After news of major cuts in the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) budget were announced last month, Montgomery County’s elected officials are rallying to figure out ways to fill the gaps.
“This is a massive blow, a massive hit,” Council President Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) said at a Dec. 11 press briefing.
MDOT announced Dec. 6 that it will cut $3 billion from its budget under a draft proposal, including a $400 million reduction in contributions to local government transportation funding.
This is exacerbated by the news that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has proposed drastic service reductions if regional entities can’t help fill a $750 million budget gap. The proposed changes would include shutting down 10 Metro stations, eliminating around half of WMATA bus routes, shortening hours and limiting the number of trains running a full route. MDOT’s budget cuts do not include decreases to Maryland’s contributions to WMATA however.
“It’s important to understand that these things go together. Metro kind of works as one of the nodes of MDOT… Maryland is on the hook for about a third of the cost of Metro. So these all work together,” Del. Marc Korman (D-Dist. 16) told MoCo360 in an interview on Dec. 19.
Korman is the head of the General Assembly Transportation and Environment Committee. He said the state is looking at a $150 million additional contribution to WMATA under Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) proposed budget, but there still are competing priorities with cuts to local transit, such as Baltimore’s public transit.
“For a lot of reasons, a very big contributor being inflation our state transportation budget is under serious siege … thankfully, if you read down further enough in the budget, you see that it does have an increase of funding proposed for WMATA. But it’s important to understand that that’s after [WMATA’s] cuts,” Korman said. “It’s a very challenging budget … there’s going to be a lot to hash out when we get the formal budget proposal in January.”
At the Committee for Montgomery legislative breakfast on Dec. 15, Del. Julie Palakovich Carr (D-Dist. 17), Montgomery County General Assembly delegation leader, said delegation members are already trying to figure out ways to tackle the cuts before the session begins on Jan. 10.
“The cuts to public transit are especially troubling,” Palakovich Carr said. “Our delegation has already been advocating to make sure that our residents, our employees will continue to get around and can do so in an environmentally sustainable way.”
County Councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) told MoCo360 last month that he is deeply concerned by how the cuts will affect the county and has had conversations with Maryland Transportation Director Paul Wiedefeld, but that he’s also trying to keep in mind that 23 other jurisdictions in the state are affected. He said solving the problem must be a team approach, noting that WMATA ridership levels have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“Local jurisdictions need to support public transportation on the largest subway systems in the entire country,” Glass said. “I appreciate Gov. Moore stepping up. We now need the District of Columbia and the state of Virginia to do the same so that more people can continue safely getting to work and school.”
Glass and other councilmembers have passed and proposed several pieces of legislation that largely hinge on the existence of a robust public transit system in the county.
A bill proposed last month and co-sponsored by Glass, Friedson, councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) and councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7) would loosen parking requirements for new housing developments located near public transit stations and stops as part of the council’s goals to encourage ridership. However, cuts in the transit system would supersede some of those goals.
“There are significant cuts to roadways, to transit services, and the impact that that would have on our economic development goals on our environmental sustainability progress, and on our equity progress … is disproportionate,” Friedson said.
Friedson said he’s especially concerned about how the cuts would affect marginalized community members who exclusively rely on public transit. He said the cuts would result in an estimated $17.4 million reduction in funding for RideOn bus service.
“We know that the median income of transit riders in Montgomery County is about a third or less of our average resident,” Friedson said. “We need to ensure that the fiscal challenges that the state is facing are not solved on the backs of the counties.”
Friedson said he is “very hopeful” that the Moore administration will work closely with county leaders to close the gaps.
County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said in his county update on Dec. 15 that he feels Maryland needs to take inspiration from Virginia and allow counties to impose special commercial taxes for transportation funding.
“…Developers there agreed to special taxes because they knew a meaningful commitment infrastructure was essential to the future success of the area. That work is allowed in Northern Virginia to outpace Maryland in building their transportation infrastructure by far,” Elrich said. “… [Maryland] counties are completely dependent on the state funding any significant project, while in Virginia, jurisdictions have local authority to address these needs.”
