideways, systems
(MTA)

The fact that the MTA needs $5.7 billion over 10 years but gets under current policies only $3.7 billion is alarming enough. That expanding services beyond its current reach or type of service isn't even included, makes the problem even bigger. Hence the big hole!

At the State level no help is in sight. The Secreatry of Transportation likes to complain how much of his budget goes to transit operation and his boss, the Governor constantly sounds the fiscal alarm bell, lately in light of high demands form the education sector which clamors for funding of the Kirwan Plan. 

MDOT secretary Rahn indicates regularly that he doesn't believe that transit solves mobility needs and, instead, pursues road widening projects derided by some as stone age transportation. 

The State legislature certainly is aware of that condition. So they did not only require the capital needs analysis from MTA but also demanded the preparation of a Regional Transportation Plan to be completed by the fall of next year. The hope is, that whatever system expansion the capital needs report doesn't include will be part of that plan. It is currently in the works at MTA but with oversight of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council and a regional RTP Commission. One can expect that the commissioners will explore the issue of governance. Specifically, how regional transit can be wrestled away from the State and be placed in the hands of a regional authority. This won't make the funding challenge less daunting, but it will shield transit from being willfully deprived of the investments it really needs to thrive.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore SUN: Maryland Transit Administration forecasts $2 billion shortfall over next decade
Business Journal:  State report finds Maryland transportation funding faces $2 billion shortfall
Streetsblog:  Maryland Is In A Huge Transit Hole